The Husky Huddle

Charting the Future of Literacy: Jen Kless Unveils Olean City Schools' Innovative ELA Curriculum

• Genelle Morris

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Embark on an educational odyssey with us as Jen Kless, Olean City Schools' Director of Curriculum and Instruction, recounts her compelling transition from a kindergarten classroom to the halls of district leadership. Witness the unveiling of a groundbreaking ELA curriculum, as Jen lays bare the transformative journey from a traditional balanced literacy framework to an innovative approach designed to ensure sustainability, equity, and consistency across our schools. With a vision for equitable literacy education that transcends classroom boundaries, Jen and her dynamic team—comprising educators from varying specialties—have crafted a curriculum that promises to sculpt the future of literacy learning for every student.

Tune in for a deep exploration of the collaborative spirit that's breathing life into our new ELA program at Olean City Schools. The dedication of our team shines through as we eagerly anticipate engaging with our community, inviting feedback, and addressing queries to reinforce the transparent thread woven through this educational endeavor. Join us as we pledge our unwavering commitment to literacy, outlining strategic steps to foster thriving literacy outcomes for our scholars. The Husky Huddle is more than a conversation; it's a commitment to the educational enrichment of our Husky family, and we're excited to have you be a part of this transformative chapter.

Speaker 1:

All right, hello everybody, and welcome to our newest episode of the Husky Huddle. I am very excited to have joining me today Jen Kless, who is our esteemed director of curriculum and instruction in Olean City Schools, and today she's going to tell us more about the ELA new curriculum that we have for our Husky scholars, so can't wait to hear more about it. Jen, why don't you begin by telling us a little bit about yourself?

Speaker 2:

Well, thank you, dr Morris, for having me here on the Husky Huddle. I'm so excited to be doing a podcast and to be talking about ELA, which is very close to my heart. I started teaching and Olean City School District in 1993. I started as a kindergarten teacher and after that taught a few different grade levels. I taught fifth grade, pre-k, first grade and then about 2006, olean City School District was invited to be part of the Reading First Grant and I was hired as one of four building coaches for our district, and so that experience really brought me out of the classroom to see curriculum and instruction at a building level and a district level.

Speaker 2:

And as I worked my way through becoming instructional coach and then going into my admin work, ela has always been very close to my heart, because having literate children is really really important to any success in life and that job of a school is probably the most important job.

Speaker 2:

So, being in this position as Director of Curriculum and Instruction prior to the pandemic about 2020-2021, we were moving into some updated standards for New York State and, looking at our current program we had there was a lot of work to do because we were in a balanced literacy framework and making those pieces come together and work together was very important for teachers to help them be able to be productive in a classroom, and students to learn how to read and write.

Speaker 2:

What I found, though, in being a balanced literacy program or a balanced literacy framework is that at some point, it doesn't remain sustainable, because you introduce several different resources and you provide all this training, and then what happens is and what happened to us was we started to have teacher turnover with retirements, and so what I was witnessing was all these veteran teachers leaving with all this professional knowledge on how to make different things work, and then I sat in front of brand new teachers, trying to say to them, trying to put them into trainings to help them make this all work, and your first couple years of teaching, you're really trying to learn how to work in an adult world. You're trying to learn what school is like. As a teacher, you're trying to understand kids at your grade level, and training upon training upon training ends up loading the cognitive energy, and I just started to think there's got to be a better way to sustain what we're doing here in the district Right, absolutely, and then provide that consistency from classroom to classroom, even school to school.

Speaker 1:

you know that. You know you're receiving a great um education in literacy in this particular classroom but our students of the hall receiving a similar that, and that is that is so true as well.

Speaker 2:

That was something, too, that I became very well aware of as the further we got into a balanced literacy framework.

Speaker 2:

Um, because teachers are trying to make resources work together and they will purchase things on their own, and that, in and of itself, provides an inequity to students, because you have some teachers that are willing to do that and you have some teachers that can't do that, and really the job of the school district is to provide a guaranteed, viable curriculum that can be taught to all students, no matter what classroom they're in. That is a job for us to provide our teachers. And so and seeing all these pieces and knowing what we were doing is not working for the majority of our students either. In regards to what we're seeing reflected on our state assessments in grades three through eight, there was work to do, and I knew that it had to happen, and so, with the support of you and Jenny Bellotta and Dr Irizarry, we were able to put a committee together to talk about what was working, what wasn't, and what do we need to do for our teachers and our students here in the district.

Speaker 1:

And that was a very intense process, right it sure was.

Speaker 2:

I had some teachers come to me prior to us starting the process about could we start looking at programs? And so last October we started working to put a committee together. We had an initial meeting and this very hardworking group of teachers looked around and said we need more representation. We don't have this grade level represented. We don't have this grade level represented. And so I said to them why don't you go talk to your colleagues and see who you would like to bring into this committee? And they did. That's all they did. They went and they talked to colleagues. I got emails or I got a phone call or a text message and before we knew it, we had over 16 teachers working with us and we had one speech therapist work with us.

