First and foremost, I hope this announcement finds all of you healthy and safe during these unprecedented times? I fully realize, and can empathize, that having your schools closed for such an extended period of time has created new found angst and stress as you work so hard to adapt to teaching and supporting your students from home. Nonetheless, despite your best efforts, the following real-world factors suggest an academic slide for many students is inevitable: truancy (21% national estimate, EdWeek), limited or no access to technology, an inability to provide differentiated, small-group instruction, and no funding for summer school programs. With academic regression being forecasted notably for our most vulnerable, diverse learners (B. Tarasawa and M. Kuhfeld, 2020), it is critical that teachers and support staff begin preparing now to develop the knowledge base and instructional tool kits to intensify their instruction in hopes of helping these students to catch up. To help and support you as you contemplate this incredibly important task, I am pleased to announce the availability of an on-line Professional Development Series entitled: Intensifying Instructional Supports for Students with Specific Skill Deficits in the areas of Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Fluency, Vocabulary, and Comprehension. In addition to this exciting, timely workshop opportunity, I am also available to work with grade-level teams to help them develop Recommended Instructional Support (RIS) cards as a means of digitally sharing pertinent academic information about their students with the teachers who will be receiving them in the Fall. If interested in these PD offerings, please have a building or district leader contact me asap. In the meantime, stay strong and stay safe!!!
A DATA ANALYSIS & REPORTING SYSTEM BUILT BY TEACHERS FOR TEACHERS
Since the original Launch in 2007, the IDEAL team has worked closely with building leaders, teachers, and specialists to develop a system that would make data-based decision making manageable for all educators. The end result is a "performance" system which guides and supports today's busy educators as they use a streamlined approach for producing reports, tables, and charts to summarize students' academic and social/emotional/behavioral growth across time.
SPS works seamlessly with numerous, standardized universal screening & progress monitoring measures, including:
SPS was not built to be a data warehouse or information receptacle whereas users have difficulty accessing and/or making sense of important student information. Rather, SPS offers educators an interactive interface which will allow them to make timely, meaningful, educational decisions about their students.
For example, SPS facilitates the process of (a) allocating services within a Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS), (b) determining responsiveness to universal, strategic, and/or intensive instruction, (c) developing and monitoring specific, measurable, relevant student goals, and (d) determining entitlement for special education services.
In addition, SPS allows teachers and specialists a user-friendly platform for using research-based normative growth rates to examine student learning as a component of an educator evaluation platform.
No local hosting or applications to install
Some systems charge a per user fee
Role-based user accounts can be set up to give access to a variety of classroom configurations across grade levels (if needed) and schools (Central Administrators only)
Our customers give us feedback and recommendations, and then we act upon them to develop and release new features throughout the school year. Our customers truly have a voice in determining system updates and enhancements.
Progress monitoring informs daily instruction
System is cloud based and updates are seamlessly integrated
Generate reports and graphic displays to make meaningful education decisions in a timely manner
We pride ourselves on our technical support. Our friendly and knowledgeable staff have not only been trained to administer, score, and interpret all measures stored within SPS, but they have actually worked in schools helping with universal screening and progress monitoring initiatives.
SPS allows educators access to an effective, efficient approach when producing reports, tables, and charts to best summarize student's academic and social/emotional/behavioral growth across time.
Years in Production
Schools
Users
Test Records in SPS Database