CHAPEL HILL - The Chapel Hill-Carrboro Board of Eduction unanimously identified iteracy and intervention prevention plans as top district priorities at its meeting last Thursday.

The board named 11 district priorities for the 2010-11 academic year. The list includes product-based learning, culturally responsive practices, intervention prevention plans, pathways to high school graduation, literacy, year-round calendar, student uniforms, assessment, technology, teacher evaluation, and the 2011-12 budget.

The board went on to identify five "bolded priorities" from that list. In addition to intervention prevention plans and literacy - which was divided into two separate goals of implementation and evaluation - the board also listed a year-round calendar (or extended instructional time) and the 2011-12 budget as top priorities.

"Literacy, for me, is the number one priority," said board member Michelle Brownstein. "Literacy is the crack in the foundation."

Preliminary initial results of end-of-grade testing showed flat rates for reading proficiency across the district, with drops for some students.

"I feel like there is a critical piece missing," Brownstein said. "For me, looking at those numbers in reading - they aren't acceptable."

During budget deliberations, the board voted to approve an additional $70,000 from the fund balance to help execute the board's literacy goals.

Board members were split over other priorities.

Board chairman Mike Kelley proposed that the district study the possibility of a year-round calendar, though he conceded that the cost of such a proposal might be prohibitive and suggested that simply extending instructional time for some students might be acceptable at this time.

Kelley noted that many schools that have had success with underperforming students have increased the instructional time for those students.

"I think our district is ready to look at year-round schools, but we want to look at the evidence first," said board member Jamezetta Bedford.

Board members also talked about other non-traditional approaches to improving academic success, including looking at how the social and academic environment at the schools affects achievement, and how the implementation of school uniforms might affect that climate.

Board member Annetta Streater said secondary schools have seen a deterioration of positive elements that affect academic success, character and level of student engagement.

She said that she wanted the board to study how the district can level the field for children so that their interactions don't hinder their academic progress.

One way to do that, she said, might be uniforms.

"The uniforms could possibly be a strategy to improve school climate," she said. But she stressed that she wanted to first study how that climate could be changed, noting that uniforms could emerge as one solution.

The board later incorporated the school uniform issue into district's "culturally responsive practices" priority.