BY MATTHEW E. MILLIKEN

mmilliken@heraldsun.com; 419-6684

DURHAM -- Irate parents blasted school administrators Thursday evening for their handling of a reading curriculum that has upset some teachers. The comments, expressing public sentiments that flared up in e-mail exchanges this week, prompted Durham Superintendent Carl Harris and other officials to say that the program is misunderstood.

"The literacy initiative has been presented and is being implemented in a very top-down fashion, which is having a very chilling effect on teachers and classrooms," Marty Ramirez, a Forest View Elementary School teacher and also the parent of two Club Boulevard Elementary School students, said during the school board's public comment period. "The district surprised us all last week with the announcement that this year we would all be required to utilize the adopted basal reader and accompanying materials virtually exclusively, and to implement the literacy program within a rigidly prescribed schedule."

"Curriculum change implemented four days before the start of school is simply destructive," charged Ann Rebeck, parent of two Club Boulevard students.

"What they have now put is place is to education what junk food is to nutrition," speaker Jean-Christian Rostagni said. He asserted that this measure along with others implemented in the wake of the 2002 federal No Child Left Behind law is driving middle-class families to private schools, to the detriment of public education.

District officials sought to assure the public that the system is trying to act in the best interests of students.

Harris and Terri Mozingo, Durham's chief academic officer, said that the Reading Street curriculum does allow teachers to use a variety of books, not just a narrowly prescribed list. And contrary to assertions, Mozingo said, social studies and other topics are not being crowded out by Reading Street.

Teachers are also welcome to teach Reading Street principles differently from one another, as long as the program's core standards are implemented by everyone.

"It doesn't mean you're going to walk into a classroom and see everybody doing the same thing," Mozingo said in an interview after the meeting.

"There seems to be quite a bit of communications breakdown," Harris acknowledged during the meeting. He noted that administrators met Thursday afternoon with staff at Club Boulevard, which has been a center of discontent over the curriculum.

Harris invited concerned parents to come to Club Boulevard today at 10 a.m. to discuss the matter. And Mozingo said concerned parties within or without the district are welcome to discuss issues with their principals or district administrators.

The Reading Street curriculum was adopted by the district in 2006, but Mozingo could not say Thursday how many Durham elementary schools were using it widely.

The district has revamped its approach to literacy teaching this year, jettisoning the Reading Recovery program and hiring coaches at all schools to improve how educators teach reading. Many of the changes followed a recent consultants' evaluation that criticized Durham schools for inconsistent literacy teaching methods.