Illinois’ Geneva School District 304 Renews Longterm Partnership with Discovery Education Supporting Science Education

Charlotte, NC — Illinois’ Geneva School District 304 (Geneva CUSD 304) today announced it has renewed its multi-year partnership with Discovery Education supporting science education in grades K-5 through the year 2026. This continued collaboration ensures K-5 students and teachers districtwide will continue enjoying access to Discovery Education’s award-winning Mystery Science service, which is helping drive deeper engagement in science instruction. Discovery Education is the worldwide edtech leader whose state-of-the-art digital platform supports instruction wherever it takes place. 

Each day, Geneva CUSD 304’s teachers, administrators, and staff seek to educate the nearly 5,500 students they serve within an environment that encourages the desire to learn and meets the unique academic, personal, physical, and social needs of each child. In 2016, district educators selected Mystery Science to support hands-on elementary science instruction and foster within each student a love of science. Today, Mystery Science continues to fulfill that mission as it helps district students develop into complex, creative thinkers. 

Mystery Science, which joined the family of Discovery Education services in 2020 and is a winner of SIIA’s Best Science Instructional Solution CODiE Award for Grades PK-8, provides K-5 educators simple-to-use, open-and-go, hands-on lessons that inspire students to love science. Each lesson begins by posing a question commonly asked by young students. Students then explore these questions through interactive videos featuring real-world visuals fostering a sense of wonder and actively supporting student engagement in the accompanying discussion prompts.  …Read More

Let’s perfect existing tech solutions before rushing into AI

ChatGPT is barely six months old, but AI is already a buzzword in K-12 education.

It grabbed the attention of decision makers immediately, earning a ban from NYC schools in January of 2023, with other large districts following. Others are embracing the technology, with voices like Sal Khan encouraging educators to teach with AI.

As school leaders rush to take sides, it’s important to remember AI is unproven and unvetted, especially for school and district-level solutions. Instead, it’s critical for leaders to realize that most schools can greatly improve how they manage critical daily functions using existing, effective, and easy-to-implement technology.…Read More

Lightspeed Systems’ New ‘Digital Equity’ Module Provides Actionable Insight Into Students’ Internet Connectivity And School-Issued Device Health When Learning Outside of School

AUSTIN, TX –  Lightspeed Systems, the leader in safe, secure and equitable education technology, announces  Digital Equity—a module that provides robust and real-time connectivity and device health data on students’ school-issued devices. Digital Equity helps school and district leaders understand the challenges students experience while trying to study outside of school so they can ensure all students stay connected to learning. 

According to the  2022 Student Home Connectivity Study from the Consortium for School Networking (COSN), gaps remain nationwide in network performance and internet speeds at all grade levels for students connecting from outside a school, with approximately one-third of high school students experiencing “Far Below” or “Below Guidelines” for connectivity from home. In addition, large disparities exist among student subgroups, particularly by ethnicity and socioeconomically disadvantaged students.  

Empowering school and district leaders, Digital Equity provides a complete, real-time view of each student’s school-issued devices, including a device’s overall health, operating system, internet speed, service provider and more. Leaders can drill-down into specific data on each individual student and their devices, as well as view overall district-wide usage to help identify local communities that need additional support and resources. Digital Equity is customizable, giving leaders the option to turn on specific data and usage stats.  …Read More

How our district improved a 5 percent attendance rate

Here at Eagle Pass Independent School District, we’re right on the border of the United States and Mexico. Approximately 95 percent of our students are Hispanic, and most of them speak Spanish. Ours is a tight-knit community where many people live next door to family members, which is wonderful, but it also brought some challenges during the pandemic.

COVID just kept cycling through the community over and over again, and it was common to hear people talking about how they’d had it a half dozen times. The number of people who died in our community was heartbreaking, and it scared a lot of people. The New York Times even published a story in August of 2020 about the high rate of new infections here.

When we returned to completely in-person schooling, families didn’t want to send their students back to school. They were scared, and they didn’t understand why we couldn’t do another year of virtual school. …Read More

3 ways MDM helps fight school cyberattacks

Last September, the Los Angeles Unified School District was hit by a ransomware attack at the start of the new school year. The second-largest educational district in the country, with more than 600,000 students and 25,000 employees, had its email taken offline and other internal systems affected by the cyberattack. When the district chose not to pay the ransom, sensitive employee data was posted online. While this attack may seem extraordinary because of its size and scope, digital security breaches like this are happening at educational institutions across the country. And school districts need to take defensive action against cyberattacks now before it’s too late.

With school districts across the U.S. being targeted by cyberattacks, the need for robust, cost-effective cybersecurity support is not just important–it’s now considered essential. But many local governments and educational institutions remain unprepared for this type of active threat. A recent report by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on the K-12 school cybersecurity landscape found that close to 50 percent of the school districts in the country have neither the staff nor the budget to adequately protect their IT infrastructure.  

As schools look for solutions to bridge this security gap, one easy and cost-effective method they should consider is the adoption of mobile device management (MDM) platforms. A small number of schools are currently using this solution to their advantage. This includes public schools like the Interboro School District in Prospect Park, PA, which employs MDM to manage a fleet of iPads used to supplement classroom instruction. Interboro uses MDM to ensure the tablets are secure and functioning properly, the students using them are staying safe online, and the costs associated with maintaining the devices are minimized.…Read More

Carousel Cloud Scales with Indianapolis School District for K-12 Communications

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA The Metropolitan School District (MSD) of Washington Township in Indianapolis is midway through a district-wide Carousel Cloud digital signage network deployment that will eventually reach more than 11,500 students and staff in eight elementary schools, three middle schools and one high school plus a career and technical center. The district reports 70 screens are live today with Carousel digital signage content coming from multiple contributors per school, with approximately 150 screens expected upon completion.

