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Aldine Independent School District in Texas began the journey of drastically changing how reading is taught in 2020 – not knowing that a global pandemic was on the horizon. When COVID hit, the district didn’t abandon the plan; they persevered. In part three of our series on literacy, host Gloria Riviera talks with Aldine Superintendent LaTonya Goffney and Executive Director of Literacy and Social Studies Jacqueline Beas about what it was like to make the seismic shift.

This episode is created in partnership with the Schusterman Family Philanthropies. Thank you to Aldine Independent School District for making this conversation possible.

Transcript

SPEAKERS

Jacqueline Bass, Gloria Riviera, LaTonya Goffney

Gloria Riviera  00:28

Gloria, hello and welcome to Good Things. I’m your host, Gloria Rivera, imagine being in charge of overhauling a reading curriculum for a school district that serves nearly 60,000 students in more than 80 schools in a geographic area that spans more than 100 square miles. Well, that’s exactly what  Dr. LaTonya Goffney did. She’s superintendent of schools at Aldean Independent School District in Texas. In this episode, I chat with her and Jacqueline Bass, Executive Director of literacy and Social Studies at Aldean we’ll talk about what it takes to drastically change how reading is taught, what role literacy plays in aldines bilingual schools, and why literacy can take you anywhere. LaTonya and Jacqueline, welcome to Good Things. Thank you both so much for being here. I am so eager to talk about all things Aldine and its approach to reading and literacy, but before we get into that, I would love to learn a little bit about the two of you. How is reading and literacy foundational to your own lives and your own stories of becoming who you are today? LaTonya, let’s start with you.

 

LaTonya Goffney  02:30

Oh, thank you, Gloria. I am thrilled to share this space and this time with you. So thank you so much for the opportunity. I am from Texas, but I call myself just a country girl because growing up, I was the first generation college student. And part of who I am, and what makes me so passionate about literacy is the fact that I was raised by my grandparents. My grandmother worked as a housekeeper, she had a fifth grade education, and my grandpa, he worked as a lawn guy, and he also collected cans, and so he couldn’t read. He had a third grade education, and he literally used to write his name with an X, and he used to tell me, LaTonya, if you can read, you can go anywhere. And so, long story short, I’m very proud of the fact, and I hope that I’m making them proud as an educator, graduating and becoming a teacher, one of the most challenging situations was to have eighth graders who could not read. I was an eighth grade language arts teacher, and I didn’t know how to teach eighth graders to read, and so it was really important to me to get literacy right, even as a teacher, or try to get literacy right. And so when I became a principal, it was always a focus. And then I became a superintendent in 2008 in a small town, and eventually served at a mid sized school district. And when I came to a large urban at each stop, literacy was so important to me, I guess what my grandpa said, that if you can read, you can go anywhere, and I recognize the importance of creating choices and opportunities for the students that we serve, and also the power of education, which opens so many doors for me.

 

LaTonya Goffney  02:40

I feel like that’s now what’s being translated to the students at Aldine. And speaking Jacqueline to an Aldine alum, you’ve been working the district for what is it, 17 years, and I’m curious how literacy has been a through line in your own life.

 

LaTonya Goffney  04:25

Well, I am a first generation graduate. My parents are from Mexico, so I grew up speaking only Spanish and elementary school, which actually I went to worship, which is the school that I just left the principalship at. You know it was, it was my heart then, and it’s my heart now. I didn’t even hear Spanish. I mean English, I’m sorry, until I got to worship. So reading books was the way that I was able to pick up vocabulary, that I was able to pick up words, that I was able to get the language. I was a bright kid in Spanish, and back then it was a little bit different than it is now. So yes, I was a bright kid in Spanish, but I didn’t have it in English, and when I finally got it, when I finally understood how, when we finally were able to unlock the code to read in English, it was like a whole new world opened up for me. And so for that reason, literacy has in my head and the intellect that goes into students, learning how to read is my passion.

 

Gloria Riviera  05:31

You know, as I hear your story, I’m thinking of all the students for whom English is not their first language and that you have the background to connect and understand having been where they may be right now, that is incredibly valuable. So let’s talk about Aldine. And I’m curious, what do you think I would notice first? If I were to arrive in Aldine and take in the district, what do you think I’d see first?

