TALENT DEVELOPMENT
Businesswire | April 10, 2023
Brightwheel, the leading all-in-one early education platform, today announced that it has acquired Experience Early Learning, a nationally recognized brand that produces a comprehensive research-based early education curriculum and assessment system. Through the acquisition, brightwheel is merging the best of physical and digital learning tools for the first time as it advances its mission to deliver high quality early education for every child.
“Young children need to learn in-person with physical materials that they can touch and feel,” said Dave Vasen, Founder and CEO of brightwheel. “The merging of physical and digital will save providers many hours each month, improve the classroom learning experience, and even extend it to the home, all through the brightwheel platform. I couldn’t be more excited to bring these two companies together and completely rethink what’s possible in early ed.”
Aligned with NAEYC, Common Core, Head Start, and all 50 states’ early learning standards, Experience Early Learning covers all areas of development including social-emotional, physical, language & literacy, math & reasoning, science, social studies, and creative arts, designed for infants through pre-K aged children. This leading program provides a monthly toolkit with everything a teacher needs to bring the curriculum to life in the classroom, including hands-on materials such as books, music, posters, art supplies, games, and workbooks, each tailored for specific ages.
Brightwheel allows preschool administrators and teachers to manage everything that happens day-to-day such as billing, enrollment, attendance, compliance, and communications all through the brightwheel app. Teachers can easily capture learning moments in real time through photos and videos, take notes, track child development, and conduct assessments. Brightwheel is the first and only platform where teachers can automatically share prewritten notes with parents that help to continue the learning at home.
Experience Curriculum is now live on brightwheel for Preschool and Toddler levels, with Baby coming in the future. Benefits of the newly integrated offering include:
• Elevated quality of learning during the most critical first five years of a child’s development with a professional, research-based curriculum aligned to all 50 state standards.
• Makes teachers’ jobs less time consuming and more rewarding, thereby improving staff retention at a time when turnover in the industry is at an all time high.
• Greater engagement from families in their child’s learning through automated sharing of progress, photos and updates in real-time.
As brightwheel invests in expanding its curriculum offering, it has appointed Julie DeLoyd as Head of brightwheel Education, responsible for leading and scaling the company’s education business. DeLoyd joins brightwheel from developmental toy company Melissa & Doug where she served as Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer.
“I have long admired brightwheel’s dedication to improving the early education experience for children, families, and teachers,” said DeLoyd, Head of brightwheel Education. “For the first time ever, there is a one-stop destination for everything education providers need, empowering them to focus on what they do best. I am proud to join this talented team as brightwheel scales its education offering and improves the quality of early learning.”
About Brightwheel
Brightwheel is the complete preschool and childcare platform providing everything educators need to easily run their program all in one place. Quick to set up and even easier to use, brightwheel’s #1 rated platform enables providers to save time, get paid faster, connect with families and staff, and support child development. Trusted by millions of educators and families across North America, brightwheel is committed to elevating the early learning experience for every child.
About Experience Early Learning
Experience Early Learning is a research-based early education program that fosters a joy for learning through sensory-based experiences. Since 1984, this nationally recognized curriculum system has supported children’s social-emotional, physical, and cognitive development. Monthly thematic kits with lesson plans and hands-on learning materials support teachers in and out of the classroom and encourage learning through play. Experience Early Learning is a community of educators with a mission to help children embrace their unique strengths, grow confidence, and love others.
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CORPORATE LEARNING SYSTEMS
Businesswire | April 18, 2023
Carnegie Learning, a leader in K-12 education innovation, high-quality products and services, and AI, announced today that the company has added new multilingual and bilingual certified math and literacy instructors to the high-dosage tutoring team in Gadsden County, New Mexico, to meet the needs of students in the state’s fourth-largest school district.
“It’s gratifying to see improvements in student proficiency and attendance as well as increasing parent participation in the Gadsden Independent School District (ISD),” said Courtney Lewis, Vice President of Tutoring Services at Carnegie Learning. “The results are impressive. We have been able to fulfill 100% of the requests from students and families in Gadsden ISD who requested a bilingual tutor. We’ve also appointed a bilingual tutor as a liaison to answer questions from families in their native language. Families have a direct dial number to call the liaison directly for support.”
Lewis recently presented a webinar on how to partner with a high-dosage tutoring provider to launch an effective summer school program, which can be accessed here.
Demand for high-dosage tutoring is growing among students in all grades at Gadsden ISD, led by elementary-age students, who are reaping the benefits of one-on-one and small-group tutoring. To meet the needs of the district, Carnegie Learning is expanding their offerings in Gadsden ISD with new K-12 math and literacy, SAT and PSAT preparation to their portfolio of services.
Students and their families are already feeling the impact of tutoring. A third-grade student expressed delight about their tutor, who is a certified teacher like all Carnegie Learning tutors: “I have the best teacher ever!” A kindergarten parent commented that a tutor demonstrated dedication consistently: “She did awesome with our son!”
