Utica Schools CSI Spotlighted in Digital Promise

District Spotlight: Utica Community Schools
In 2011, a confluence of factors led Utica Community Schools to rethink how it offered full-day kindergarten. First, Michigan incentivized school districts to offer full-day kindergarten. At the time, Christine Johns, the superintendent of Utica Community Schools, knew national online assessments were coming in the 2014-15 school year. And in a community hit hard by the recession, she knew a recent voter-backed bond issuance that included technology funds may be the last she would see for several years. So she decided to seize the opportunity and redesign how her district’s youngest students learn.

Planning began in January of 2012 and by the fall, all 83 kindergarten classrooms, representing nearly 2,000 students, moved to an ambitious blended learning model in reading and math. Within the classroom, students move from laptops, to iPads, to interactive whiteboards, to collaborative small-group learning, to one-on-one time with a teacher. The teacher assigns students based on their learning styles, while software vendors like DreamBox and eSpark personalize curriculum and teachers work with small groups and those who need it most. While it’s still early, mid-year academic achievement data suggests the program is having an impact. According to results on the Northwest Evaluation Association MAP for Primary Grades, 32 percent of students are now ready for first grade, compared to 10 percent in the fall; 56 percent are at grade level, compared to 44 percent in the fall.

 

Utica retained its teaching staff during the transition and, in close cooperation with its software providers, conducted significant professional development during the summer and school year. Plans are to move the kindergarten model into additional grades as the inaugural cohort progresses. It’s part of a greater move toward digital learning in Utica. A pilot of Discovery Education’s Techbooks is already underway and high school students can apply for the Center for Science and Industry, which prepares students for work in engineering, robotics, and multimedia, all part of a community’s efforts to re-imagine how it prepares its workforce.

Stay tuned for a Digital Promise case study examining the digital learning initiatives at Utica Community Schools, to be published in the coming weeks.