August 2021
Challenge
When Dr. Michael Conner, Superintendent, joined Middletown Public Schools in 2017, he rallied the entire community to create “Bridge to Brilliance”—a citywide literacy initiative, powered by Footsteps2Brilliance (F2B), to eliminate the preparation gap. Since 50% of his students qualified for Free and Reduced Lunch and only 37% of these 3rd graders were reading proficiently, this initiative focused on innovation and equity.
Middletown provided all children birth through 3rd grade with comprehensive, bilingual apps to prepare them for kindergarten and 3rd grade reading proficiency. The apps were accessible on any smartphones, tablets, and computers that families already owned. With this culture of innovation and equity, Middletown schools were proactively ready to flourish during the COVID school year.
Results
“Bridge to Brilliance” yielded immediate results for all students. In fact, a 2021 study (n=603/K-1 students) proved that students with F2B app usage >47+ min/week saw a 175% increase on the Aimsweb assessment from Fall 2020 to Spring 2021. Similar findings demonstrated dramatic increases for historically underserved students: Free & Reduced +224%, SPED +141%, ELL +168%, Black +184% and Latinx +145%.
Reaching Historically Underserved Students
The Office for Civil Rights, US DOE, warns us: “Even before the pandemic, many students of color faced significant barriers to educational opportunity—barriers that the pandemic appeared to be making even steeper.” Middletown students were proactively set up for success (see below literacy increases during the 2020-21 COVID year.)
Dr. Conner states, “When we think about the ‘after COVID’ stage, we need to think about how we are going to reengineer education differently, reimagining what our system can look like, re-envisioning what our industry could become.”
Historically, 51% of Middletown’s 3rd graders read proficiently (34% for Free/Reduced Lunch students). The Aimsweb assessment includes a score category of Tier 1 that indicates strong promise of reading proficiency. After implementing “Bridges to Brilliance,” 69% of Middletown students are showing strong promise of proficiency, and every subgroup is showing substantial gain.
Future Sustainable Model
Enlisting the support of families, schools, and community partners through a Collective Impact Model is at the heart of Superintendent Conner’s strategic vision to create an innovative and equitable birth through 3rd grade ecosystem. “Bridge to Brilliance” builds a future sustainable model by (1) harnessing stakeholder and community buy-in, (2) providing equity by closing the preparation, opportunity, quality and belief gaps, and (3) fostering a city-wide revitalization strategy that provides a return on investment by reducing chronic absenteeism, SPED misclassification and the dropout rate.
