How Stockton’s Superintendent Is Leading Change for Reading Achievement

Watch a video of highlights from the interview or read the interview (jump links below):

• Why Stockton Expanded Their Use of SIPPS from Site-Based to District-Wide Implementation
• How Stockton Ensures Every Student Receives the Support They Need
• What the Data Shows—the SIPPS Impact on Student Achievement
• How Stockton Established the Conditions for Successful Change Management
• Why Differentiation Is Key to Implementation Success
• How Stockton Accelerates Student Growth to Meet Grade-Level Standards
• What Makes Partnerships Most Impactful in Ensuring Continuous Improvement
• About Dr. Michelle Rodriguez

Why Stockton Expanded SIPPS from Site-Based to District-Wide Implementation

Linda Diamond

You have chosen to bring in SIPPS for foundational reading skills in all of the three districts in which you’ve served as Superintendent. In each case you’ve seen strong evidence of results. Why did you choose SIPPS?

Dr. Michelle Rodriguez, Superintendent

We often talk about personalized learning when discussing education. That means looking at each student as an individual and accelerating learning from their starting point. I think that SIPPS is the closest program there is to enable that on a system-wide basis.

It’s important to me that a program is mastery-based. It’s based on what a student has learned, rather than what we’ve taught.

Secondly, it’s all about rewiring the brain. We use SIPPS to create routines that support our most vulnerable students with reading difficulties. We consider how to give them a structured, systemic approach that is linked to the science of reading and that allows them to make accelerated growth.

We often talk about personalized learning when discussing education. That means looking at each student as an individual and accelerating learning from their starting point. I think that SIPPS is the closest program there is to enable that on a system-wide basis.

Prior to my joining the district Stockton had already started to implement SIPPS through their CSI (Comprehensive Support and Improvement) schools. Those are schools that receive additional monies for program improvement. We were already seeing really great growth at schools like Taylor Academy.

Mandating SIPPS Implementation

We had a large group of teachers who were voluntarily using SIPPS but it wasn’t required district-wide. Alongside Assistant Superintendent Kasey Klappenback, I spent my first year (2023–2024) getting the team ready to do a requirement.

This current year was the first that every K–2 teacher in the district was required to replace Benchmark’s portion of phonics with SIPPS. Our special education students were only 6 percent proficient—or 6 percent at grade level—and our English learners were at 15 percent, so we knew that it really needed to be a mandate.

There was widespread support, from our board of trustees to the over 5,000 staff members within Stockton Unified. Everyone—classroom teachers, intervention teachers, instructional assistants—are helping to support the SIPPS implementation.

How Stockton Ensures Every Student Receives the Support They Need

Linda Diamond

You’ve used SIPPS to replace the word recognition component in the core curriculum used to teach reading. Do you also use it for students who may need double dosing, for example?

Dr. Michelle Rodriguez, Superintendent

Here we call it distributed practices. The reason why we don’t say “double dose” is because it can sound like you’re giving the exact same process or exact same instruction for a second time.

Yes, every child in kindergarten through grade 2 receives core instruction of SIPPS. And then based on their mastery-based tests, they receive the distributed practices—or the “double dose.”

This past year, we began to place intervention teachers in a way that is similar to the way they were placed in my previous districts. This upcoming school year, we will have an intervention teacher in each and every elementary school.

We’re a K–12 district but we have K–8 schools. We have no elementary middle schools. This upcoming year we’ll have 43 intervention teachers at the K–8s. We will also have intervention teachers at the high schools for the first time. This past year we were using SIPPS Plus for our older students and will expand on that this upcoming school year (2025–2026). 

We require everyone who signs on with us to be an intervention teacher to be trained on the SIPPS curriculum. We are showing really significant growth at the K–2 level. But we haven’t done it district-wide for our older students and we do have older students that need that support.

So we’re doing it in special education classrooms and we’re also going to be doing it for our most at-needs students at the high school level this upcoming school year.

What the Data Shows—the SIPPS Impact on Student Achievement

Dr. Michelle Rodriguez, Superintendent

I have a saying: “Change experiences to change beliefs to change expectations.”

We’re seeing dramatic change here. We had some teachers who didn’t believe their first graders could read at the level that they are, and now they can see it.

Last year, 16 percent of our students made progress to grade level and this year it was almost 36 percent. We’re really excited about that huge jump.

Last year, 16 percent of our students made progress to grade level and this year it was almost 36 percent. We’re really excited about that huge jump.

We’re seeing it in our most vulnerable populations as well—our English learners, for example. Sometimes people talk about the science of reading and think that it’s not aligned with their English learners but I have seen the complete opposite.

