Safer at home: Parents need online learning options

As fears about the continued spread of Covid-19 and the Delta variant circulate throughout the country, the return to in-person learning this fall has become an even more hotly debated issue than before. Many school districts are struggling to revise their back-to-school plans and alleviate parental fears, while continuing to address criticism over the subpar virtual learning many students experienced last year.

Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s updated mask guidelines and recent Covid-19 outbreaks at some K-12 schools are leaving many wondering if it’s possible to keep students and their families safe in the wake of so many unknowns.

In Arkansas, for example, one school district has placed more than 160 students in quarantine after seven students and three staff members tested positive for coronavirus. Despite this, New York City—the nation’s largest school district—is still on track to offer 100 percent in-person schooling, with no remote option available.…Read More

Illinois’ Decatur Public Schools Selects 7 Mindsets for District-wide Implementation

ROSWELL, Ga. – Sept. 1, 2021 – Decatur Public Schools in Decatur, Ill., has selected 7 Mindsets, the leader in online social emotional learning (SEL) solutions, to support the emotional wellbeing of its students and teachers. Starting with the 2021-22 academic year, the 7 Mindsets curriculum will be used throughout the district’s 11 elementary schools, middle school, and two high schools.

The district made its decision after a two-year pilot of three programs. 7 Mindsets was initially implemented in a select number of Decatur’s elementary schools for that pilot project. Users provided feedback on their experience to a student services panel, and administrators conducted a districtwide survey. “From those two, it was decided overwhelmingly that 7 Mindsets would be the program for the district,” said Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning, Jeff Dase.

According to Dase, even teachers who had not used 7 Mindsets in their schools voted for the program. “I guess they were hearing about it from their colleagues,” he said. “So, the majority selected to either stay with 7 Mindsets or move to 7 Mindsets.”…Read More

New Schools in Six States and Internationally Give Students Courses from VHS Learning

Boston – Aug. 30, 2021 – VHS Learning, a nonprofit empowering schools with the industry’s best teacher-led online learning programs, today announced that schools in New Jersey, North Carolina, Wisconsin, South Carolina, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, along with Sierra Leone, are now offering their students access to more than 250 core and elective courses online.

The new partner schools include:

  • American International School of Freetown – Freetown, Sierra Leone
  • Barnstable Academy – Oakland, New Jersey
  • Block Island School – Block Island, Rhode Island
  • JEDI Virtual School – Whitewater, Wisconsin
  • St. Patrick Academy – Providence, Rhode Island
  • Southside Christian School – Simpsonville, South Carolina
  • Stonington High School – Pawcatuck, Connecticut
  • Sugar Creek Charter School – Charlotte, North Carolina

VHS Learning has a distinguished 25-year history of supplementing face-to-face education with quality online learning that provides high school students expanded curriculum offerings. Currently, the nonprofit serves students in 66 countries and 46 states, offering hundreds of unique online courses, including 24 AP® offerings, innovative STEM programs, and a wide variety of unique electives.…Read More

3 technologies needed for remote learning

As everyone spends the summer preparing for a new school year, many are preparing for virtual options to stick around post pandemic. In a recent survey conducted by Instructure, two-thirds of the educators surveyed believe remote learning will impact classroom practices in the future. But what will this future look like, exactly?

A recent survey of districts estimated 56 percent of schools will offer a remote learning option in the fall. One of the biggest lessons this past school year taught us was that educators teaching students online and in-person at the same time is typically not a successful teaching model. Moving forward, many districts offering a virtual option are planning to have virtual teachers solely with virtual students, while teachers back in their regular classrooms will only teach in-person students.

In this same survey, 89 percent of teachers said they taught online for the very first time during the pandemic. So as districts ask teachers to volunteer to switch to remote teaching, there are technology considerations to get in place this summer to help make teaching virtually this coming school year a success.  …Read More

Improving in-class special education with positives from online learning

As schools, parents, and students across the country prepare for school re-entry, many are celebrating a return to the classroom. There is no shortage of studies and expert opinions stating that the majority of students learn better in-person. But, for the many students who are looking forward with hope to a September where class happens in a room rather than through a screen, there are also a significant number of students who thrived in online instruction and are nervous about losing the confidence they found in a new modality of learning.

