Richmond: Changing Lives Through Literacy

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Across the country, states and school districts have been changing their approach to early literacy, particularly how reading is taught. In this two-part series, we’re highlighting two school districts that have been on the front lines of this shift. In our first episode, host Gloria Riviera sits down with Richmond Public Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras and Literacy Coach Megan Siepka. They talk about literacy as a means for empowering students and the real, hard, everyday work of teaching it.

This episode is created in partnership with the Schusterman Family Philanthropies. Thank you to Richmond Public Schools for making this conversation possible.

Transcript

SPEAKERS

Gloria Riviera, Jason Kamras, Megan Siepka

Gloria Riviera  00:06

Hello and welcome to Good Things, I’m your host, Gloria Riviera. Across the country, states and school districts have been changing their approach to early literacy, particularly how reading is taught. Virginia is no different. This fall, a new state law focused on an evidence based approach to reading instruction went into effect as school districts in Virginia are adapting to new curriculums and other requirements, but Richmond public schools started this work years before the state did, and have been on the front lines of this shift. Richmond’s approach to literacy focuses on the mechanics of how to read, but also goes far beyond as important is building knowledge, exposing students to the world around them, and seeing literacy as a means for empowering students and their communities. That’s a lot of good things. Our guest today Richmond Public Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras and literacy coach at Chimborazo Elementary School, Megan Siepka, they are here to talk about all of this. Jason and Megan, welcome to Good Things.

 

Jason Kamras  02:27

Happy to be here.

 

Megan Siepka  02:28

Thank you for having us.

 

Gloria Riviera  02:29

Jason, can you tell me a little bit about the students at Richmond public schools, and when it comes to literacy, how does that factor into creating successful lives for the students.

 

Jason Kamras  02:41

The students at RPS are amazing. They are so funny and bright and creative and empathetic and resilient, and it’s just a lot of fun to work with them and serve them every day. Many of them also have a lot of challenges in their lives, and that’s just very real, whether it’s growing up in poverty or generational institutional racism or being undocumented, whatever the case may be, a lot of our young people it is hard getting to school every day, given all the challenges in their lives, and so the responsibility that We have is to meet them where they are, whatever they have going on at home in their lives. Our responsibility is to make sure that they’re successful during the time, that they’re with us and beyond. And I want to be clear, we have incredible families who work incredibly hard for their kids and despite the many challenges that they face do incredible things for their children that impress and absolutely blow me away every single day. So really, it’s a partnership us and our families as it pertains to literacy look that is probably the most important lever of power, really, that we can impart the kids here at Richmond public schools, because as a thoughtful, critical reader, you really open up the entire world, and that is really the source of power. We’ve talked a lot about the history here in Richmond. This is a city, formal capital of the Confederacy, where, you know, at the General Assembly Building, which I can literally see out my window here behind me, in the early part of the 19th century, laws were passed which made it illegal for free and enslaved Africans to learn to read. And why? Because reading was power. Reading enabled you to organize. Reading enabled you to begin to control your own destiny. Reading enabled you to imagine worlds beyond those that you were currently in. And so I’ve always thought what a shame it would be if we then failed to teach the kids here to read proficiently, joyfully, critically, the least we. All the people who have fought for so many years to create a more equitable society and a more equitable school system, the least we owe them is to make sure that our kids are endowed with that very powerful skill so that they can lead truly free lives.

 

Gloria Riviera  05:16

Jason, I think what you’ve just said, and you’ve said a lot, is so interesting, but especially when it pertains to literacy. The fact that reading is power and the state of Virginia passed the Virginia Literacy Act that requires, tell me if I’m right, among other things, districts to adopt a curriculum from an approved list, and one of the goals is to improve, of course, early literacy outcomes. But RPS had already done that. That had happened before the law was passed. Why was that something that RPS adopted early? And what did you see that made you want to make that change?

 

Jason Kamras  05:53

Well, when I got to Richmond, it was very clear to me, from school visits and talking with teachers, that we didn’t really have a clear reading curriculum. I think one had been adopted, but it wasn’t really utilized that much anymore, and so it was a bit of a wild west. And I know listeners, it is natural to think, hey, teachers are professionals, and we should let professionals do their thing and use their skills. The issue is we actually know a lot in the field about how to teach kids to read. There’s a real science to it. This is not something that’s just because you learn to read. You know how to teach other kids to read. And so we really want to make sure that we are following the science, because the difference it makes, if you do that, particularly for kids growing up in poverty who don’t have as much opportunity, the difference is huge. And so it’s really important that we set a clear standard that followed the science and gave teachers the tools to be able to execute on that, of course, to be themselves and to bring their full personalities to their classrooms, but to use the very best research methods in the same way that you don’t want to go to a heart surgeon who’s winging it. You want the very best standard of care that follows all the latest research. And so that’s why we began to go down that path.