 

LaTonya Goffney  05:59

Well, first of all, if you flew into Bucha airport, you would be in the middle of Aldine ISD. There is no Aldine, Texas, where 111 square miles of opportunity is located on the north side of Houston. And one of the things that I was named superintendent that make me the most proud is I wanted to visit the schools. And when you visit the schools, you see hard working teachers, you see respectful, good kids who are just hungry for an opportunity. And so I think that would be evident to you immediately if you stepped into one of our buildings. But jackal, I’m curious to see what you would add, because being someone who came from outside into Aldine, that was the thing that made me most proud to be superintendent, and starting my seventh year is still the one thing that still makes me proud, the fact that everyone’s working really hard to do right by the kids we serve.

 

Gloria Riviera  06:48

Yeah, Jacqueline, is that evident on first arrival? Would that be something I would notice? And who are these students and families? What is their background, by and large?

 

Jacqueline Bass  06:58

Absolutely, I was going to say how big we are, just square mileage. I think it’s over 100 a little over 111 square miles, whether you’re on the side of 59 or whether you’re over here on 45 you’re going to see people who are working for kids, yeah, and you’re going to see a thorough line in our curriculum, because that is what we expect. We expect that. It doesn’t matter what your zip code is, where you are, across all of Aldine, we are teaching using our high quality instructional material. That is the expectation, and that is what you’re going to see.

 

Gloria Riviera  07:32

There are more than 80 schools in the Aldean Independent School District with nearly 60,000 students, that is a big number.

 

Jacqueline Bass  07:41

It is. And so yes, we have 80 schools, really, 60,000 kids. And when you see the makeup, I don’t lead with it, but I recognize for the conversation, it’s important to share, because within our area, we’re 73% Hispanic, 23% African American, and the other percentage is other in white. And then one of the things that brings an additional opportunity for us in Aldine is nearly 48% almost 50% of our students are emergent bilingual. And so for us, we believe in importance of being bilingual, biliterate and bicultural. And so while it’s a very diverse area, and we truly feel that that’s our superpower. Diversity is our strength. It’s also an opportunity to demonstrate what’s possible for Black, Brown and students of poverty. Over 90% of our students are considered in Texas what’s called economically disadvantaged, as evidenced by being on free or reduced lunch.

 

Gloria Riviera  08:37

Right, and I want to take everything that we’ve heard so far and move to the seismic shift that occurred when it comes to literacy and what the district saw, and go from where it was to where we are now. So LaTanya, when you first started in 2018 I think it was, what did you see in terms of the reading levels and how quickly did you see it?

 

LaTonya Goffney  09:02

Initially coming in as a new soup in 2018 you do a lot of looking, listening and learning, and so you spend that first year as you’re creating and managing information so that you can have a strategic plan of moving forward and adding value. And so during that first year though, to go in classrooms and seeing students reading low level books was something that caused me to pause again. I’m looking listening and learning and really not knowing what I was going to uncover. But there was a push and pull level readers and this one approach to literacy, and people who were thinking we needed to take a different approach. And so, long story short, the evidence of that was seen in the classrooms when you saw that there wasn’t an alignment, and when you saw that there were kids who only saw grade level text on the day they took the state assessment because they were considered a lower level reader than the grade that they were in. And so that was appalling.

 

Gloria Riviera  10:02

I know there was a move from a balanced literacy approach that was cues based, versus now a move to the science of reading which is evidence based. So Jacqueline, what does it look like to have a balanced literacy approach?

 

LaTonya Goffney  10:17

It looked a lot like whatever capacity was at that campus. That is about how the instruction that the students received. For example, I was at an elementary and we knew that our students couldn’t read, but we didn’t really have the tools to understand why, what they were missing, and what it is that we could do to help them read. So we would have to research. We’d have to go on the internet and try to find and pull different resources. Sometimes we were right, sometimes we were wrong. And that’s kind of what it looked like across al Dean, and depending on which school you were at, the capacity of the instructional specialist or the principal, it’s about how good that instruction or the instruction material was?

 

Gloria Riviera  11:03

You just recounting that story? I mean, you’re like, sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t, which sounds like it would be a difficult place to be in as a teacher.

 

LaTonya Goffney  11:12

It wasn’t systematic. It wasn’t an approach to literacy that we could be proud of being able to know that our students could read and have access to rigorous materials and making sure that they’re prepared for their great level and to access text at the next level was a totally different approach.

 

Gloria Riviera  11:32

We’re going to take a quick break, but we will be right back with more on Good Things.

 

Gloria Riviera  11:46

LaTonya, what was the shift to and how did you know? Okay, this is what we need to do. I mean and, and by the way, the first district in all of Texas to do this. This is seismic. Seismic is the word to describe what took place. How did you know that was what you wanted to do?