Personalizing tutoring services to meet the needs of Gadsden ISD reflects Carnegie Learning's commitment to partnering with districts and ability to flexibly develop solutions for emerging challenges. In fact, their national high-dosage tutoring services originated when Maryland district Prince George's County Public Schools approached Carnegie Learning with a need for remote tutoring in 2020 during school closures, and Carnegie Learning built a tutoring team from scratch.
Carnegie Learning has the largest certified tutoring team in the U.S., with an ever-increasing portfolio of new curriculum offerings being added as district needs arise.
Carnegie Learning's high-dosage tutoring services include:
• Live tutors who are all certified teachers with deep content and pedagogical knowledge.
• Bilingual and multilingual tutors are available.
• Instruction that aligns with districts’ standards, scope, and sequence.
• Standards-aligned, high-quality instructional materials to support grade-level learning.
• Robust pre- and post-assessments to regularly track student growth and performance.
Carnegie Learning believes that students can reach far beyond their perceived potential, academically as well as socially and emotionally. To help students achieve this, they strive to bridge the gap between access to high-quality instructors, award-winning AI software, and high-quality instructional resources.
About Carnegie Learning, Inc.
Carnegie Learning is the leading provider of K-12 education technology, curriculum, and professional learning solutions. With award-winning offerings for K-12 math, literacy, world languages, professional learning, high-dosage tutoring, and more, Carnegie Learning is delivering real and lasting results for teachers and students. Born from more than 30 years of learning science research at Carnegie Mellon University, we are known for using the power of data to improve student performance. Our range of products allows us to support more than 2 million students and educators in all 50 states and Canada. Named a Top Place to Work for six years in a row, our 700+ employees across North America are passionate about partnering with educators in the classroom
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TALENT DEVELOPMENT
Businesswire | June 02, 2023
Swing Education, an online marketplace that connects schools and substitute teachers, announced today $38 million in Series C funding. The funding round was led by funds advised by Apax Partners LLP (“Apax”), a leading global private equity advisory firm, and by edtech investment firm Reach Capital. The funding enables Swing Education to invest in its growth and better address the nation-wide substitute teacher shortage.
This financing follows a 2018 Series B funding co-led by GV (formerly Google Ventures) and Owl Ventures and a seed round from a consortium that included Social Capital, Kapor Capital, Moment Ventures, Ulu Ventures, Red House Education, and Edovate Capital.
Swing believes that every classroom deserves a teacher, and every student deserves to learn without disruption. Since its founding in 2015, Swing has worked to improve the experience of being a substitute teacher and made it easier for K-12 schools to grow and manage their substitute teacher pools. Swing currently works with over 2,800 school partners and in the 2022-23 school year has supported these schools in filling over one million instructional hours with substitute teachers.
Teacher vacancies are an ever-present challenge for school administrators, with 45% of public schools operating without a full teaching staff at the start of the 2022-2023 school year. While school leaders recognize the need for substitute teachers, improving processes around substitute teaching and investing in programs and tools that support substitute well-being often go unprioritized. Swing aims to fill this gap. By combining dedicated success teams and a comprehensive technology platform, Swing works to ensure that substitutes are treated better, which, in turn, attracts more individuals to the profession.
“We’re thrilled to have Apax Partners and Reach Capital as strategic investors,” said Mike Teng, CEO of Swing Education. “The need for substitute teachers is acute. This additional funding highlights the current strain on our schools and positions Swing to grow our impact, placing even more substitute teachers in even more classrooms.”
“Swing Education is a truly impactful business, bringing much needed digitalization to the substitute teacher staffing marketplace and making it easier and more efficient to match talent with schools,” said David Su, Partner, Apax Global Impact. “We’re incredibly excited to be partnering with Mike and the broader team to help grow the business and execute on our joint vision for the company.”
“Beyond broadening and diversifying staffing pools, Swing’s distinct marketplace model provides upskilling opportunities and unlocks innovative pathways to the teaching profession,” said Steve Kupfer, Venture Partner at Reach Capital. “Each of these goals aligns with our mission as education investors. We are thrilled to support the Swing team through this next stage of growth.”
"Even prior to the pandemic's amplification, the teacher shortage in the United States profoundly impacted the K-12 education system. Under the visionary leadership of Mike and Asha, Swing Education has built a transformative way for K-12 schools and substitute teachers to connect,” said Amit A. Patel, Managing Director at Owl Ventures. “Their technology platform has harnessed the power of data to enable a seamless match between teacher absences and qualified substitutes as well as ensure uninterrupted student learning."
Swing currently operates in California, Arizona, Texas, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, and Washington, D.C. and will use this latest funding round to grow its substitutes and school partners in these regions. Swing will look to expand to new regions in 2024.
About Swing Education
Swing Education is an online staffing marketplace that connects substitute teachers with schools. Founded in 2015 by former K-12 educators and administrators, Swing makes it easier for schools and districts to find reliable, qualified substitute teachers when they need them most. With over 300,000 absence days filled to date, Swing is dedicated to improving the experience of finding substitute teachers, becoming a sub, and keeping student learning on track. Swing serves over 2,800 partner schools across California, Arizona, Illinois, Texas, New Jersey, New York, and Washington D.C.
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