 

Gloria Riviera  07:21

Megan, you’re a literacy coach, and I understand that now every elementary school in the district has one. I want to talk about that, but I also want to know what a literacy coach is. What is your role at the school?

 

Megan Siepka  07:35

Yeah, so I would say, first off, yes, we do have a literacy coach available for every elementary school, which is huge and unique, I think, to our district, we were stepping into this role with the new curriculum, and this is where we really discovered what our role could be and how we could support teachers, and the advantage of having a literacy coach in every building. And so a lot of times I think about myself just rolling up my sleeves and working with the teachers. Teachers will express concern or need or areas that they would like to grow in, and we think about ways that that impacts student growth, and then we develop goals from there, and that might look like one to one coaching with teachers. And so I would be able to model in the classroom. We will be able to co teach lessons. We also have collaboration time with the grade level team. So once a week, I come together with every grade level team, and together, we look at the resources in our curriculum, and we really talk about the instructional moves that are going to have impact. So what does lesson delivery look like? What are the scaffolds that are needed to ensure that every single one of our students in our classroom experience success. And how do we create some consistency across the grade level and across the division so we can ensure equity and instruction, and that’s what those collaborative meetings look like. In addition to that, as a literacy coach, we also have school wide goals, and so currently at my school, our school wide goal this year is writing. So across K through five, we’re really going to make an additional effort to ensure that we understand the best practices in the field of writing, and that we understand how to use them with our curriculum in a way that’s going to benefit the students. We also have a reading interventionist in every elementary school building. So we work very closely together to ensure that a student’s experience throughout the day and literacy makes sense, and it’s aligned in that student is having all of their needs met.

 

Gloria Riviera  09:35

Megan, as I listen to what I’m thinking is my own child is in the DC public school system where I know you spent time, Jason, and we hear a lot about the support for the students, right? The specials teacher in this or that, what you’re describing is supportive scaffolding for the teachers themselves. Is that fair to say?

 

Megan Siepka  09:56

Yeah, and I would say sometimes it’s not even scaffolding. I. I love my job so much because everybody, if they hear something, whether they listen to a podcast or they’re reading something online, that’s evidence based, they can bring it and then together, we can be thought partners and say, Yeah, this looks like something that’s really promising and that could really support our students. How can we make this work? So I think a thought partner, and alongside of being a thought partner, a lot of times together, we experience some stumbling blocks that we’ll have to navigate through. But it’s really just a beautiful thing to have a person in a building whose job is dedicated to supporting the teachers, which ultimately also supports the students.

 

Gloria Riviera  10:40

Jason, why was it so important to have people like Megan, to have coaches and reading interventionists in every elementary school? What was the model before that led to whomever was on your team? You deciding, okay, we need to make a switch here. We mean to change it up, and it needs to look like this.

 

Jason Kamras  11:01

Look, these things aren’t actually all that innovative. I hate, I hate to burst this bubble, but what we’re doing is the very unsexy, hard, but actual work of teaching kids to read. Right? We start with, we’re going to use materials that are research based. Then we’re going to make sure that we have coaches to help our teachers become expert at those resources. We’re going to have interventionists to help kids who need that extra assistance to make their way. We’re going to observe classrooms all the time and provide lots of feedback. And as Megan said, be thought partners to teachers to help them continue to improve. And then we’re just going to be absolutely obsessed about it, and just stay focused and continue to do the hard work day in and day out. And like I’ll say there are probably shouldn’t say this out loud, but there are lots of things that need attention in the school district that I don’t focus on because I am so focused on literacy. And so I think one of the ways school systems go wrong is they just try to boil the ocean, try to fix everything, and it’s unfortunately, too hard, too complicated. And so I just decided, if we can get this one thing absolutely right, it opens the door to so many other things. And so it’s, it’s really is about putting the right materials, people, resources, time in place to do the work. Stay focused on it. Not bother Megan and other people like her with other stuff that are gonna distract her. That’s the work. It’s just day in and day out, getting a little bit better every single day, to the point that we should be in a place in a year or two where it doesn’t matter which classroom you go in, okay, 123, you walk in and you are going to see a proficient level of instruction using research based techniques. Doesn’t matter if you’re in the east end or the West End and the north side or the south side, high poverty, low poverty, black, white, Latino. Doesn’t matter. You’re going to see a standard of excellence in all of our classrooms when it comes to literacy instruction.