 

LaTonya Goffney  13:52

I didn’t know, in all honestly, the end result, but I knew we had to do something. And so in 2018 we basically reached out and to study research and best practices. We started a literacy Task Force. And so that was incredibly important. And meanwhile, I just became hyper focused on, okay, how do we move the needle? How do we get this right? And so we started the task force in 2018 in 2019 we were up for a textbook adoption, and really I was advised to get more leveled readers. That was what I was advised by my internal team. We need more leveled readers.

 

Gloria Riviera  14:32

And a Leveled Reader is a textbook, right?

 

LaTonya Goffney  14:36

It is a book that if you’re in fourth grade and you’re only on the first grade reading level. Is a first grade reading level book that uses the queuing system to interpret pictures and so on and so forth.

 

Gloria Riviera  14:48

The old the old style, right? So it’s like, we need more. We need more of that. Okay, that’s pretty intense that it was. You were a year of, Oh, you were working on your second year in, and you were being told, I. Yeah, we need more of what we’ve been doing when you’ve ascertained what we’re doing is not working. Okay, got it? I’m with you.

 

LaTonya Goffney  15:06

And meanwhile, while I was having this conversation in District, you know, I was on the commissioner’s cabinet in Texas, as the Commissioner of Education is like our state superintendent, and we were also talking about our literacy problem that was across the state of Texas, and we were looking at our numbers of African American and Hispanic our readers, and where we were and how the gap had widened, and so being definitely a minority in the group, when the commissioner had gone over it, I literally raised my hand and said, so now what, what are we going to do about it? Because I’m I’m in a new district now, literacy is an issue. You recognize at the state level that it’s an issue, so what are we going to do about it? And literally, he was taken aback, because he was like, typically, we just go over this data and keep it moving. And so he and I began conversing about, what could we do about the literacy challenge? And I recognize that we had to go beyond Texas. And so my task force, we had to go outside of the state to see who was using, you know, top tier curriculum.

 

Gloria Riviera  16:16

Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt you, but I’m looking at you both, and I’m thinking like, were you not just feeling like, Hello, yeah, this is not working. That’s exactly how we were feeling. And there is data, right? The data that you came into, remind me what it showed.

 

LaTonya Goffney  16:32

Third grade. It was 28% reading at meets grade level. And so we were really looking at, how do we improve that percentage and make sure kids were reading on grade level?

 

Gloria Riviera  16:46

So I’m eager to know how you landed on the approach that you adopted.

 

LaTonya Goffney  16:51

We went with the literacy Task Force, and it was a five month comprehensive process. We met, we looked at research, we looked at best practices, we developed a vision and a framework for our district. So instead of beginning with the how we were going to move the needle, we had to create a vision for what literacy meant in our district. And so we talked about building knowledge foundational skills, access to complex texts, and not just leveled or below level reading. And of course, writing is a important component of that as well. And that’s how we arrived at the science of teaching reading. And then, of course, keep in mind, Time is moving. Time is, of essence, it’s 2020 right now, yep. And you know the dreaded C word happens in 2020 right? And we were thinking, because of COVID, we needed to focus on mask and, you know, to go to school or not to go to school. And should we hold Should we just pilot? Should we just do X, Y and Z? But we had already sent a team who are on this task force. They got to go and visit a district, and they came back and Dr Cantu, who’s our current CEO, she was one of the ones who thought we needed to go slow and take our time. But when she went back to see what was possible for Black, Brown and students of poverty and how deeply engaged students were and literacy and accessing information and learning to read and all of the writing that was taking place, she came back and said, We cannot wait. And so right before COVID hits, we decided that we’re launching district wide wow and science of teaching reading and high quality instructional materials. And so it was so important that we train everyone up, put systems in place. Literacy coaches had to embrace and be trained on the science of teaching reading so they could provide the support for our campuses. And so we were building a plane and flying it and preparing and not knowing that a global pandemic was on the horizon.

 

Gloria Riviera  18:46

Right? I mean, this is all real time. I mean, and I think it’s a good, a good moment to just pause, because I’m thinking about Jacqueline’s experience teaching the language arts and and sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t work. So Jacqueline, what do you remember about hearing that this was the new path forward? Did you feel skeptical? Did you feel relieved? Did you feel both? How did you know? Okay, yes, I’m on board. This is what we need to do. And I mean, that doesn’t just happen overnight.

 

Jacqueline Bass  19:22

Right? And, well, the way we were doing things doesn’t work. That was just we knew it. We had the data, and we knew that we needed to do something different. We just didn’t know what. So when Dr goffy came on board and said, This is science of reading, this is what the evidence is saying, we were like, we have something. So two camps, once we have something, we have something, we’re going to be we’re going to be able to teach our kids to read. Let’s do this. And then we had the other camp, who was very skeptical and who was embracing the other method, and if we’d been doing it for a long time, yeah. So we had people who were trained. I mean, we were invested. Said as a district. And so sometimes it was even like looking at the data. Look how doing it this way, where it has landed us, wasn’t enough. It had to be, let’s try this and see the success of it, in order to get some people to come on board.

