| State: California | Number of Students: 2,976 |
| School Type: Charter Management Organization | Free and Reduced Lunch: 77.3% |
| Grade Level: K-8 | English Language Learners: 39.8% |
School Context
This is a highly reputable charter school network with a neighborhood focus. They support six different schools and a total of 2,700 students. 90% of students qualify for free and reduced lunch and 40-60% are English Language Learners. The network has implemented a blended learning model across all their schools, with things like station rotation in ELA and Math.
State of Technology
Their school supports a number of English language learners, particularly newcomers to the United States who are struggling to learn English. They would like to be able to support these students with more direct instruction, but they do not have specialists to deliver intervention all the time. They would like to support these students with a software during station rotation time, 30-60 min per week with fluency skills. The tool should help them practice and improve their english skills, particularly comprehension, speaking and reading skills. Ideally there is a formative assessment that creates a learning path and students can work independently on the tool.
Currently, they have no software they use. Each student is designated to have English language development time with teachers. Last year, they did a pilot with 20 students on Imagine Learning at the Middle School. Imagine Learning supplemented their time on Reading Plus. However, they choose not to move forward with the company because it was not fully web-based, data reporting was unclear and our students had difficulty accessing the tool. In general, students thought the content was ok.
Tech Needs & Requirements
Teachers have limited capacity to engage in the tool. Often times, they even have limited capacity to look at the data. The tool should guide the student and be self sufficient.
The tool must be web based. The school offers Chromebooks. Ratios vary by site. They have 1:1 in some schools, but never anything lower than 3:1. The school would like to be able to track data and celebrate it. They need to know how a student is progressing and how they are making progress toward a certain goal. So some teacher dashboard or view of progress is important. Data should be reflective of their performance, not just time on the tool. Also having usage data is important. They want students to set goals before they use the tools and then track their progress toward those goals. They want the ability to export data data across all schools who use the tool. CSV exports are highly preferable. The school prefers the tool to integrate with Clever. The tool must be web based.