Special education teams know this because they have always been focused on ensuring that schools find the best ways to serve and support all students, not just those in the majority or who fit the norm. For many of the students who need special accommodations, introducing technology into learning has been nothing short of revolutionary.

Many students have thrived…Read More

PresenceLearning Expands Leadership Team

NEW YORK, August 17, 2021 – PresenceLearning, the leading provider of live online special education related services and behavioral and mental health services for K-12 schools nationwide, has made two key additions to the leadership team. The company has hired Louisa Balach as President, Therapy Essentials Platform, and has promoted Shanelle Reese to become the company’s first Chief People Officer.

The creation of the Chief People Officer role signifies the importance of people at the center of the company’s culture and strategy. With the rapid growth of the business in FY21 came significant growth in employee teams to support and ensure great service to schools and students. In this role Reese will lead all employee-focused aspects of the organization, including employee experience, talent acquisition, diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, learning and development, and internal communications. In her previous role as Vice President of People, Reese led PresenceLearning’s organization-wide commitment to diverse hiring practices, driving significant strides in representation across all teams, with 74% of PL employees female and 36% non-white. Additionally the company has added employee programming including company-wide unconscious bias training, COVID-related programming and broader resources to support employees.

The creation of the role of President, Therapy Essentials Platform marks an exciting step in the development of the company’s software as a service therapy platform offering. The offering has experienced rapid growth as school districts turn to Therapy Essentials to expand the capacity of their special education teams to serve their students remotely, and to provide clinicians with flexible ways to innovate and grow their practices. With the recent launch of Therapy Essentials for Individual and Group Practices, even more clinicians will be able to access the PresenceLearning platform. Under Balach’s leadership, the company will continue to innovate its therapy platform with a mission to provide the ultimate suite of online tools to support the work of speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, mental health professionals and other clinicians.…Read More

Mississippi Approves Classworks® as Evidence-Based Academic Intervention

Aug 12, 2021- Duluth, GA – Classworks®, a best-in-class online intervention solution, is one of the first programs approved as an evidence-based intervention by the Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) Office of Student Intervention Services. The comprehensive MTSS solution joins Classworks Universal Screener in the company’s MDE-approved offerings.

MDE’s Office of Intervention Services solicited a request for qualifications for a new, evidence-based academic interventions list of programs that address the needs for students in Tier II and Tier III, and support students learning face-to-face, virtual, or in hybrid learning environments. The purpose of the list is to provide Mississippi districts with state-approved, evidence-based interventions that include effective instructional strategies and research-based teaching methodologies.

“Classworks has been supporting Mississippi educators and students for over 15 years, and we’re excited to see our evidence-based solution added to their approved interventions list. This year, more than ever, districts need simple but effective MTSS processes,” says Melissa Sinunu, Classworks president and COO. “Teachers must address unfinished learning as well as larger populations of students in Tiers II and III. Classworks’ streamlined intervention program supports teachers with identifying deficits, providing the right interventions, monitoring progress, and addressing students’ social and emotional learning needs.”
Classworks’ streamlined intervention program supports teachers with identifying deficits, providing the right interventions, monitoring progress, and addressing students’ social and emotional learning needs.”…Read More

Slooh Launches New Grant to Help One Million Students Explore Space Using Its Robotic Telescopes

Washington Depot, Connecticut, August 19, 2021 – Slooh, the only organization offering live online telescope feeds of amazing astronomical events to students, is launching The Slooh Space Exploration Grant for the 2021-2022 school year. The grant is being provided with the goal of helping one million students nationwide experience the wonder of space from their classroom and home computers.

