Mountain View–Whisman School District staff presented a broad update on elementary literacy instruction and plans to expand reading intervention, prompting questions from trustees and parents about supports for older students and for families of students with special needs.

The presentation described a first-year rollout of the Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts curriculum and a districtwide emphasis on “structured literacy” rooted in the science of reading. Staff said they have used district professional development, instructional coaches and cross-site professional learning communities (PLCs) to help teachers implement the new curriculum.

Ms. Nguyen, the district presenter, said the new approach emphasizes “systematic explicit phonics” and knowledge-building across grades. She described PLCs that bring teachers from across schools together monthly to unpack curriculum units and share techniques, and she said instructional coaches will spend up to 40% of their time next year providing small-group reading intervention.

District staff told the board that an early-literacy team is working at the sites with the greatest numbers of students in need of intervention — Castro, Mistral, Mauna Loma, Vargas and Faricoff — and that “every school has some form of reading intervention,” either during RTI time, after-school tutoring or through district-provided reading teachers.

Parents and community members at the meeting urged the district to expand intervention beyond kindergarten through second grade and to make interventions more uniformly available across schools. Christine Case Lowe, a longtime community advisory committee representative, asked the district to create permanent, local special-education advisory committees, saying the recent merger of several county advisory committees into a single regional committee has reduced parents’ access and local responsiveness.

"We asked districts to create standing advisory committee for special education in each district," Case Lowe said during public comment.

A public commenter, identified in the record as Ms. Goode, said she was concerned that the Amplify materials for third through fifth grades rely too heavily on read-alouds and complex text without enough explicit instruction for students who still struggle to decode. "Students also need to learn how to read themselves rather than just being read to," she said, and urged the board and staff to consider additional or different interventions for older students and for students with dyslexia.

Trustees thanked staff for the intentional rollout and the emphasis on explaining the research base to teachers. Trustee Conley and others praised the PLC work and coaching model, while noting chronic absenteeism and basic needs also affect students’ ability to benefit from improved instruction. Staff noted they would pursue follow-up on after-school integration and provide more detail on intervention results and site-level coverage.

No formal board action was taken on the literacy presentation at the meeting. Staff said they will continue rolling out writing instruction next year and expand reading-intervention staffing and training so each site can provide trained small-group instruction.

The discussion included public questions about which schools receive the district early-literacy team and how intervention is scheduled; staff reiterated the list of schools served and said coaches and the early-literacy team will coordinate training and service models across sites.

Looking ahead, staff said they plan ongoing monitoring of outcomes and will present additional data on iReady and other measures in future meetings.