Owatonna Public Schools are in the midst of a curriculum shift. This year has seen the rollout of new teaching methods and standards for both math and language arts following the Read Act.
The Minnesota Reading to Ensure Academic Development Act was passed in July 2023 and requires evidence-based literacy instruction to ensure all students read at grade level. In addition to mandatory supplemental instructor training, the state act also implemented annual screening for kindergarten through third grade students as well as interventions for fourth through 12th graders who may be struggling. Read Act funding totals for the state have been listed as high as $110 million, with Owatonna Public Schools receiving $180,119 before this school year per its 2025-26 preliminary budget.
Owatonna School System Director of Teaching and Learning Julie Sullivan explained what followed the passing of the Read Act.
“The beginning of this shift came along with the state-mandated Read Act training. So, all of our K-5 teachers, K-12 EL teachers and K-12 special ed teachers went through it to ensure that everybody understood best practices about teaching reading,” Sullivan said. “That happened at the same time as new standards rolled out for language arts, and in looking at both the Read Act training and the new standards, the resource that we had just simply didn’t meet those needs. Which meant that it was time to look for something different among the state-approved resources.”
After reviewing the state-approved resources, school officials landed on a new math curriculum known as Illustrative Math and a new language arts curriculum called Wit and Wisdom. While Wit and Wisdom has been rolled out to all K-5 schools within the district, the new math curriculum has only been implemented among a few early adopter teams this year, with two teams at McKinley Elementary, two at Washington Elementary, two at Lincoln Elementary and one team at Wilson Elementary. The plan is to roll it out to all teams next year.
This was done because with the addition of Wit and Wisdom, the learning curve was deemed too significant for teachers to bring both resources on at the same time across the board. According to Sullivan, the new curriculum will shift away from the traditional instruction method of “sage on the stage” learning — in which the teacher explains before allowing the students to practice — to a more exploratory methodology.
“Wit and Wisdom is predicated upon knowledge building. Building vocabulary, building background knowledge, taking a text and going fairly deep with it, and then writing. Writing is a huge component of this curriculum,” Sullivan said. “Illustrative math is more about the students exploring and trying to solve problems, with the teacher helping to coalesce and synthesize that exploration into practical knowledge afterward.”
Owatonna Public Schools Teaching and Learning Coordinator Kelly Kruger said Wit and Wisdom offers more than standard phonics or reading instruction and instead focuses on building technical skill through a thorough exploration of a single source text, which can range from science to history.
“Top priority for us is practice around structured literacy and the science of reading. It’s a different way of teaching and a different thought process. The main difference between Wit and Wisdom and the older curriculum is that it’s a systematic knowledge-building resource and represents an instructional shift not only for students but teachers as well,” Kruger said. “Embedded in the material is knowledge regarding science, history and the arts. It really supports comprehension through a coherent and sequential set of topics. In the past, we’ve gone wide with various texts, reading a lot of books and getting exposure to many different texts. With Wit and Wisdom, we focus on a single text — reading it, writing about it and speaking about it deeply like never before — and kids are rising to the occasion.”
The need for change in math
OPS Teaching and Learning and GT Coordinator Wendy Eggermont explained the need for change in the math curriculum, which had remained the same for nearly 25 years.
“We have had Everyday Math since the early 2000s, and we have been waiting until the new standards came out to transition. Our teachers were ready for a change, even though Everyday Math was a good curriculum,” Eggermont said. “When we looked at standards, there was a big shift in what they’re defining as ‘rigor,’ which is the procedural fluency built from conceptual understanding and being able to apply that understanding to a novel situation. So, it’s really being able to understand and explain the math itself rather than just procedures.
“Illustrative math is a true problem-based curriculum where students are given the space to explore first, and the teacher formalizes it later. It’s a reversal of the ‘I tell you what to think, you practice it, then we test that knowledge’ model. Now the teacher gives and explains the task but doesn’t show how to solve the problem, which allows the kids to grapple with it. We want students to consider problems from multiple angles before we come in and help to formalize their thinking.”
As the end of the first full school year with the new elementary curriculum nears, the natural question becomes: what have the results been thus far? Sullivan said it is a bit too early to tell for sure.
“It’s really early for us to tell. We haven’t dug into the MCA math results because they’re not public yet and won’t be released to the public until right before school starts next year. For reading, the MCA is brand new this year. So, while we know what they’re going to be testing on, we don’t know what that test is going to look like. Also, we won’t get those results back until October,” Sullivan said.
“So, we will use our FastBridge data, which we like a lot because we do that three times a year. One of the things we really like about Wit and Wisdom is it has common assessments. So, all first graders across the district take the same assessments at the end of each module of study. That data tells us more than a one-time test like the MCA. Obviously, we will be watching all of that, and we know that anytime you implement a new curriculum, there will typically be a little bit of a dip in standardized test scores. However, teachers are seeing some incredible things in the classroom.”
Kruger shared her experiences in the classroom and how they relate to the experiences of other instructors who are teaching the revamped curriculum.
“It is absolutely wild and so exciting for us the number of students who have risen to the occasion. They are great writers, and they apply what they’re learning from figurative language to exploding moments and vocabulary. They’re making connections across reading and writing,” Kruger said. “We’ve shared within the district even outside elementary, and teachers talk about how hard it can be for their students to get through a paragraph, and our experience has been totally different this year. Our kids do not complain about writing. Our fifth graders are writing a five-paragraph paper without any complaints. It’s absolutely amazing.”
‘Kids are excited about math’
On the math front, Makayla Kunkel, who teaches fourth grade at Wilson Elementary, noted a change in the enjoyment level of her students during math classes.
“I think my favorite part of the curriculum this year has been seeing kids go from not enjoying math to changing their mindset and really enjoying it,” Kunkel said. “Because they get to work together.”
“Kids are excited about math,” said Danika Beck, who teaches kindergarten at McKinley Elementary. “Which is an exciting thing from a teacher standpoint.”
“It really does all seem to be clicking for students, and the growth that I’ve seen with my class is pretty awesome,” said Kristin Skala, who teaches fourth grade at Washington Elementary. “Honestly, students are going to push back a bit, and it might take a little bit for them to get their routine, but once they get into it, they really have loved the program. Math time is fun in here.”
Reprinted from:
Owatonna People’s Press, MN. (2026, May 7). New language arts, math curriculums take shape at Owatonna schools. https://www.southernminn.com/owatonna_peoples_press/news/new-language-arts-math-curricu[…]-schools/article_f9ee4496-72d0-4509-91e4-7387ebdc8345.html
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