Edsby uniquely enables many of the goals of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding available to U.S. school districts
COVID-19 has revealed long-standing needs and inequities within K-12, but it’s also offered an opportunity to reimagine teaching and learning. Unprecedented funding for education in the U.S. is enabling states, local education agencies, and individual schools to invest in the infrastructure, technology, and evidence-based programs that will advance equity, accelerate learning, better support student mental health and well being, and improve outcomes for all students.
Edsby: a single platform supporting many ESSER goals
The Edsby social learning environment puts connections between people at the center of K-12 education. It enables in-person, hybrid, and online learning with rich communication between students, teachers, and families all in a single platform designed to support K-12 student success. For more than 10 years, school districts, states, and countries have used Edsby to streamline and manage student well being, classroom management, learning management, assessment and reporting, and learning analytics.
Edsby advances several of the top priorities of ESSER and the long-term strategic goals of districts and schools. Here’s how…
- In Edsby, teachers can make and deliver summative and formative assessments, include observations, and capture formative learning evidence in notes, pictures and videos to help determine a student’s or class’ progress. Observations and evidence can be shared with other teachers and parents.
- Advanced learning management makes teaching and teachers more efficient, getting students what they need, how they need it, when they need it.
- Learning analytics built into Edsby enable educators—in real time—to uncover trends in achievement data and identify at-risk students across an individual school, group of schools, or a whole school district.
- Using Edsby, students can select from age-appropriate icons to share how they’re feeling with their teacher(s) so they can take action to help students be ready to succeed.
- Research-based strategies are provided to help students learn to regulate their emotions and help educators take supportive action.
- Informed by an exclusive relationship with MindUP, an evidence-based non-profit program designed to improve children’s emotional well-being that is aligned with current SEL research and accredited by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL).
- Edsby creates an inclusive social environment that draws families into school life which is a critical component of advancing equity.
- Teachers can engage families in safe, meaningful communication to support their students’ learning and achievement, with learning evidence curated by students themselves or by their teachers, depending on grade level.
- Educators with the right access can access everything relating to a child’s education, such as current grades, attendance, progress reports, learning evidence, IEPs, portfolios, alerts, teacher observations, and more.
- Comprehensive, integrated tools in Edsby to facilitate, support, and enrich the complex interactions between students, families, educators, learning resources, and more.
- Edsby becomes a single, central location for all academic and social-emotional behavior information across a district, making it easier for educators and policy makers to access and act on everything having to do with student success.
Other ways Edsby addresses the most important uses of funds allowed under ESSER
- Providing mental health services and supports.
- Addressing learning loss among students, including low-income students, students with disabilities, English learners, racial and ethnic minorities, students experiencing homelessness, and children in foster care, including by:
- Administering and using high-quality assessments that are valid and reliable to accurately track students’ academic progress and assist educators in meeting students’ needs, including through differentiating instruction.
- Implementing evidence-based activities to meet the comprehensive needs of students.
- Providing information and assistance to parents and families on how they can effectively support their children, including during distance learning.
- Tracking student attendance and improving student engagement during distance learning.
- Providing principals and other school leaders with resources to address the unique needs of their individual schools.
- Supporting activities to address the unique needs of low-income children or students, children with disabilities, English learners, racial and ethnic minorities, students experiencing homelessness, and foster care youth.
- Purchasing educational technology for students served by the LEA that aids in regular and substantive educational interactions between students and their classroom teachers, including low-income students and children with disabilities.