Last year, 15.8 percent of our English learners were reading at grade level or above, and this year 33.9, or almost 34 percent, of our English learners are reading at grade level or above.

Yesterday, I had a teacher out of Primary Years Academy tell me that they had 80 percent of their second graders reading at grade level or above. And she said: “I want you to remember the ‘or above’ part, because the beauty of SIPPS is that it’s mastery based.”

So if a student is doing well and reading above grade level, they will continue to receive the instruction that they need.

I had a teacher… tell me that they had 80 percent of their second graders reading at grade level or above. And she said: “I want you to remember the ‘or above’ part, because the beauty of SIPPS is that it’s mastery based.”

The Impact on Children

Dr. Michelle Rodriguez, Superintendent

A lot of times we can lose the impact on children in those percentages. In terms of raw numbers, last year we had 494 students that were reaching their goal level target, and this year it’s 2,028 students.

[L]ast year we had 494 students that were reaching their goal level target, and this year it’s 2,028 students.

That’s 1,500 more children that are going to go to their next grade level being able to read, being able to engage in instruction, and being able to engage in their learning in a more meaningful way.

We’re at 35 percent now and have a long way to go, but you can’t negate 20 percent growth. 

We’re excited about the work that we’re embarking on. We look forward to continuing to change the experiences of teachers, children, and parents, so that they believe differently about themselves.

And our expectations for ourselves and for our students will continue to grow as well. 

How Stockton Established the Conditions for Successful Change Management

Linda Diamond

I think implementation is a critical element. Can you talk about all that you did to get this to be an effective implementation, including how you garnered support from the teachers, the administrators, and even the community?

Dr. Michelle Rodriguez, Superintendent

We have a change management strategy based upon Kotter’s work. We do believe that you have to start with the why and with the urgency. So step one was beginning with that urgency. 

Step two is having a group of people who already believe. We had a subset of principals and a large subset of teachers who really believed in SIPPS. They had been using it for a couple of years and seeing results. 

Those two first steps occurred in my first year as superintendent. 

The third step occurred at the beginning of this year and the end of last year where we set vision and requirements. We determined that the science of reading is best for children, and having a systemic approach to teaching children is the best way to achieve results. 

Now we continue to examine our Dibels assessment data along with our SIPPS data. This helps people see from the mastery tests that the strategy is working. We’re celebrating those wins and making sure that we’re recognizing people’s hard work.

How Job-Embedded Professional Development Supports Successful Implementation

Dr. Michelle Rodriguez, Superintendent

We always say, “high expectations, high support.” What I found through working in other districts is that you have to do job-embedded professional development.

It isn’t enough to provide professional development where people go out, get trained, and then go back into a classroom and try to implement it without coaching. 

It isn’t enough to provide professional development where people go out, get trained, and then go back into a classroom and try to implement it without coaching. 

Sometimes we’ll bring in Collaborative Classroom* coaches and they model strategies for a teacher. Sometimes they teach side-by-side. And sometimes it involves observation, where the teacher has the implementation down but might benefit from modifications. That can’t happen daily, or even monthly, but it happens frequently.

_{*While Collaborative Classroom does provide SIPPS professional development and coaching, the majority of this work in Stockton USD is provided by our long-time professional learning partners at CORE Learning.}

What has happened daily is that principals are going into the classrooms with a “look-for” sheet that helps them observe and notice the pertinent interactions. This is important because another thing that we learned is it has to be multilevel, you can’t just focus on training the classroom and intervention teachers. 

You have to focus on training all the bookends—from my coaches here at the district level, to the principals, to our instructional assistants. We want everybody to be able to provide that feedback.

How Stockton Ensures Each School Receives Personalized Support for Its Educators

Dr. Michelle Rodriguez, Superintendent

We do something that we call equity walks with the Ed Services team. This trained team goes into schools to calibrate the instruction and help us know what supports we need to provide. 

We have more than 40 schools, all at different levels with varied needs of support. Just as we’re asking our teachers to personalize for our students, we’re asking our principals to personalize for our teachers.

Just as we’re asking our teachers to personalize for our students, we’re asking our principals to personalize for our teachers.

As a district, we have to personalize for each of our schools. So although the concept and the theory and the framework is the same, it really is personalized according to what we are seeing during the equity audits.

We look at the data to then know what supports we need to provide each school, to reach the goals that we’re wanting them to reach.

Why Differentiation Is Key to Implementation Success

Linda Diamond

So you’re really differentiating throughout the entire system in terms of supporting the implementation?

