GREENFIELD — The School Committee continued discussions on Wednesday regarding whether an audit of literacy rates is necessary and introduced the idea of studying the amount of screen time being conducted in classrooms, though no votes were taken.
Last month, School Committee member Melodie Goodwin requested that the committee take a closer look at the state of literacy in district schools.
“I have been an educator for a long time, and I believe learning to read should be a civil right. Our data reflects that we need to do better,” Goodwin said on Wednesday. “It’s very hard as an educator to really understand what is going right and what is going wrong, so by bringing in a professional literacy expert to come into our elementary schools and audit, [and] really get a handle on what’s going on, [that] would help us. Especially as School Committee members who make budgets and make goals for our schools.”
“I support this idea, and I want to point out that we’ve heard from our principals recently about improvements in our schools on literacy, and I think it’s important for all of us to acknowledge that there is a nationwide literacy crisis,” member Jeffrey Diteman said on Wednesday. “Our district is not alone in having struggles with literacy, and there are a lot of factors. So going forward, I think it will be very useful for all of us to have clearer information about precisely what is going on in our district.”
Committee members questioned the timing of an audit, and whether it would be possible to put an audit out to bid and hire an outside firm to conduct the work to have results in hand before the 2026-2027 school year begins. Alternatively, they also considered whether it would be more beneficial to wait until after the new superintendent begins and it is time to update the district’s strategic plan.
“I think that spending money to have an audit at this time is not a wise choice,” member Elizabeth DeNeeve said. “Not that I’m not for it, I just think that this is a useful tool that goes along with creating a new strategic plan, where we have finished our five-year plan.”
Interim Superintendent Roland Joyal Jr. said the district has some literacy benchmark data from earlier this school year, and should have updated data from the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) soon.
Goodwin said that “if it gets pushed off, it gets pushed off,” but she feels the district has been struggling with literacy for a long time, and she wants to see action to make improvements for students.
“Greenfield has struggled with literacy in one school or another for the last 15 years. … All this money was spent on all these different initiatives that were supposed to fix things, but nobody ever brought in somebody to look at what was the thing,” Goodwin said. “There’s no magic bullet. It’s hard work.”
Goodwin also moved that the committee direct the superintendent to determine the
amount of screen time students in each grade are experiencing in the schools, for both instructional and assessment purposes.
When asked if the data was attainable, Joyal said he would have to figure out how to collect data and ask teachers for input, but it would be doable.
DeNeeve argued it was not in the committee’s purview to study student screen time.
“This isn’t our job. If it is identified by the superintendent as something that she wants to collect in the future as she prepares her strategic plans and goals, then great. This is not for us; we are not in the classroom. This is not governance,” DeNeeve said. “If we want to ask for a policy to be created or compel the administration to bring us a report, we do that through policy. We do not give the superintendent busywork at the end of the day. … It’s not our job. It’s policy, budget, hiring the superintendent.”
However, Goodwin responded that the School Committee cannot know if a policy is needed until it has the data to support a decision.
“Some states are shutting down screens and some school committees are voting to shut down screens. I don’t know if our children are on screens too much. One of the things I know is there’s a great concern from parents and even teachers about the amount of screen time kids are on in school,” Goodwin said. “School committees are taking those votes. It’s a conversation being had at every level. If you’re thinking that’s a policy to go the policy committee, I don’t know, but it needs to be brought up because it’s something that, right now, health providers are really recognizing the screens as harming our children.”
Ultimately, the committee opted to put discussion and a vote on a potential literacy audit and screen time study on pause until a future meeting.
