The Reading School District is launching a yearlong initiative aimed at strengthening learning environments, leadership and classroom practices across its five middle schools.
Dr. Khalid N. Mumin, superintendent, introduced the effort at a recent school board committee of the whole meeting.
Mumin described the effort, dubbed Middle School Climate, Culture and Instructional Coherence, or 3C, as a strategic refresh, rather than a wholesale overhaul.
“Let me be very clear, the intent with the work that I’m about to speak of is not a redo of the hard work and accomplishments and the progress that we’ve made,” Mumin said. “This is a refresh of areas within the strategic plan.”
The district has five middle schools — Central, Northeast, Northwest, Southern and Southwest — that serve students in grades five through eight.
Mumin said those years are a critical period for academic growth and student development. However, he noted, district data show middle school achievement and growth have remained flat at most schools.
“That is an appropriate time and opportunity to really engage and support our administrators and our educators in the classroom so that we can bring better data and even have more rich experiences with our students in our middle schools,” he said.
The initiative, Mumin said, is intended to serve as a bridge to improved outcomes in high school and beyond.
To lead the effort, the district contracted Birts Consulting Services LLC of Reading. The consulting team is led by Kimberly Birts, a retired Reading principal with more than three decades in the district, and Roger Jackson, a retired principal and longtime Berks County educator who has worked on school improvement projects in multiple states.
Northwest Middle School is one of five middle schools in the Reading School District participating in the district’s new Climate, Culture and Instructional Coherence, or “3C,” initiative.. (BILL UHRICH/READING EAGLE)
“This is not about introducing something new,” Birts told the school board. “It is about clarifying focus, strengthening systems and ensuring that what we say we value as a district is consistently reflected in our middle schools.”
The initiative is organized around three integrated focus areas, she explained:
• Student climate and support centers on creating consistent expectations and experiences across all five middle schools so students and families encounter the same standards regardless of building.
• Administrator support and leadership will provide structured professional learning communities for principals and deans, with an emphasis on developing leaders as climate builders, instructional monitors, community partners and organizational managers.
• Instructional practices, focuses on classroom observations and collaboration with the district’s curriculum and instruction team to establish a baseline of excellence in student engagement and teaching quality.
“If you visit high performing schools, they all have three things in common,” Jackson said. “Great instruction, great climate and great leadership.”
The goal, he noted, is not to single out individual teachers, but to identify successful instructional practices and support their consistent use across classrooms.
“The plan is to go in and identify high-leverage actions, activities that teachers do that we know will lead to increased instructional outcomes,” Jackson said. “From a posture of support, not a posture of evaluation, not a posture of ‘gotcha,’ but helping teachers understand, ‘Here’s a great strategy, here’s a great method,’ and supporting them in implementing that.”
The initiative will begin with planning and staff engagement, Jackson said, followed by a formal launch and instructional rollout. Each month will focus on a leadership lens, ranging from school climate and standards to instructional monitoring and culture building, he said.
Regular classroom observations will be used to identify patterns and growth trends rather than evaluate individual educators, Jackson noted.
Central Middle School is one of five middle schools in the Reading School District participating in the district’s new Climate, Culture and Instructional Coherence, or “3C,” initiative.. (BILL UHRICH/READING EAGLE)
Mumin said the work is designed to strengthen systems, not create another standalone program. It aligns with district priorities such as Safe and Supportive Schools, academic excellence, consistent systems and shared expectations, Red Knight culture and the district’s developing Portrait of a Graduate initiative, he said.
Jackson said aims include improving attendance and engagement, reducing behavioral incidents, increasing instructional consistency and growing in academic performance across student groups, all of which will be measured for impact.
“It doesn’t make sense to do anything if we’re not going to measure and have outcomes,” he said, emphasizing the long-term nature of the work.
The initiative, he said, is not a program, but a systems-building effort.
“Culture survives people,” Jackson said. “Great leaders can inspire for a short period of time, but a system and a culture survives transition, and we are looking to build a culture of middle school in the Reading School District.”
Board members largely expressed support for the initiative and interest in updates on future progress.