AR: Literacy Curriculum (Little Rock School District, Department of Procurement)

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act, I hereby request the following records:

1. Any financial records, such as an income-and-expense statement, that detail every transaction since July 1, 2012, related to payments for the following entities:

a. Heinemann (sometimes also referred to as Greenwood Publishing Group)
b. Literacy Collaborative (a program associated with several universities, including the Ohio State University and Lesley University)
c. Fountas & Pinnell LLC
d. Gay Su Pinnell LLC
e. Teachers College Reading and Writing Project (sometimes also abbreviated as TCRWP)
f. Reading & Writing Project Network LLC
g. Lucy Calkins LLC

Please include the date, accounting codes, expense description, and the funding source for each transaction, along with any other information that's available.

2. Any district evaluations completed since July 1, 2012 about schools’ use of the following products:

a. Units of Study for Teaching Reading
b. Units of Study in Opinion, Information, and Narrative Writing
c. Units of Study in Phonics
d. Teachers College Reading and Writing Project Classroom Libraries
e. Fountas & Pinnell Classroom
f. Fountas & Pinnell Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study System
g. Leveled Literacy Intervention
h. Benchmark Assessment System

These reports may include employee or parent surveys, test-score or other data analysis, or academic literature reviews.

The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes. Our reporting will help families understand which reading programs are used in their schools and other schools nationwide and what effect they are having.

In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would also prefer the request be filled electronically. Please provide records in a machine-readable electronic format, preferably by email or file-transfer.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 3 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Nicole Kanu, a citizen of Arkansas, in coordination with Christopher Peak.

Hello,

Please see attached. Thank you for your help with this request!

Thank you so much for getting this document together so quickly! I had two questions: Just to clarify, were you able to search back to 2012, the date from my request? I couldn't tell if there were no transactions prior to 2017 or if the financial system wasn't able to go back that far? And are you able to export this vendor report into a spreadsheet? We'd like to have that to make sure we're using the right numbers. Thanks again for all your help!

Perfect, this is exactly what I was looking for! Thanks again!