 

Gloria Riviera  20:18

Right? And I imagine it happened one by one, like solely, and then a few more, a few more. And meanwhile, LaTanya is getting feedback. You’re getting feedback. I’m curious about how it might have looked in a bilingual situation, like you have all these students for whom English is not the first language. What did it look like for them? Any different?

 

LaTonya Goffney  20:41

Not necessarily because the science of reading is the science of reading. So we’ve, as long as we’ve got the systematic program for teaching our foundational skills, we’re going to pick up the English now for our Spanish students. Of course, Spanish is phonetic, and we, the multilingual department, did a very good job of building a bridging whatever we were doing in Spanish to transfer over to English, and then we picked up the English foundational skills to go with it. And so it worked hand in hand.

 

Gloria Riviera  21:12

Okay, sit tight, everyone. We’re going to take one more quick break, and we’ll be right back with more Good Things.

 

22:30

How quickly did you see it start to work? I mean, first of all, you launch it during COVID. It’s real time, building the plane, flying it. When did you feel like, okay, we’re at cruising altitude, or maybe you’re not there yet.

 

LaTonya Goffney  23:24

Let me tell you, initially, it was evident from day one during COVID. Remember I told you, no, I told you that our kids did not have novels in the classroom. They had these leveled readers, which are not novels, right? The Level readers were based on the queuing system that you alluded to earlier, so just little readers that taught you random things. So during COVID, when the majority of our kids, nearly 80% were still learning at home, we had pickup for materials, and this was our launch of our novels. And so to see kids excited about picking up their novels. Oh my gosh, they were absolutely thrilled. They’re so excited.

 

Gloria Riviera  24:06

They’re coming to get a book. They’re coming to get a books replaced a narrative article.

 

LaTonya Goffney  24:10

Yes, it was all about I have a novel, and then by the time our kids were transitioning back into our classrooms, that was exciting. And so to walk on a middle school campus and you saw sixth graders reading, but not buddy. You saw fifth graders reading A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Shakespeare. So before we had any other data, the qualitative piece, the experiences visiting the classroom, seeing how excited and whether you were a special ed kid who could have read a lower level, or a kid who was reading on a high level, the fact that every single sixth grader had, but not buddy. And of course, we scaffold the support and differentiation to make sure they could, you know, read the text, but the fact that every single kid had the novel, it was, it was encouraging. And so we had progress after the first year, and this is during COVID, yeah, you know, so. So by the end of May 2021, I remember, like 50% of our students in grades k5 they ended the year at or above grade level. And then in 2022 continue to build on that. And so over the years, seeing how strong our kindergarteners who entered, who are now last year, were in third grade, and to see their progress has been so exciting and affirming that we’re doing the right work and moving forward.

 

Gloria Riviera  25:28

Yeah. I mean, I just feel like the idea of seeing kids come to campus to do a pickup, I mean, it’s like you’re bringing the library to them and sending them home with a book to read, as opposed to leveled readers that can be often disjointed, right? They’re not following a narrative arc. They’re not following the story of Bud, Not Buddy, which is like, one of the best books of all time. I mean, that is very exciting. And I want to go back to Jacqueline just for a moment, because I’m wondering, you know, as we talk about measuring success and seeing students excited about books. Do you have any anecdotes to share about that experience?

 

Jacqueline Bass  26:06

Yes, absolutely. In the past, think about having a fourth or fifth grader having to read a book that says the dog runs, the dog sits, yeah, the dog eats, and his partner over there might be reading, but not buddy, and what it does to a student and their self esteem when they can’t do that? So we see that our students are much more encouraged, even like Dr goffney said, if a student is served in special education, they might need some special supports and accommodations and things like that, but we provide that, and they still get to read, yeah, the same book that everyone else does.

 

Gloria Riviera  26:46

So far, we’ve talked about indicators of success. I love that idea of students coming to get books, even during COVID and and then you’ve also seen the data right pretty immediately the data was moving in your direction. You know, kids are in school for a lot of the day, of course, but they’re also learning outside of school. So how much is Aldine focused on engaging with families and the community to enhance what they’re doing in the classroom.