 

Gloria Riviera  13:24

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

 

Gloria Riviera  13:29

Megan, literacy is not just about knowing how to read, right? That’s monumentally important, of course. But Megan, can you talk about how RPS is going deeper and seeing reading and writing skills as part of everything it does.

 

Megan Siepka  15:43

Yeah, so when we’re talking about literacy and being a skilled reader, we’re not just talking about the ability to lift a word off the page or to read the word accurately. That’s a foundational skill, and we are very passionate about ensuring that students have those reading skills to be able to accurately read the words, but when we talk about making sense of the text, you know, we really are pushing past just being able to read the words on the page. And I think one thing that we talk about a lot in our district is Scarborough’s reading rope. It just creates a beautiful visual of all the pieces that are necessary for students to have in order to be a skilled reader and to really make meaning of the text that they’re reading. And some of those include vocabulary and background knowledge, fluency verbal reasoning, which is really just like critical thinking skills. And all of this can be demonstrated through reading and writing, and so we refer back to that rope often when we’re talking about the curriculum that we’re using to say, what piece of the rope is this strengthening? Because just like you think of a rope with multiple threads, if there’s a thread that’s weak that can impact a student’s ability to be a skilled reader. So we really are cognizant of making sure that all the threads that make a skilled reader are evident in our every single day lessons, so that we are providing students with the best explicit instruction that they need in order to make the deepest meaning of the text that they possibly can.

 

Gloria Riviera  17:19

And all good Things come from that, right?

 

Megan Siepka  17:21

Yes.

 

Gloria Riviera  17:22

I want to ask Jason, you know, we’re talking about a pretty radical, in my mind, change to the overall program. Jason, how did you bring teachers along? How did you introduce this?

 

Jason Kamras  17:34

Most of what we’re doing right now came from teachers and came from our coaches. They express, hey, what we’re doing isn’t working as well as we would like. We’re not seeing as much progress. And so as teachers do, sometimes I did this too. You just do stuff on the DL, right. You just kind of go your own route.

 

Gloria Riviera  17:56

What? I’m horrified to hear that.

 

Jason Kamras  18:00

And you know, they said, Look, we’re finding more success with some of these other approaches. And so I was happy to support the continued work of these teachers and coaches. As long as we’re seeing the kinds of gains and growth that we want in kids, then of course, I’m going to be happy. I will say, when we initially adopted some of the curricular there was pushback because it was more rigorous, it was harder to teach, and it was standardized, right? There wasn’t the ability to just read whatever book you want just because you like that book Growing up and and that there’s a sense of loss. I get that as a former teacher, because part of the joy of the job is you get to bring your own ideas and thoughts and personality to the work. We certainly aren’t trying to remove that kind of individual spirit that teachers bring, but we are really steadfast in this idea that we’re going to use what the research says works. And so there was some some friction with that, no doubt. But I think by and large, folks have come around to this notion that, like actually, this is working, and I am seeing my kids being more successful, and nothing gives you a bigger boost as a teacher than to see your kids succeed. So even if you used to do something one way, and maybe you weren’t super excited about shifting, but now you’re seeing your Kidron gardeners read, and you used to never see your kindergartners read, that is a huge boost in the arm. And I think that sense of success has been what really has generated, the buy in and the sense that this is worth doing.

 

Gloria Riviera  19:49

Absolutely, yeah, and you know, we keep talking about the research and the data, I just want to read a little bit of what I found in the research that. Last year, every early grade and every student group made progress in reading. Black students made a gain of 8.7% that is when I read that number. That is a significant number. Yeah. Megan’s nodding her head. Economically disadvantaged students made a gain of 8.6% and that’s huge. Jason, you’re not smiling yet. I feel like you should be smiling with.

 

Jason Kamras  20:23

This huge it’s huge, but, but in the back of my mind, I know how much farther we have to go, right? We’re at about, overall, we’re at about a 50% reading proficiency level, which, I mean it’s 50% that means one out of two kids can read proficiently, and one out of two can’t, and that’s certainly not good enough. And you know, Megan has heard me talk a lot about this. I mean, imagine you’ve got two kids at home of your own. You’re like, Oh, I’m so excited. One of them can read. And you would never say that. And so yes, we have to celebrate the growth we’re making. And we are making huge growth, and it’s outpacing the growth that we’re seeing in the state overall. I’m super excited about it, but that’s that’s not what we’re shooting for. We’re shooting for something much more ambitious.