Dr. Michelle Rodriguez, Superintendent

If you look at highly successful school districts, you’ll see they use a general framework district-wide, while personalizing for different schools within that framework. We have found that to be successful and we’re continuing to move that work forward. 

Kasey Klappenback, my Assistant Superintendent of Ed Services, has been with me in all three districts and is just a genius when it comes to curriculum and instruction. He has been the real motor behind this initiative. I couldn’t do this without him and his team.

If you look at highly successful school districts, you’ll see they use a general framework district-wide, while personalizing for different schools within that framework.

Linda Diamond

I’m curious, because SIPPS is organized by student skill level: Beginning, Extension, and Challenge. How did you organize these groupings within your schools?

Dr. Michelle Rodriguez, Superintendent

It isn’t my favorite term, but we call it “platooning.” There can be quite a range of groups depending upon the children’s needs. Many times we platoon within the grade level. Sometimes we platoon across two grade levels.

We help a teacher get really great at teaching Beginning level while another teacher does Extension. As children move beyond Beginning level, we may have to help teachers get themselves to the next level. 

With the smaller K–8s here, sometimes we platoon across two grade levels, with first- and second-grade teachers platooning together. Students are assigned to groups according to their entry point and then we continue to move them based on the mastery tests.

Why Mastery-Based Assessments Are So Important

Linda Diamond

It sounds flexible, because if a kid is moving quickly, you’re probably making some changes in the grouping.

Dr. Michelle Rodriguez, Superintendent

You’re doing mastery-based assessments, so the groupings could change every ten lessons. There could be changes twice a month.

If it’s working well, the main core nucleus of students is moving along with each other. But as you’re doing the distributive practices or the “double dose,” you’re catching some students up.

We’re making sure that they’re reaching that mastery, because the whole essence of SIPPS is that mastery has been reached.

When I was a teacher, many times there was almost an expectation that if I taught it, then they must have learned it. 

Now it’s validated. When students in a specific group aren’t picking it up, we look at practices and how we are doing the SIPPS routines. Are we doing the corrective routines as we should? Are we doing it the way that it’s laid out?

There’s a scientific reason behind the routines, so we place a heavy focus on sticking to them.

We’re making sure that they’re reaching that mastery, because the whole essence of SIPPS is that mastery has been reached.

How Stockton Accelerates Student Growth to Meet Grade-Level Standards

Linda Diamond

A frequently asked question is, if you’re not starting kids in grade level content, how do you manage to get them there?

For instance, how do you accelerate kids that are starting in SIPPS Beginning level as first or even second graders so they can get to the grade level standard? 

Dr. Michelle Rodriguez, Superintendent

SIPPS is just part of the puzzle. Thinking about literacy in general, our SBAC scores went up 4 percent  this year for third through 12th grade. The impact is not only in our K–2 students—we use SIPPS Plus for the higher grades, which has an accelerated path to ensure we can get them out and get them further. 

If they’re a second grader in Beginning level of SIPPS, then that’s where they need to be, but we also give them simultaneous additional time and support with the intervention teacher.

So they basically get a double dose, even though they’re not failing the mastery test. We’re adding on a grade each year beginning with first grade, so our lowest performing students are not only getting instruction from the teacher that they have during platooning time but they are also getting support from the intervention teacher, which allows us to accelerate them. 

How Consistency and Distributed Practice Are Leading to Mastery with SIPPS

Dr. Michelle Rodriguez, Superintendent

If you actually do a full SIPPS lesson daily, you’ll be amazed by the results. What you will find is those students will quickly go to Extension level, quickly go to Challenge level, and they will quickly move on. 

If you actually do a full SIPPS lesson daily, you’ll be amazed by the results.

Sometimes because a lesson can be a little bit longer, people wind up chopping them up. But we don’t want to cut too many corners.

Especially in the earlier grades, teachers might cut corners to try to accelerate them, but then they’re going to get into multi-syllabic instruction and we’re going to see their lack of mastery because we didn’t actually give them all the instruction that they needed at the lower level. 

But as our numbers have shown, we’ve found that if you are consistent and make sure that students are getting that double dose—that distributed practice—they will quickly move to the next level.

We use SIPPS Plus for our older students and special education students instead of Beginning or Challenge or Extension because when they’re in fourth and fifth grade we really can’t just start at the beginning. We need to do the accelerated SIPPS Plus.

Linda Diamond

You said you were seeing growth on the SBAC. What that’s telling me is that it’s more than just the word recognition and foundational skills, you’re also seeing results in comprehension.

Quiet Compliance vs. Active Engagement: Who Is Doing The Work?

