EC Principal Letter
Dear ANCS Elementary Families,
We are looking forward to seeing everyone at our Curriculum Night this Wednesday from 4:15-6:30pm. Please see my courier from last week for full details, and see below for the general schedule. Remember you can sign up for child care here if needed.
- 4:15-5:00 Related Arts and support services in auditorium
- 5:00-5:45 classroom session one
- 5:45-6:30 classroom session two
This year you will learn about our new literacy curriculum, Benchmark Advance. Georgia passed HB 538, also known as the Georgia Literacy Act, on April 13, 2023, and went into effect on July 1, 2023. There are five components to HB 538: a universal screener, targeted intervention, professional learning, teacher preparation and high quality instructional materials. In response, the State Board of Education compiled an approved high-quality instructional materials list and schools across the state are required to implement a curriculum from that list by September 2025. Fortunately, ANCS was already using an approved universal screener, has targeted interventions in place and started offering professional development on small group reading instruction to our teachers last year.
In order to be prepared to meet the deadline for implementing a new curriculum in 2025, the elementary leadership team began reviewing and researching the programs that were on the state’s approved list last November. We wanted to make sure we found a program that was the right fit for ANCS. We went to different schools to see programs in action, met with educators who used different programs, met with representatives of five different programs and spent many hours weighing out the pros and cons of different programs to find the one that we felt like was the best match for our school. We landed on Benchmark Advance and decided to begin implementing it this year instead of waiting. Benchmark Advance received a “highly recommended” rating from the state of Georgia, an all-green rating on EdReports, a Best of 2022 Tech and Learning Award, and an Excellence in Equity Award for its texts. So far, we have been impressed with this program and the support from the company.
We are supporting our teachers throughout this transition year with ongoing monthly professional development from Benchmark Advance and targeted support from our instructional coaches during Wednesday collaboration times. Teachers received a full day of training during preplanning and are looking forward to our next training day on September 10th.
We are excited about using Benchmark Advance for our literacy curriculum. Please be patient with our teachers as they continue to learn about all this program has to offer. In the meantime, be assured that we will continue to offer our students exceptional literacy instruction.
As always, I am happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you for your continued support of our school.
Wishing you well,
Lara
Lara Zelski
Lara Zelski began working at ANCS in 2007. Previously, she worked at the Howard School and taught art, Spanish, reading and math. She taught 6th, 4th, and 2nd in DeKalb County. She taught 4th and 5th grade in Decatur and then moved to Title One reading and math instruction for 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders. She taught 5th grade at the ANCS elementary campus for two years.