 

Gloria Riviera  21:09

Jason, you’ve answered the next question on my list, which was how the changes to teaching literacy have worked or are working, and what you describe is sort of two steps forward, but still, many, many, many, many more steps to go. And where do you diagnose more support needed more work to be done? Is that in Megan’s realm? Because Megan, I know that you helped to cultivate teacher engagement when it comes to reaching goals, right? Like that’s part of your job, and you ran a book club over the summer. How did that align? What was that program and how did it help? Help you? Help the teachers.

 

Megan Siepka  21:47

We have a school wide goal every year, and it was going to be writing this year, because everybody had this strong desire to improve writing, and I really want to be responsive to teachers and what they feel they need in their classroom to be successful. And so I wanted to root ourselves in some research and best practices about writing before we talk about, how are we going to use that alongside of the curriculum? And so this book study came about, and I thought maybe I would get a few people and then we could carry this out, but I had 25 people sign up, which for our little school is amazing. There was at least one teacher from every grade level. Leadership was involved. Support staff wanted to do it. Our Librarian participated, and so that was amazing, and that gave us time to really think about evidence based best practices that would benefit our students, and so we did that work over the summer, which allowed us to really think about as soon as we came back in August. Oh, I really know that the single paragraph outline is a strategy that I want to use, and our curriculum has students writing a paragraph in response to characters human rights. And I think this is a great strategy to introduce to the students in order for them to be successful with the writing tasks that the curriculum has asked them to do. And like Jason said earlier, the curriculum is the science of reading. We know that the curriculum includes all the pieces that our students need to be skilled readers, but there’s still this idea of the art of teaching and instructional decision making and corrective feedback, and all those, I think, will make or break the lesson in a lot of ways. And so that’s building teachers’ toolboxes, I think, and that’s where teachers have autonomy.

 

Gloria Riviera  23:40

I like the way that there seems to be space for both joy and energy and new ideas and the eye on the prize, right, that you’re moving forward and that you’re working towards success. Jason, we know success doesn’t happen overnight. Earlier, I cited some figures, and I could sense your okay, yes, that’s fine, but we have so much work to do. What does success look like for you in the next five years?

 

Jason Kamras  24:10

100% of our third graders reading proficiently and joyfully, that’s it, yeah, and I don’t mean 82.7% or 91.3% we’re really shooting 400 and so we are putting every possible resource, every possible idea, every possible partnership, on the table to make that come to fruition. Again, I think if we were to achieve that one, it would be historic. Certainly, there’s no school system in the Commonwealth that has done that just yet, certainly not one as high poverty as us. And more importantly, just think about what fourth grade looks like, then in fifth grade and sixth grade and seventh grade and so on. We really do see literacy as life changing work and. So we’d like to get our kiddos set up for their future, and so that’s what we’re gonna do.

 

Gloria Riviera  25:06

I like your smile as you talk about that your goals feel achievable with such a focused approach. And you’re talking about, some would say, shooting for the stars. But why not? Right? You’re heading in the right direction.

 

Jason Kamras  25:22

Yeah, and, I mean, look, Megan and her colleagues and all the teachers out there are the ones who are doing the really hard work, and seeing them in action is incredibly inspiring. And not just there are a lot of teachers who are still learning to be good reading teachers, and that’s okay, but we’ve made a commitment to helping them become great, and I think that’s what’s really special. And we’re not doing it blindly. We’re doing it in a really thoughtful, intentional way for us to make the kind of big changes that, frankly, are turning the tide of decades, if not centuries, of injustice. The only way to do that is to be incredibly intentional, incredibly focused, and that just requires us to pick one, maybe two, really big things and just go at it. And that’s what we’re doing.

 

Gloria Riviera  26:21

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

 

Gloria Riviera  27:16

To what extent is RPS working with families outside of school. Megan, you mentioned the book club that was with teachers. Are there programs or efforts outside of school hours in the community to support achieving these literacy goals?

 

Megan Siepka  29:15

We encourage books in the home, so we always have a table of books every time we have parents come in the building that they can take and read at home with their students. But alongside of that, we really want to lift the things that we know are important. And so we know retelling a story can be a huge predictor of student success later on and their academic career as far as comprehension goes. And so we’ll we’ll explain to parents, how do you retell a story after you’ve read one in the home? And so we might send resources home for retelling, because parents want ideas. You know, they’re like, I read the book, and then what else can we do? And like, well, here’s some things that you can do that we know will have impact. And so building those relationships with the parents first. And. Foremost, but then putting tools in their their hands, just like we’re putting tools in teachers hands, in order for them to carry that success over in their homes.

 

Gloria Riviera  30:09

I remember reading about the lit limo or the book vending machine. What is that you have to tell me.