 

LaTonya Goffney  27:14

Our parents are hard working like literally, they are the essential workers. And so what we try to do is, while we recognize that our parents are essential workers, we also need them to know what’s possible for their children. And so we work really hard teaching our parents to advocate, you know, because that’s what makes us better, that’s what makes us stronger. And so in 2019 when we launched our strategic plan, we actually launched a Family and Community Engagement Office for a district our size. We did not have it so literally, pushing and making sure that our parents had education as well. We provide opportunities for our parents to get their GED, we provide opportunities for our parents to learn Spanish, as well as ESL classes for our parents to learn English. But we also talk to our parents about how they can advocate for what’s best for their students by teaching them about some of the choices and opportunities that we provide. And so it’s incredibly important that while our parents are busy, while they’re working hard to make a living, that they also are armed with information in order for them to make sure that their kids being successful.

 

Gloria Riviera  28:17

Yeah, Jacqueline, have you seen that in action. Have you seen a parent learn something they might have not known before and then take that knowledge forward with them and their child.

 

Jacqueline Bass  28:30

Absolutely, because the kids go home excited about all the content that they’re learning, so they’ll we’ll have parents come back to say, my kid just he knows what a femur is. I don’t even know what a female was. So do you have another book that I could read so that I could engage with him at home? And so those are the conversations we’re having now.

 

Gloria Riviera  28:48

Oh, I love that. So we’re getting to the end of our interview, and I want to say thank you for educating me about what is happening, all the good things that are happening in the district there, what advice would both of you give to other school districts who are looking at their own literacy programs, seeing data that is not moving and is not good, and wanting to make a change? Jacqueline, do you want to take it first.

 

Jacqueline Bass  29:17

Sure, I say give opportunities to show success, because that is what honest to goodness reels people in. I was at the campus when we started science of reading. And like I told you, it was, it’s a mindset shift for many people, and it’s, it’s difficult to do without showing success. So we’ve got to get some people who do it well, and we’ve got to get students who are moving, and that needle is moving at an accelerated rate, because it’ll happen, I promise it’ll happen when it’s implemented with not just fidelity, but with integrity. And we’ve got the resources here. That allow our teachers to implement our curriculum with integrity, and the students take off. I mean, they just grow. The the growth is accelerated. And once that starts happening, it just grows and grows. It’s contagious.

 

Gloria Riviera  30:12

Yeah, and LaTonya, what advice do you have for other districts? I mean, you must have gotten this question before?

 

LaTonya Goffney  30:18

Oh, absolutely. I say it in our district, if you do it anywhere, you can do it everywhere. I say to the state and to the country, all eyes are on Aldi, because if you can do it at all, Dean, you can do it everywhere you can because, like I said, it’s the most hard working community ever. However, there are some challenges when it comes to resources, when it comes to believing in what’s possible for Black, Brown and students of poverty. And so we open our door to many across our state and across this country who come to see it in action, because I can talk to you and your listeners can hear it, but when you come in and you see it in action, and I’ll be honest with you, I have colleagues across the state who come who’ve implemented and they’ve Seen double digit, tremendous progress that’s launched them into higher performance and quicker than we’ve been able to see it. But when we’re dealing with the density of poverty and the challenges, it does take time and recognizing that, if you get clear on the why, and that is the fact that talking about where you are and creating a vision of where you want to go, there’s nothing more powerful than delivering on that promise for the students that you serve. And so I recognize that for many communities, it does take longer, which is what we’re experiencing here, with the with the COVID challenges and some of the just the sheer numbers. However, we know that it can be done and is being done throughout our state, throughout our country, by the number of testimonials we get from those who leave after, after visiting and implementing.

 

Gloria Riviera  31:48

And last question, where do you want Aldine to be in 10 years?

 

LaTonya Goffney  31:52

Oh my gosh. I I have no doubt we stay the course. We’re going to be the shining example of what’s possible for the entire country.

 

Gloria Riviera  32:01

Wow, okay, I think that is the note to end on the shining example of what is possible for the entire country. Okay, well, I am pulling for you, and I know all of our listeners are pulling for you. Thank you so much.

 

LaTonya Goffney  32:14

Thank you.

 

CREDITS  32:25

Thank you for listening to Good Things. This episode is created in partnership with the Schusterman family Philanthropies. Thank you to Aldine Independent School District for making this conversation possible. I’m your host, Gloria Riviera. This series is produced by Lisa Phu and Hannah Boomershine. Our supervising producer is Muna Danish. Mixing and Sound Design by Noah Smith. Steve Nelson is our SVP of weekly content. Executive Producers are Stephanie Wittels Wachs and Jessica Cordova Kramer. Help others find our show by leaving us a rating and writing a review. Thanks so much for listening.