A nearly hour-long debate over a new Pleasant Valley School District reading program Thursday night ended with directors approving a nearly $600,000 purchase of “Into Reading” and “Into Literature” from HMH Readers.

The 5-2 vote puts the “Into Reading” program into place for grades K-6 and “Into Literature” for grades 6-10. The cost includes student and teacher digital licenses, instructional materials, and professional development.

“We gave this a lot of time, and if we don’t do something now and we put it off, we’re not going to have a program again for next year for these students,” Board President Sue Kresge said before the vote. “And that breaks my heart. I’m telling you, that hurts me. Our students in this district deserve a program.”

The process, which began in December 2023 according to district officials, has spanned several months, with multiple rounds of review, teacher feedback, and administrative analysis.

“I am going to vote no on this because we need to do better, finding something better for our kids and our teachers,” director Ryan O’Keefe said. “These teachers were not engaged in picking the subset of what they wanted to narrow in on. We need to find something better that’s going to be good for our teachers and ultimately the best option for our students.”

Board member John Gesiskie, who also voted no, said his research in other districts showed other programs were successful.

“I called a number of school districts and talked to reading specialists in schools that were 30 points ahead of us in their PSSAs and one of the programs they talked about using most was Wit and Wisdom,” he said. “I’m curious why we didn’t research districts that are doing well before we make a decision.”

Rae Lin Howard, Pleasant Valley’s assistant superintendent, defended the district’s decision.

“This was the most comprehensive review we’ve ever done at Pleasant Valley,” she said.

“The last review, they only looked at three resources and did it for three months, and they bought it. We started with nine original resources and narrowed it down based on extensive feedback and evaluations.”

The HMH program, Curriculum Supervisor Bernadette Fierro added, is one of the highest-rated programs on the national education nonprofit Reading League’s review list and aligned well with the Science of Reading framework.

Kresge said 38 of 47 teachers surveyed chose HMH as their preferred reading program.

“If you would have asked me a number of years ago, do we need the same program in the elementary and in the secondary, I would have said no, but I understand we are so disjointed that we’ve got to try this,” Kresge said. “We’ve got to do this for our students. I just think it’s the right thing to do.”

Superintendent James Konrad said implementation of the program will be one of the key steps toward its success.

“If you give the teachers a day to implement this, it’s not going to be successful,” he said. “We already have dates established in March, April, May and then in June, to give teachers what they need, because we don’t want to have a false start where we tell them, this is the program, but we’re not going to give you the resources or the opportunity to collaborate.”