HOWLAND — The Howland Board of Education took the first steps toward aiming for a state government award aimed at recognizing practices aligned with reading.

At Monday’s regular meeting, the board approved adopting the district’s PK-6 literacy plan.

Erin Pierce, supervisor of curriculum and instruction, explained ahead of the resolution’s approval that Gov. Mike DeWine released an initiative called the Science of Reading Champions last year, which recognizes schools demonstrating the implementation of evidence-based instructional practices aligned to the science of reading and students making progress with it.

Pierce said the district didn’t have a curriculum adopted at the time, which is why they didn’t think of applying for the award last year.

However, with teachers working hard in all the schools to push the science of reading initiative, Pierce said they’re planning to try and bring the award to all four of the district’s buildings, despite a representative of the Trumbull County Educational Service Center calling it a “huge undertaking.”

“It wouldn’t be fair to pick a building; I can’t say (H.C.) Mines (Elementary School) is doing better than Glen (Primary School),” Pierce said. “Or Glen’s doing better than (Howland) Springs (Primary School) or Springs is doing better than HIS (Howland Intermediate School).”

Pierce said the literacy plan was the first step of the plan, as it allows the district to pursue any kind of federal or state money related to reading.

She said it was much simpler to write, too, because the district went through the strategic plan process in the 2024-25 school year.

“It will need to be amended as we go through and check boxes and meet goals and our direction on our needs and our successes change,” Pierce said. “Once we did that, then we had to, by building, talk about family engagement, talk about teacher engagement, talk about student engagement — talk about our data and where we see our weaknesses.”

Pierce said the district’s weakness before the new science of reading curriculum was the classroom, despite most people thinking the school struggled with providing intervention.

“Most people thought we had an intervention problem — we were not providing enough intervention to our students, but when you have a hundred kids that need intervention in a grade level, you have a tier one problem,” Pierce said. “We had a classroom problem because I don’t think we were aligned 100% in every classroom, so every student was getting the same education.”

Pierce said that with the new curriculum’s adoption, that’s changed, crediting district literacy coach Sue Hardin for making sure the teachers are adapting to it.

“There’s a lot of tears because it’s hard. Next year will be a lot easier, but we’re moving forward, and for the most part, everyone has really embraced it,” Pierce said.

She said she hopes she’ll hear an update about the award in February, adding that a representative reached out four days after the district applied with a question — meaning the applications are being read.

Pierce said she believes the literacy plan needs to be updated yearly to stay current if the district were to pursue other grant opportunities.