Documentary Shorts
NYC Reads: A Documentary Short
COMING SOON
A Manhattan school district scales a literacy initiative called NYC Reads to reverse enduringly low proficiency rates. Filmed over the 2024-25 school year, the story follows the District Superintendent and her team of school leaders who start their journey afresh and are jarred by tests and skeptics but buoyed by triumphs and a coalition of supporters.
Video Docuseries
NYC Reads: A Scaling Story in District 1
Spanning the school year 2024-25, this docuseries captures the scaling journey of NYC Reads as it transforms teaching and learning across a Manhattan school district's classrooms and school communities.
Episode One: Building a Winning Coalition
- In 2023, New York City launched a major, citywide campaign to boost literacy for all students after years of little progress. Called NYC Reads, the initiative requires each of its 32 community school districts to choose one of three "science of reading," phonics-based curriculums.
This opening video focuses on District 1's work to develop a winning coalition of school leaders, educators, students, parents, researchers, advocates, elected officials, and policymakers to support the efforts to scale up NYC Reads.
Lessons Learned for Episode One: Building a Winning Coalition
- Lesson 1: Create a districtwide listening tour to gather feedback from all stakeholders. During 2023-24, parents, students, teachers, principals, community members, and advocates met with the leaders of District 1 to share their perspectives on NYC Reads, which yielded a consensus behind the selection of EL Education for the District.
- Lesson 2: Make explicit for students and parents the connection between the curriculum and their own lived experience. Students attend school more often because they see themselves in the curriculum and are bought into what they're learning in the classroom.
- Lesson 3: Use "lab sites" to demonstrate NYC Reads in action. Lab sites generate excitement across key stakeholders (school leaders, educators, staff) for what's to come and equips all with an NYC Reads implementation toolkit.
- Lesson 4: Engage teachers early and often in the ramp up of NYC Reads and provide them with support along the way. Builds teacher confidence, creates community, and shores up their buy-in for the initiative.
Episode Two: Scaling Starts in the Classroom
This video explores how educators are implementing the evidence-based, science-of-reading curricula in their classrooms
Lessons Learned for Episode Two: Scaling Starts in the Classroom
- Lesson 1: Create space for joy and excitement. In these spaces, teachers feel comfortable asking for help.
- Lesson 2: Coaches deliver one-to-one support to teachers. The support is aligned to what teachers have explicitly said they need to better understand and deliver the curriculum in the classroom.
- Lesson 3: Provide time for targeted educator development. Use prep period to plan and dig into units, with the principal also building weekly time for grade-level teams to unpack the lessons of the shared curriculum.
- Lesson 4: Facilitate peer learning via model classrooms, lab sites, and intervisitations. This way, teachers visit classrooms in other classrooms and schools to see the curriculum in action, bouncing ideas off each other and bringing back what they've learned to their own school and classroom.
- Lesson 5: Ground the ELA curriculum in the science of reading. The use of phonics in sequential order enables students to build the ability to understand letters, sounds, and applying them in words, composition, and segmentation, with repetition in the lessons to build fluency and automaticity.
- Lesson 6: Use real-life and relevant experiences for deeper learning. Using the city as an extension of the classroom enlivens their learning. Focusing on stories that students can relate to excites them and encourages them to attend school regularly.
- Lesson 7: Empower students to persevere. In this way, students gain the agency to be independent learners and prepared for exams.
Student Success Systems: A Scaling Story in District 3
A Manhattan school district scales an initiative called student success systems to meet the holistic needs of students and reverse negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on student attendance and performance. The story is told from the perspective of the superintendent team, principals, teachers, students, parents, policymakers, technology partners, practitioners from the Grad Partnership, and Robert Balfanz of the Everyone Graduates Center.
Teaser for Student Success Systems Docuseries.
The Autism Nest Program: A Scaling Story in Districts 12 and 15
As NYCPS scales the Autism Nest program citywide, Brooklyn and Bronx school districts showcase the power of the strengths-based, school inclusion model in which the holistic needs of students with autism are met. The story is told from the perspective of the superintendent team, principals, teachers, students, parents, policymakers, and staff from the NYU Steinhardt's Nest Support Project.