The Fort Wayne Community Schools Board of School Trustees had many questions regarding the proposed renewal of two programs — DreamBox Learning Math and various Heinemann Literary resources.

With the students’ best interests in mind, the Board wanted to ensure that these programs would help students.

At the May 23 meeting, all Board members were in attendance, but member Jennifer Matthias had questions before voting. She said her son, who is now about to enter high school, was one of the first classes to use this program and was concerned about how new teachers learn how to use the software.

Elementary Math and English-Language Arts Coordinator Jamie Shenk and Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment Joe Brown were available to answer questions.

Shenk said there are training videos and pages with information that DreamBox provided the district. These can be found on Schoology, a learning management system, for teachers to access.

“They always go to their coaches first to build that capacity in their building, and then if the coach has any questions for me, they will reach out to me,” Shenk said.

Shenk said most coaches have a great understanding of the software. When issues arise, she will also go to the buildings and help. She said she would like to make this part of the new teacher orientation in the future.

According to Shenk, students who receive five or more lessons with DreamBox grow by approximately one year. Board member Noah Smith asked how the district can encourage more people to use these lessons more frequently.

“There has been an expectation across the district that each student does five lessons per week,” Shenk said. “And I think part of the way to get students more usage is also getting the teachers to know the background behind the data piece, and if their students are struggling with certain pieces of it, then they can go in and help assist in small groups or they can assign specific things.”

She continued to explain that the growth in fifth-grade students has risen because there were initially very few users in fifth grade, but after she went to those teachers and helped them understand the product, it made teaching those lessons more enjoyable.

The Board approved the renewal of DreamBox for the amount of $249,834.

Next on the agenda was the recommendation to purchase Heinemann Literary resources, including Fountas and Pinnell guided reading, book clubs, classroom libraries and Leveled Literacy Intervention materials. The total cost is $3,095,475.92 and would be funded by Title I and Elementary and Secondary Schools Emergency Relief grants.

Matthias asked Shenk to describe the differences between the materials. Shenk said guided reading would provide teachers with guided reading lessons for all students at their instructional level. Leveled Literacy Intervention is used for students reading below their grade level.

Again, Matthias wanted to know how teachers would be trained on these resources.

“We’re currently working with a PAC team, which are coordinators from the tech integration team, professional learning and curriculum,” Brown said. “They’re kind of going through what I am envisioning our teachers will go through.”

He said the team is working with the program and learning how it works so they can teach the rest how to use it. The Professional Learning team will then be trained in the programs and will build instruction for teachers and instructional coaches. Then teachers will learn from there.

The professional learning classes would occur over the summer and would be paid days funded through ESSER grant money. Brown said they are working on choosing three days so teachers can pick which day they would like to come.

After about 10 minutes of questions from the Board, it approved the purchase.

After the night’s business concluded, the Board heard a presentation regarding FWCS Summer Learning Programs. Deputy Superintended D. Faye Williams-Robbins spoke first.

“This year, and for the first time since I’ve been with Fort Wayne Community Schools, we have had a collaborative effort across all departments in the work that we did in putting these plans together,” Williams-Robbins said.

She said that finding a way to extend the school year through summer learning is more critical than ever because of what the district has seen with COVID-19 gaps.

Williams-Robbins covered the summer learning comprehensive view of kindergarten through 12th-grade summer learning. She said hand-on and interactive activities that align with Indiana academic standards are at the program’s center. They want this to be fun and engaging.

Students interested in participating can reach out to their school to see if spots are still available. All students are welcome. Not all schools will be open for summer learning, so those students will be paired with the next closest school. Transportation, breakfast and lunch will be provided. Classes do not occur on June 20 to observe Juneteenth.

Summer learning for elementary students will run from June 6-30. It will run from 8:45 a.m. until 1:15 p.m.

Community members will be visiting the elementary schools. Dumpster Drummers is an educational performance group that uses the arts to teach children about recycling and environmental conservation. Representatives from the Fort Wayne Museum of Art and Indiana Wild will also present.

Assessments will be done from the end of the current school year to the beginning of the 2022-2023 school year to learn the program’s impact on the students.

Summer learning for middle school students runs on the same dates, but the hours are 7:45 a.m. until 12:15 p.m. These students will have rotations to view a rocket unit, defined learning and technology integration. The same assessment process will be used for these students as well.

High school students will have the schedule of 8 a.m. until noon from June 6-24. These classes are located at all FWCS high schools. Credit recovery and acceleration will be the focus. Special education students will have the opportunity to enroll in an extended school year from June 6-23, Mondays through Thursdays.

Community partnerships will be utilized based on their schedules. Students will be working with youth service organizations such as various YMCAs, the parks and recreation department and the Boys and Girls Club of Fort Wayne.

Preschool summer programs will be available as well, occurring from June 6-30 from 8:45 a.m. until 1:15 a.m. Outgoing preschoolers will participate in summer learning activities with kindergarten through fifth-grade students. They will attend Bloomingdale Elementary School, Fairfield Elementary School, Glenwood Park Elementary School, South Wayne Elementary School or Weisser Park Elementary School.

The curriculum will be an extension of the one they use during the year.

Kindergarten Countdown is for incoming kindergarten students without preschool experience. It will run July 5-29 from 8 a.m. until noon. They will attend Fairfield Elementary School, Forest Park Elementary School, Indian Village Elementary School, Maplewood Elementary School and Shambaugh Elementary School.

Another option for students is high-impact tutoring which is newer to the district. It will run Monday-Friday from July 5 through Aug. 4. Times are to be determined by the school, tutor and student. It can occur face-to-face or virtually.

It is recommended that students are tutored in 30-minute increments with a minimum of three hours a week. Individual tutoring plans will be based on the child’s needs. Research has been conducted on this topic, and Superintendent Mark Daniel provided some of the results. He credited Carly D. Robinson and Susanna Loeb as the ones who did the research.

Some of that data includes that one-to-one and small-group tutoring showed greater effects than approximately 85% of studies evaluating education interventions. This translates to a student advancing from the 50th percentile to nearly the 66th percentile. Also, tutoring increased achievement by roughly 3-15 months of learning across grade levels.

Camp Invention for High Ability Students is in its second year at FWCS. The curriculum is from the National Inventors Hall of Fame, and the material is new. This program focuses on STEM and problem-based learning and is funded by a High Ability grant from the Indiana Department of Education. It will occur at St Joseph Central Elementary School and Indian Village Elementary School.

The final program discussed was the kindergarten through 12th grade College and Career Readiness Summer Camps and College Tours. This summer, there will be 17 summer camp opportunities. Some of those include Arts United, Career Academy, FWCS College and Career Readiness Camp and Sweetwater Rock Camp.

There will be no cost to students who want to participate.

College visits are part of this program. As of this meeting, 13 schools were on the list to visit over the summer, such as Howard University, Georgetown University, Brown University and Yale University. These trips are slated to occur June 12-16 and July 30-Aug. 5. This is available to sophomores.

For more information, parents and guardians can contact their child’s school.

Superintendent Mark Daniel announced several new principals at the meeting as well. They are:

Virgil Griffin — Blackhawk Middle School Principal

Zachary Harl — South Side High School Principal

Amanda Henderson — Fairfield Elementary School Principal

Derek Leininger — Glenwood Park Elementary School Principal

David Tijerina — Shawnee Middle School Junior Principal

The Board also:

• Approved the purchase Lenovo 300e Chromebooks and 500W laptops totaling $1,506,043.83. Funding will come from the Common School Fund.
• Approved the purchase of kindergarten furniture.