Dr. Michelle Rodriguez, Superintendent

I’m a big proponent of the idea that decoding and encoding are explicitly linked, so we did a big push on writing district-wide. We did SIPPS much more. Although we couldn’t hire all the intervention teachers we wanted last year, we will have all 43 hired this year. We were doing SIPPS and Pull-out for a lot of our third- through eighth-grade students, too. Coupled with the writing, when students are having a challenge with the decoding, the encoding is a great layer on top of it.

The equity walks aren’t just looking at SIPPS. They help determine whether or not we’re doing the district-approved curriculum. Are students taking on the work? Sometimes when you go into classrooms, you wind up seeing the teacher talking the entire time. The teacher is exhausted because they are doing the majority of the work.

Part of what we’re focusing on is making sure the students are the ones that are doing the work, making sure they are the ones that are engaged. And that it isn’t just quiet compliance, but actually active engagement from our students district wide. 

Culture is contagious. So when you have K–2 teachers excited about their children’s progress and sharing with others what their children are doing, that’s infectious. It gets other people curious and interested.

I think the momentum is there, we just have to continue to focus. I keep reminding myself that it’s not about one year’s growth. It’s not even about two year’s growth. It’s about sustained growth.

And so how do we—three years or four years from now—look back and say, “Wow, we made an impact in the lives of children.”

Culture is contagious. So when you have K–2 teachers excited about their children’s progress and sharing with others what their children are doing, that’s infectious. It gets other people curious and interested.

What Makes Partnerships Most Impactful in Ensuring Continuous Improvement

Linda Diamond

You touched on specific features of SIPPS such as active engagement and kids getting the correction when they need it, which cognitive science tells us are features that help people learn. That science is built into the SIPPS curriculum; it’s engineered to work. That’s part of what you’ve expressed. It’s why you’re choosing it, and why it’s effective as a mastery program. 

You’ve worked with my former organization, CORE Learning, and now you’ve worked for three years with Collaborative Classroom. How have these organizations been supporting you over these past three years?

Dr. Michelle Rodriguez, Superintendent

I appreciate both CORE and Collaborative Classroom. I think one important thing that you allow us to do is what I ask my principals and the district to do, and that is personalize for us.

You sit down with superintendents, with assistant superintendents, and with directors, and listen. Together we determine the needs and goals of the district and the entry points. Based on that information, you personalize the contract and the professional growth for the district. 

A lot of organizations will come in and say, “This is what we can offer you.” What I have found is that both CORE and Collaborative Classroom are willing to move and pivot with us. 

The quality of the coaches are excellent; we don’t find that everywhere. The level of coaching and the ability to coach and build our capacity has been phenomenal.

A lot of organizations will come in and say, “This is what we can offer you.” What I have found is that both CORE and Collaborative Classroom are willing to move and pivot with us. 

Retaining Values While Incorporating New Research and Learning

Dr. Michelle Rodriguez, Superintendent

I think everybody wants sustainability and continuous improvement. If we want to sustain an effort, it’s helpful to have an organization come in that can build on your own capacity.

Collaborative Classroom and CORE have helped us provide professional development at multiple levels and differentiate those multiple levels. So what you are doing for our coaches is not exactly the same as what you’re doing for our principals or for our teachers, and I really appreciate that. 

As we just continue to look at cognitive science and the science of reading, your organizations continue to evolve and change while staying true to your core values and core beliefs, which is that every child deserves to have effective instruction to become a confident reader. We know that opens doors for them.

So while the core values of customer service and support stay the same, I’ve seen over time the organizations continue to morph and change as we learn more about brain science and the science of reading.

And I think that that’s important because that helps me evolve. We’re getting the latest information as we move forward, not necessarily exactly the same as what you were providing three or five years ago.

An Enduring Partner During Difficult Fiscal Times

Dr. Michelle Rodriguez, Superintendent

Finally, I wouldn’t want to partner with your organizations unless you could be the support that we need through hard fiscal times. When school districts have hard fiscal times, they look at outside consultants, and those are the ones that go.

But in the past when we came to hard fiscal times, we never let go of Collaborative Classroom, because in the end, that’s what the money is supposed to go towards.

It’s supposed to go towards improving the system for children. And I do believe that your organizations help us do that.

Linda Diamond

Thank you. We really appreciate learning about what you have done in the Stockton Unified School District. 

About Dr. Michelle Rodriguez

About Linda Diamond

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Getting Reading Right: Supporting California Educators in the Shift to Structured Literacy, with Leslie Zoroya of LACOE

Why California Students Are Succeeding with SIPPS