Legislators approve $21.7 million in contracts for Alabama State Department of Education

The Joint Legislative Contract Review Committee approved $21.7 million in contracts for the Alabama State Department of Education (ALSDE) on Thursday afternoon.

Two of the contracts aim to help ALSDE comply with the 2019 Literacy Act, ALSDE’s Director of Governmental Affairs Tina Hammonds said. A nearly $21 million contract with Lexia Learning Systems, a company based in Texas, will help prepare teachers to teach in the science of reading, including multi-sensory language instruction for K-3 teachers, reading specialists, and higher education faculty. 

“We started with teaching the teachers in college to be able to teach the students that are going to be teachers,” Hammonds said. “Then we have to go into the field to teach the teachers that are already in the field. Then we’ll be able to have a continuum for both sets to be able to have further learnings.”

The contract is 100% state-funded. Sen. Chris Elliott, R-Josephine, said that the contract will prevent more taxpayer dollars from being spent on training.

“I hope that is the result of this, and that is that we don’t have to spend additional state taxpayer dollars to train teachers in state colleges and universities to do what they are there to do and get a degree in,” he said.

Hammonds said that is the goal, but implementation of the Literacy and Numeracy acts will take time.

“This is the new standard we’re working on, the Numeracy Act and Literacy Act to try to make sure that the different forms of higher education and the different ed prep programs and the two and four year college opportunities are all preparing teachers that are going to come back for licenses in our state,” she said. 

The committee also approved a $760,000 contract with American Institutes for Research, based in Virginia, to help teachers teach fourth through eighth graders who are falling behind in reading. The contract is 100% federally funded.

“We want to make sure that those kids don’t continue to be intermediate as they move forward,” Hammonds said. “That’s also part of our COVID issue. We’re going to try to put as much intensive state and federal funding toward those kids over the next few years to see if we can’t make sure to give them the best future they can have.”

The committee also approved a $31,000 contract with Frank Buck Consulting, based in Pell City, to help ALSDE with reporting to the Office of Special Education Programs.