The rolling grant will provide one teacher per every accredited public school in the United States with access to the Slooh interface, robust professional development, and 40 student seats which will enable students to use robotic telescopes to view space phenomena, capture observational data, and engage in gamified learning.  

“Space exploration is a powerful – and truly magnificent – way for students to build their scientific knowledge and practices, while tying celestial phenomena to STEAM concepts,” said Michael Paolucci, founder of Slooh. “Our new grant provides an equitable opportunity for students across the country to reap the benefits of space exploration as they become well-informed citizens and 21st century thinkers.”…Read More

Reading Plus Approved As An Education Technology Products And Services Vendor For Chicago Public Schools

WINOOSKI, Vt. (August 16, 2021) – Reading Plus, an evidence-based online program that uses personalized instruction to improve students’ reading proficiency, today announced its approval as an education technology products and services vendor for Chicago Public Schools (CPS). The three-year contract offers school administrators in 638 schools across CPS the opportunity to select Reading Plus as an accessible and engaging instruction and intervention solution that supports in-person and virtual learning.

Reading Plus is an adaptive literacy program that is used by more than 1 million students across the country. It develops comprehension, fluency, stamina, vocabulary, and motivation to read in students—including Tiers 1-3 and multilingual learners—and improves reading proficiency by 2.0-2.5 grade levels in a single school year when used with fidelity.

“It’s incredible to partner with one of the largest school districts in the United States to help foster literacy growth for students,” said Steven Guttentag, CEO, Reading Plus. “We look forward to working with educators within CPS to further build skills and nurture student growth, success, and above all, a love of reading.”

Reading Plus holds the highest Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) evidence of effectiveness ranking—level one for “strong evidence”—illustrating a statistically significant effect on improving student outcomes. In 2020, the program doubled its content library to over 2,500 engaging and diverse selections to provide students with meaningful representation and culturally responsive texts as they grow into global, lifelong learners.…Read More

Multiplying the impact of math catch-up

Elementary school education is accumulative, building on whatever instruction came during the prior grade. One year you’re learning polynomials, the next how to graph them, while social studies gradually becomes more nuanced and comprehensive. So, what happens when a break occurs in the educational track? Across the nation, despite teachers’ best efforts, students are suffering from the impact of a year of online learning, and it’s crucial to recoup that lost training and engagement before the chance is lost forever.

Unfortunately, for many children, the turbulence and uncertainty of the past 18 months have resulted in a lack of excitement around studying and learning more generally.  Studies point to a condition called “math anxiety” in young students, which hampers their abilities and ultimately discourages them from pursuing STEM subjects and related careers. A short break in a student’s learning can be a disproportionate blow to their education.

It is not only the break from classroom learning that is impacting math anxiety, but also the pressure to catch up that is putting children through more stress.…Read More

Classworks® Progress Monitoring receives Top ratings from NCII

DULUTH, GA. — AUGUST 12, 2021 — Classworks®, best-in-class online intervention solution, received the highest ratings in validity and reliability from the National Center on Intensive Intervention (NCII) for progress monitoring in both reading and math. Classworks Progress Monitoring assessments join the Classworks Universal Screener reading and math assessments in the company’s NCII-validated offerings.

“We are excited to see Classworks Progress Monitoring added to our portfolio of NCII-validated intervention resources. Progress monitoring is a crucial component of an effective MTSS process, but is often a labor intensive process for teachers. We set out to provide an evidence-based tool that is user friendly for both teachers and students. Teachers can confidently make decisions about students’ interventions knowing that Classworks Progress Monitoring data is accurate and reliable,” Melissa Sinunu, Classworks President & COO.

Classworks Progress Monitoring tracks the overall effectiveness of a student’s intervention using easy-to-administer Curriculum-based Measurement (CBM) probes. The probes are brief and assess the student at their grade level in areas beyond basic fluency. Teachers have immediate access to scoring and automated skills analyses, including rate of improvement graphing and recommendations.…Read More