The Boone County School Board has approved new educational support software, and educators have said they’re happy about it.
During Thursday’s regular session, board members voted 3-1 in favor of the Panorama Education license agreement. Division 4 Board Member Cindy Young cast the dissenting vote, while Division 2 Board Member Maria Brown was absent.
Educators touted the benefits of Panorama’s platform, which they said supports students in academics, attendance, behavior and life skills development.
“I have the pleasure of leading our professional learning community of teachers that work with students with emotional learning disabilities and also students with autism,” Boone County School Assistant Special Education Director Jennifer Miller said. “They work in our special classrooms. We meet quarterly to look at student data and also plan instruction. Panorama has been a vital tool in that work.”
Teachers are able to quickly access student information because its placed on one dashboard, enabling users to scroll through and see all of that data in one place, Miller said.
The cost of the resource tool was $200,000, but with board approval, the contract will be initiated on Friday and prorated to $155,000, Boone County Schools Chief Academic Officer Jim Detwiler said.
North Pointe Elementary School Principal Kelly Smith said Panorama puts data at her fingertips in a way she can’t do on her own.
“I feel like if I’m not using a tool, I can’t make these data-based decisions that we know we need to be making for our students,” Smith said. “Without a strong tool, we’re hoping and guessing what we’re doing is right and impactful. I appreciate being able to look at everything in one platform.”
The platform additionally allows tracking progress toward strategic goals that include literacy and graduation, officials said, as well as data collection focusing on social-emotional learning, school climate and family engagement via researched-backed surveys.
“I have received pretty much a fair amount of feedback on this and I would have to say, hands down, parents want this, educators want this,” Division 1 Board Member Carolyn Hankins Wolfe said regarding the Panorama software. “This is probably the most feedback I’ve had on anything, and I’m appreciative of that, because it’s important to know the feelings of what’s happening in the school building.”