Common Lit has a new three year license at Stanley-Boyd, following action at the Feb. 24 school board meeting.
Paid for with Fund 10, the $3,500 per year, $10,500 total program cost gives the district access to both Text Library and Common Lit 360 at commonlit.org, with 3,000 English texts for students to peruse. Common Lit is described on the website to “involve six intentionally sequenced units built around thought provoking essential questions and innovative culminating tasks,” meant to spark reflection and connection as it grows student’s reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills. Example texts in the Text Library for high school include “I, Too” by Langston Hughes for freshmen, “A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury for sophomores, “Excerpts from a Native Son” by James Baldwin and “Teaching Shakespeare in a Maximum Security Prison” for juniors, to “What Adolescents Miss When We Let Them Grow Up in Cyberspace” by Brent Staples for twelfth.
Mindful that instruction must be paired to measurement, the license from Common Lit also gives teachers access to the Assessment Series, with pre, mid, and post learning assessments for measuring student progress.
District Superintendent Jeff Koenig explained more about Common Lit from the high school library Feb. 24.
“Common Lit is actually a reading intervention software that’s used in our school for grades 5 through 12,” he said. “There is a little bit of fourth grade but really it’s used more for fifth grade through high school.”
A three year contract saving the district $350 a year compared to annual renewal, it also requires board approval, based on superintendent limitations in place.
“That requires board approval,” Koenig said of entering multi year contracts. “The cost of three years is $10,500. The normal (annual) price is $3,850. But also, we just don’t have the price changes over three years.”
Allowing educators to change reading levels in classes beyond just English courses, the software resides in the Cloud, rather than a download.
“Everything’s on the Cloud now, we don’t need to download anything,” Koenig said.
“So it’s our ability to access it,” Board member Lanse Carlson clarified in questioning on the license agreement. Motion to approve the three year agreement was made by Board Member Toni Seidl and seconded by Board Member Chad Verbeten.
Also covered at February school board, the board reviewed two policy documents, SL_12 District Calendar and SL_7 Financial Administration. The calendar itself was approved last month as Version 1, with school starting August 18 and ending May 22, spring break from March 9 to March 13.
Returning to regular policy review, motion to find the district in compliance on SL-12 was made by Ryan Lewallen and seconded by Denise Hoffstatter, while motion to find the district in compliance on SL_7 was made by Hoffstatter, seconded by Seidl.
Stanley-Boyd School Board meetings are held on the fourth Monday of the month in the high school library. The public is invited to attend.