The Carousel Cloud deployment coincides with a district-wide remodeling project that includes the school district’s Central Campus, home to North Central High School, Northview Middle School and the J Everett Light Career Center. The district has adopted a “one school at a time” rollout strategy that helps its technology specialists effectively train staff before using the system. 

“We wanted to implement a digital signage network that invites many contributors, and that means the system has to be easy to learn and easy to use,” said Matthew Whitt, Audio Video Specialist – Technology, MSD of Washington Township. “We also wanted software that could be flexible for the needs of different education levels. With Carousel, each grade has a unique channel with its own voice.”…Read More

3 key parts of this district’s student mental health support

The data is clear: Our students are in the midst of a mental health crisis. A survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that one in three high school students experienced poor mental health during the pandemic, and nearly half of all students felt persistently hopeless.

We’re now seeing the ripple effects of three years of education disruptions and seismic shifts in learning structures, which underscore the vital importance of caring for the whole student. Our students’ difficulties mirror the increasing anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation that teens nationwide are experiencing. Over the past two years, Tempe Union High School District has centered its focus on prioritizing student mental health. Here’s how we did it–and what we’ve learned.

Leveraging the power of student voices…Read More

6 ways to transform district communications with tech

When I joined our district in 2021, I was asked to review its overall communications and ensure that we were communicating effectively both with our families and with the surrounding community. Across our 13 schools, it was immediately apparent that our current platform wasn’t meeting expectations.

That platform didn’t have the features and resources we needed to be able to reach our communication goals. We started looking for a better option by researching online and speaking with other districts about what they were using.

Through that exercise, we learned about ParentSquare and decided to implement it. Here are six ways that our new approach to communications has transformed our district:…Read More

Carnegie Learning Adds Multilingual Math and Literacy Tutors in Gadsden ISD

Pittsburgh, PA – Carnegie Learning, a leader in K-12 education innovation, high-quality products and services, and AI, announced today that the company has added new multilingual and bilingual certified math and literacy instructors to the high-dosage tutoring team in Gadsden County, New Mexico, to meet the needs of students in the state’s fourth-largest school district.

“It’s gratifying to see improvements in student proficiency and attendance as well as increasing parent participation in the Gadsden Independent School District (ISD),” said Courtney Lewis, Vice President of Tutoring Services at Carnegie Learning. “The results are impressive. We have been able to fulfill 100% of the requests from students and families in Gadsden ISD who requested a bilingual tutor. We’ve also appointed a bilingual tutor as a liaison to answer questions from families in their native language. Families have a direct dial number to call the liaison directly for support.” 

Lewis recently presented a webinar on how to partner with a high-dosage tutoring provider to launch an effective summer school program.…Read More

New Mexico’s Middle College High School Selects Discovery Education’s Pivot Interactives to Support Student Science Explorations

Charlotte, NC —New Mexico’s Middle College High School, a public charter school within Gallup-McKinley County Public School District, today announced it has selected Discovery Education’s innovative digital resources to support student science explorations. In this new collaboration, Discovery Education’s Pivot Interactives will help students in the school’s high school physics class more deeply engage with phenomena and other scientific concepts as they develop their understanding of the discipline. Discovery Education is the worldwide edtech leader whose state-of-the-art digital platform supports learning wherever it takes place. 

Located in Gallup, New Mexico, the mission of Middle College High School (MCHS) is to provide an innovative and high-quality individualized learning environment for a distinct set of students. Operated in partnership with University of New Mexico-Gallup, MCHS provides a seamless educational continuum that benefits students as they move from high school to their post-secondary goals. MCHS is increasing student involvement in postsecondary education by emphasizing service to students of diverse backgrounds who are normally underrepresented at the local, regional, and national levels. 

MCHS’s leaders sought a new suite of high-quality, standards-aligned digital resources that could quickly be integrated into instruction and were adaptable enough to meet the needs of students’ varying learning styles. Following a careful review of potential solutions, school administrators selected Discovery Education’s Pivot Interactives for use in both middle and high school classrooms. …Read More

3 ways a cloud-based ERP helps schools innovate

As school districts emerge from the worst of COVID-19, they’re bringing with them new priorities. Many of the changes that districts have made during the pandemic, such as giving employees the flexibility to work remotely, will be carried forward. Other processes are being reevaluated to serve the needs of students and other stakeholders more effectively.

In looking to update everything from teaching and learning processes to school district operations, one of the most basic steps that K-12 leaders can take to position their schools for success is updating their education resource planning (ERP) solution by moving to a cloud-based system.

We can’t really talk about modernizing and streamlining district operations without discussing ERPs. An ERP is the backbone of a district’s operations, helping administrators manage essential financial functions related to payroll, HR, accounting, and more.…Read More

Adapting to the ChatGPT era in education

ChatGPT has rapidly begun to infiltrate K-12 classrooms nationwide. A recent survey by study.com found that nearly 90 percent of students admitted to using OpenAI’s chatbot in some home-related capacity, and more than 25 percent of teachers have already caught a student cheating using the chatbot.

The propensity for students to use ChatGPT to cheat has raised concern amongst educators and even prompted several school districts, ranging from New York City Public Schools to the Los Angeles Unified School District, to issue a ban of the chatbot. However, cheating with ChatGPT is just a symptom of a larger problem in education: a focus on rote memorization and regurgitation of information.

The cheating-related concerns are warranted, but many appear to overlook a key point: students opting to cheat on homework, essays, or exams is not a new phenomenon. Companies like Chegg have become multi-billion dollar platforms, which is mainly attributable to students seeking on-demand access to textbook and exam answers. Before ChatGPT was publicly available, the International Center for Academic Integrity found that 95 percent of high schoolers participated in some form of cheating.…Read More