Speaker 2:

I was able to, many years ago, this speech therapist and I shared a room while I taught reading and she taught speech therapy, and about three months into this arrangement we had with each other, she says to me did you notice that when I leave to take a group back to their classroom, a few minutes later you're bringing that same group back to work with them for reading? I was giving her details about her students that she was doing speech language therapy with, and she was giving me information that I could use when I was helping them become better readers and writers, and so she was part of this committee. Oh wonderful, and I was so grateful for her perspective. Yeah, because she's a true passionate fan of students in this district and she just wants the very best for everybody.

Speaker 1:

That's fantastic.

Speaker 2:

We had a special education teacher, we had reading specialists, we had classroom teachers, with almost every grade level represented. And then Principal Maureen DeSerbo asked if she could invite the ELA chairperson for the district, which was Marie Rakes, if she could invite her to be part of the committee, and I said that's a fabulous if she's willing. Absolutely, and Marie ended up being very instrumental on that that committee. There were times when some teachers would say they would look at a program or component and say that's too hard for our kids and Marie would stand there and say that is the level of writing we need our kids to be at when they enter the high school is the level of writing we need our kids to be at when they enter the high school.

Speaker 2:

That is what our kids need to be doing when they walk across the stage to graduate. She brought a whole different perspective to the committee that I couldn't have done. Yeah, but even if I said that, it did not mean as much as it came from a fellow colleague that has been working with these teachers for many, many years.

Speaker 1:

That's great to hear and what an awesome authentic linkage to what you're doing foundationally at the very young grades and how it helps prepare them when they're going to graduate. Yes, that's great. That's great.

Speaker 2:

We all wanted the same thing. Yeah, on that committee we want to be able to provide teachers with good materials and curriculum that they can count on, and we want to be able to help them feel success in their jobs of teaching kids every day, and we want that success to pour into our students so that they're feeling successful as well.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, that's fantastic. Okay, so now we've made our selection. Yes, we have a new program. What can parents and the community expect next?

Speaker 2:

Well, we are in the process of setting up our professional learning for teachers.

Speaker 2:

We are in the process of setting up our professional learning for teachers, so they will get a day of professional development on the program and how it works, which is HMH into reading and into literature.

Speaker 2:

So when the committee came together, the decision was made we want to have a system for reading and writing and we want it to be comprehensive, meaning it has all the components. And so we have a K-8 system. K-5 will be into reading and six through eight is going to be called into literature. And so the first thing we're going to do is we're going to train our teachers before they leave for summer on how the program works, right. The second thing we're going to do is provide them support to work with those materials over the summer so that they're ready for instruction come the first month of school. Right, communicating out to parents about our new reading program and what they could expect to see, perhaps coming home every week in their book bags with materials that students are completing, portions of what they can do to support that literacy instruction at home and ways to help bridge that gap between what students are learning and reading and writing every day and how that can be supported and cherished when students go home in the evening and talk about their school day.

Speaker 1:

Okay, all right. So then in the fall, as we transition to this brand new program, if parents want to learn more about how they can help their students on the new material, will there be ways that we can pull parents and families into learning opportunities to learn more about how they can support their students during the school year?

Speaker 2:

I think that's a fabulous idea. We would love nothing more to meet with parents to talk to them about the new ELA curriculum we have in place for our students. I think that is a fine idea to understand how it all works, just a big picture overview, and what they could be talking to their child at home when their children come home at night. Just having that interest in how did your day go, what was a good part, what was a bad part, having that communication with their students so that, or with their children so that they can give the teacher an idea of you know what. Johnny isn't feeling too sure of what you did yesterday. Okay, could you go over with him again? Or even just giving their son encouragement or their daughter encouragement about going back to school. You know what? It was the first time you heard it. You're going to have to. You'll probably need to hear it a couple more times, a couple more times before you have it mastered.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

Building that confidence level in their children is very important too.

Speaker 1:

Fantastic, and their children is very important, too Fantastic. So that's the one thing that I think will be important to make sure that we're building that partnership between families and our schools. Our teachers really want to make sure that this is a success, and I know our parents do want to have this be a successful program for their students as well, so that'd be great. So is there anything else you want to make sure that our families and our teams know about this brand new ELA?

Speaker 2:

program. We're going to work really hard to make sure we are providing literacy instruction for all students at all levels and we're doing a lot of planning at all levels and we're doing a lot of planning and a lot of preparation and we look forward to giving everybody more information about this and we are ready to take any questions or any concerns you have as well.

Speaker 1:

Wonderful, that's so fantastic. Well, thank you so much for joining me on this episode of the Husky Huddle, and I am very excited to have learned more about the ELA program, and if you in our community have any questions additionally about our new program, please let us know so that we can give you more information. All right, well, thank you so much for joining me today and I hope you have a wonderful day.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, you too.