An urgent need to read started to sweep across the Columbia County city of Hudson after the State Education Department four years ago gave its middle school the dreaded designation "School In Need of Improvement" for weakness in English language arts.

Since then the district and its educators, with strong support from city leaders, businesses, parents and residents, have been galvanized to erase any hint of low achievement in the middle school and across all grade levels.

Four new book clubs have formed, along with the creation of author fairs, Saturday book readings and poetry readings. The city is also one of 208 communities nationwide participating in "The Big Read," a National Endowment for the Arts program that aims to make reading a focal point of American culture.

In the schools, teams of teachers, aides, librarians and administrators revised the curriculum, created the new position of literacy coach and rewired the school day to create more opportunities for enrichment programs.

"Hudson is a classic example of a school district working hard to improve academic achievement," said NYSUT President Dick Iannuzzi. "They are coming at the issue from many directions." NYSUT has long been working with state agencies to end the achievement gap.

While the numbers of students meeting state standards in English language arts rose from 54 percent to 72 percent for grade 5 and from 37 percent to 60 percent for grade 7, scores for Hudson Middle School's students of color have not. Only 28 percent of its African-American students and 21 percent of Latino students met state standards in grade 8 ELA in 2006-07.

Across the state, 733 schools — or 16 percent of all schools — are in various levels of improvement status. To get off the list, they must develop extensive action plans and log at least two years of improved test scores. It takes at least three years, and usually several more, for a school to rid itself of the label.

Hudson is not shying away from the task. But removing a label of poor academic achievement can be as tough as reviving a once-vital port on the Hudson River

A hardscrabble history

Once a hub of commerce and prosperity, this upstate river city was bereft of major industries by the mid-1970s, leaving it worn out and run down.

But in the last decade or so, with its easy rail access to New York City, Hudson has been infused with weekend visitors and dozens of antique stores. Yet challenges abound.

The median household income for the city's 6,000 residents is $24,279. About 25 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. About a third of the school district's population are students of color.

More than half of the middle school's 565 students are eligible for free and reduced lunch, meaning their families are struggling financially.

Recruiting teachers to work in a School in Need of Improvement, let alone getting them to stay, is difficult. The state, according to its latest statistics for Hudson, reported a 27 percent turnover rate of middle-levelteachers with fewer than five years' experience. By comparison, the turnover rate in the nearby Kinderhook Central School District is 10 percent.

"We're really quite different from the districts around here," said interim school superintendent Dave Paciencia. "I think our diversity is our strength. We just have to harness it."

Strategies for improvement

As part of its action plan to boost low ELA test scores in the middle school, the district this year brought Grade 5/6 teacher Lisa Dolan out of the classroom and into the new position of literacy coach.

The role of literacy coach is evolving across the state in schools looking or needing to boost reading and comprehension skills among all students.

Dolan's job is to orchestrate community outreach programs, arrange professional development opportunities for teachers, plan curriculum improvements with teachers, visit classrooms, evaluate state tests and ensure consistent literacy gains schoolwide.

"It's a big effort on the part of a lot of people," Dolan said. "It's just a whole understanding of what a culture of literacy is."

The University at Albany's Center on English Learning and Achievement also is training Hudson Middle School teachers in classroom strategies for literacy achievement.

Teams of ELA teachers now meet every Tuesday and Thursday to brainstorm ways to improve the curriculum.

"It's collaboration that I didn't see happening before," said Dolan. "I get ideas from younger teachers, new teachers and from research."

Teacher Lori Below coordinates Over the Top, an after-school group that focuses on students who teeter on the passing line of state exams. Content is on "areas where the school was lacking," such as editing passages, or main ideas vs. details, she said. Board games teach sequence and context.

"We need the basics: reading, writing, listening and speaking. It's the foundation for life," Below said.

Principal Ryan Groat converted a 40-minute period previously used for study hall or band into an academic enrichment session.

Teachers choose a literacy-based topic, reaching out creatively to small groups of students. In one session, students compared the traits of characters from How I Survived Middle School with those of their own friends.

Dolan and school librarian Kathy Keeler transformed 16 sixth-graders into oral historians, asking them to interview retired volunteer firemen in the nursing home next door as part of a project in their enrichment class.

To prep, students wrote letters introducing themselves and studied turning points in the last century to understand the retirees' lives.

"These are things teachers were always saying they would do if they had the time," said Dolan, who calls the enrichment program "the most poignant part of my teaching."

NYSUT Vice President Maria Neira, who oversees the union's initiatives in education, called these strategies excellent pathways to improve student achievement.

"The educators in Hudson are doing all the right things to help students succeed," she said.

Creating community partners

Hudson's effort to make academic achievement a community — not just a classroom — project is gaining ground.

A recent poetry night was standing room only. The Monday night Hudson School District Community Book Club features guest readers from the community.

On Saturdays, Dolan reads with youngsters at the Hudson Library as part of New York State Council on the Humanities program.

A book club for adults meets occasionally at the Hudson Opera House. A fourth club for teachers is reading Fires in the Middle School Bathroom: Advice from Students.

Last spring, a week of authors workshops included nationally known author Todd Strasser. To raise money for the event, the school district and community hosted barbecues and peddled shakes and fries at McTeachers Night at McDonald's. A community business group called "Investments in Youth" also donated money, as did the Hudson Teachers Association.

"We want to keep going further with the Big Read and literacy programs," said Jack Beyer, the local union's president.

At Hudson High School, where Beyer teaches science, the 21st Century Community Learning Center uses federal funds for after-school classes indolescent literature, journalism, digital photography and fitness.

Pulling in the whole community to get kids to belly up with books is about "raising the next generation," said Below.

At the recent governor's summit on dropout prevention, state Education Commissioner Richard Mills singled out Hudson for its "combination of strong leaders, great teachers and a new curriculum committee."

"The dropout road is closed in Hudson," the commissioner said. So far, not one student has officially dropped out this year, a remarkable achievement for a district that had an 18 percent dropout rate a year ago, well above the state's 11 percent average.

Students considering dropping out now meet with teachers and administrators. Paciencia is lining up business people and clergy to mentor at-risk students.

"That's a lot of attention for a kid who thought no one cared about him," Mills said.

— Liza Frenette