 

Jason Kamras  30:15

The lit limo is a souped up bookmobile that’s basically one of our busses that has been repainted and outfitted with shelves, and there’s even computer terminals and everything, but it has hundreds and hundreds of books, and it drives around the city and kids can get free books. That’s the coolest thing. I love that. Yeah, we have given out over 69,000 books.

 

Gloria Riviera  30:45

Wow, that’s really great.

 

Jason Kamras  30:48

And then book vending machines are exactly what they sound like. They are just like a candy vending machine, same size, everything, but they have books in them. And so when kids earn tokens at school, they go to the book vending machine and can get any book that they want. And so that’s also been a really fun thing. It’s part of the effort to not just make sure that our kids can read proficiently, but that they love doing so too. Reading is a really cool thing, and so we don’t want kids to see it as a labor or a chore, but as a joyful exercise. And so again, it comes back to them. We talked about teachers feeling success, but having kids feel success, which is what we’re seeing more of now. You know, if you’re the kid in class who can’t read, that’s a source of anger and frustration and anxiety, and so a lot of the materials and approaches we’re using now means there’s much less of that happening.

 

Gloria Riviera  31:44

You know, I want to go back to something we touched on at the beginning of this conversation, these ideas of literacy as social justice, Jason, I think you were talking about it in the beginning. And I want to ask you, under the banner of calls to action, how do we all come at education, literacy from an equity lens, right? How do we change our approach? What do parents need to do? What can we do in our own communities to work towards the goal of equity in schools?

 

Jason Kamras  32:19

That’s a big one.

 

Gloria Riviera  32:20

I know.

 

Jason Kamras  32:20

Well, there are so many different ways I could come at this, but speaking specifically to literacy, I think one, first and foremost, is standing behind the science education, like everything has its politics and so standing firmly behind the science and what the science tells us about how to teach kids to read, and being unapologetic about that, and making sure that those approaches are being used and teachers are being trained on them, particularly where kids are growing up in poverty, is absolutely essential. And so if we are going to be serious about talking about equity as it pertains to literacy, then that has to be number one. Number two has to be, of course, funding. I mean, the reality is, doing a lot of these things takes a lot of money, and we’ve been fortunate to have the American rescue plan, but that is gone. And so, yeah, we’ve been diligent about repositioning funds and such, so that we’re able to keep every instructional coach and every reading interventionist and all the materials. But these things add up, and it is absolutely more expensive to provide this kind of high quality instruction in a high poverty environment than it is in a low poverty environment, and I’m not gonna apologize for that, and so like we work in a state where the General Assembly’s own bipartisan research arm said just a couple of years ago that the state is underfunding public education by $3 billion Ouch, so that’s not that’s not Jason, that’s not Megan, that’s not Republicans or Democrats, that’s the nonpartisan research arm. And so we can’t seriously talk about equity. We can’t seriously talk about setting all kids up for success if we’re not even putting the dollars on the table. And don’t get me wrong, money is is necessary, but not sufficient. You got to use it wisely. You got to use it for the right stuff. You got to be thoughtful, but it’s table setting, right? And so I think that is, that’s the other piece that we have to keep fighting for.

 

Gloria Riviera  34:33

And I think we need to get the word out even more. I mean, I’m a parent of a nine year old in fourth grade in DC public schools, and I think these conversations are helpful to be a call to action. Are there any other calls to action that you would like our listeners to take away from this conversation?

 

Jason Kamras  34:49

The work that we’re engaged in is bigger than literacy, right? It’s bigger than school. It’s really about setting kids up to pursue their dreams, whatever they may be, and that really is about. Uh, again, disrupting poverty, disrupting racism, disrupting a whole set of institutional barriers. And so that gets to housing policy, and it gets to healthcare policy, and it gets to a whole swath. And so I guess my other call to action is go vote yes and make sure that you’re voting for folks who are thinking about these things and being steadfast in their commitment to changing them for kids?

 

Gloria Riviera  35:25

Yeah, thank you both so much for the work that you do. I don’t want to know a world in which people like you are not at the helm making communities better, student by student and family by family. So thank you.

 

Megan Siepka  35:37

Thank you.

 

Jason Kamras  35:38

Thank you. Our pleasure.

 

Gloria Riviera  35:39

This episode is created in partnership with the Schusterman family philanthropies. Thank you to Richmond Public Schools for making this conversation possible. Next week, we’ll keep talking about innovative work happening around literacy at another school district, Baltimore City Public Schools. Thank you for listening to Good Things. I’m your host, Gloria Riviera.

 

CREDITS  36:12

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. Follow Good Things wherever you get your podcasts and listen ad free on Amazon music with your Prime membership.

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