Berlin-Boylston Regional Schools Awarded $146,000 PRISM II Grant to Address Literacy Instruction and High-Quality Literacy Materials.
Superintendent Conway is proud to announce that the Berlin-Boylston Regional School District has been awarded a $146,000 grant that will be used to provide intensive literacy instruction training to staff and support the purchase of new curriculum materials for grades K-5 at both Berlin Memorial School and Boylston Elementary School. The grant is part of the $24.7 million investment from the Healey-Driscoll Administration to focus on strengthening literacy instruction and improving reading outcomes for students across Massachusetts.
The district applied for the competitive grant in the spring, led by Lisa Sequeira, the Director of Curriculum and Instruction. Berlin-Boylston was one of 71 districts across the commonwealth selected. PRISM, which stands for Partnership for Reading Success–Massachusetts, is part of the multi-year Literacy Launch from the state and designed to support districts meeting the requirements of new legislation requiring the use of high-quality literacy materials and evidence-based literacy instruction.
The district had begun work in the spring of 2026 to formulate a team across the district to start the process of curriculum review. This team’s work will now be supported by additional coaches and with a goal of creating a Literacy Plan for a coherent approach to teach literacy using updated
materials.
“Our educators are ready and genuinely excited to do this work. This grant gives us an incredible opportunity to do it thoughtfully and collaboratively. We have the chance to bring our elementary educators together around the shared purpose of effective literacy instruction and build something
that will have a lasting impact on teaching and learning across our district,” said Lisa Sequeira
Julia Flanigan, a Grade 1 Teacher at Berlin Memorial and one of the teachers on the Literacy Review Team offered, “It is so exciting to begin this work knowing that our students will benefit from effective literacy instruction and high-quality learning materials.”
“This grant will have a meaningful and lasting impact on our students. Teachers will be able to deepen their knowledge and expertise in effective reading instruction as well as have access to high-quality, research-based materials,” shared Stephanie Woodward, a 2nd Grade teacher at Boylston
Elementary and a member of the Literacy Review Team.
Catherine LeDuc, a 5th Grade teacher at Boylston Elementary and also a member of the Literacy Review Team added, “I am looking forward to teachers across our district having a shared vision of what effective literacy instruction looks like and seeing our students benefit from this type of
continuity.”
“A great deal of my prior professional work has focused on supporting schools and districts with systems level change to implement what is known as The Science of Reading. This includes consistent evidence based instruction across classrooms and uses high-quality curriculum to build
coherence throughout the district. At a time of stretched resources, this grant is a big victory for the school and communities and I am very excited for what we will be able to accomplish," said Dr. Conway, the new superintendent.
The district’s focus on bringing coherence to teaching, learning and systems is a key aspect of the completed strategic plan. The literacy team will begin work in September and be meeting with coaches from MA DESE throughout the year. The grant cycle the district will be participating in is
PRISM II - cohort 2, which is technically focused on Grades K-3 but the district will expand its focus to K-5. It is expected that a recommendation for curriculum adoption will be presented publicly in the spring of 2027.
To learn more about the the PRISM Grant and Literacy Launch - click here.
