Four schools from Troy City School District have been selected as “Affiliate Schools” with the Teachers’ College Reading and Writing Project (TCRWP) of Columbia University. Troy CSD is the only district in the greater Capital Region to be selected.

School 2, School 14, School 18 and Carroll Hill School have been selected for this extremely competitive professional development opportunity to welcome embedded staff development by the Lucy Calkins’ staff at the TCRWP. Calkins is the author of best selling grade-by-grade Units of Study for Teaching Reading, Grades K-8 and Units of Study in Opinion/Argument, Information, and Narrative Writing, Grades K-8 series, which have been widely adopted throughout the country as well as in the Troy City School District for the past three years.

“The most powerful professional learning opportunities we can provide often take place at the classroom and even the student level,” said Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction Dr. Donna Watson. “Our partnership with TCRWP offers Troy’s teachers a chance to work side by side with the most renowned trainers right in our classroom with our students.”

All three schools will be provided with 10 days of embedded staff development at the K-2 level and ten days at the 3-5 level. The first of these days began this week.

“After just one day with our staff developer we have adapted new practices and have learned how to administer quick assessments which will provide us with ‘in the moment’ feedback to ensure that our students are reading in ‘just right’ books,” said School 14 Principal Karen Cloutier. “Being a Project School will lift us all to the next level of implementation as our scholars become stronger readers, writers, and independent thinkers.”

The goal of the program is to dramatically improve our teaching of reading and writing.  As an added benefit, leaders, coaches and teachers from all of five Troy CSD elementary schools will be able to observe this work and bring much of this training back to their respective schools.