What Jennifer found in STARI was an intervention that didn't ask students to check their identity at the door. The texts were close enough to grade level that students were willing to read them. The topics were relevant to their lives. And the structure, built around partner work, peer discussion, and debate, kept students engaged in ways that isolated skill drills couldn't.

"They have a real book, not something that's beneath them," she said. "And they have a sense of accomplishment because they've actually read books at the end of this intervention."

That last point matters more than it might seem. For a student who has struggled with reading for years, finishing a book is not a small thing. It's evidence, maybe for the first time, that they can do it.

After 11 years as a principal, Jennifer became Superintendent of Community School District 8 in the Bronx, overseeing 36 schools. She brought STARI with her, but she knew from experience that the program would only work if it was built into the school day, not bolted on top of it.

Her solution was a district-wide "strategic reading period," a dedicated literacy block, separate from core ELA instruction, where every student in grades 4 through 8 engages in either intervention or enrichment work depending on their assessment data. STARI fits squarely into the intervention tier.

"It can't be an extra thing," she said. "It can't add more burden to a teacher. This is part of the curriculum."

To make that work at scale, Jennifer activated everyone. Classroom teachers across certification areas teach during the strategic reading period. Paraprofessionals are trained. Community members are brought in to support classrooms alongside certified teachers. The goal is to bring class sizes down and make sure no student falls through the cracks, without overloading any one teacher or specialist.

Perhaps the most striking thing Jennifer shared wasn't a strategy, it was a question she asks every leader who works with her.

"What is your number?"

In District 8, her number is 6,012. That's how many students across the district are not reading on grade level. It's the number she tracks after every benchmark and screener assessment, watching for evidence that the work is having an impact.

"What is your number, and what is your why?" she asks her principals. For Jennifer, the answer is clear: teaching students to read is a moral imperative, not a program initiative, not a compliance requirement, but a fundamental obligation to the young people in her schools.

"If students are coming to your middle school and they're not reading on grade level, it is our moral imperative to teach them how to read."

After more than 15 years working with STARI, first as a principal, now as a superintendent, Jennifer's core insight is this: middle school students who struggle with reading need both the foundational skills and the experience of success. They need decoding and fluency. They need comprehension and discussion. And they need to feel, at the end of an intervention block, that they are readers.

STARI, she argues, is one of the few programs that delivers all of it, in a setting small enough for students to let their guard down, practice without embarrassment, and start climbing.

"When an adolescent learner has that sense of accomplishment, they're going to continue climbing up that ladder for success."