Challenge

As a fully online school, technology plays a critical role in California Pacific Charter School’s (CalPac) mission to harness an online learning environment, serve students with diverse backgrounds, and support independent learning. CalPac is a tuition-free, public, online charter school that serves students in grades TK (transitional kindergarten) through 12 across eight Southern California counties and seven Northern California counties.

Educational leaders at CalPac turned to Edmentum to provide online tools to meet the need for targeted, data-driven intervention for their online learners. Initially, the school implemented Exact Path, Edmentum’s K–12 intervention and personalized learning tool, to assess and create individualized learning paths for middle school students who were working below grade level. After the first few years of using Exact Path, Erin Rineberg, CalPac’s K–8 Coordinator, and her team expanded the implementation to meet the growing needs of students in grades 2–8.

“This year has really been the year that it clicked for us,” Ms. Rineberg said. “We've used [Exact Path] for several years, but we weren't utilizing it to its full potential. And this year, we've made it a key part of our instruction.”

Solution

Students at CalPac take the Exact Path diagnostic at the beginning of the school year, and the program automatically assigns individualized learning paths based on their results. Each student spends at least two total hours working on math and reading learning paths every week to address skill gaps and prepare for state assessments.

Utilizing the individualized learning paths is just one way that CalPac educators are implementing Exact Path. Educators also use the diagnostic data to inform targeted small-group learning.“[Exact Path] gave us that space to finally have the small-group instruction we needed to provide a targeted approach for kids who are so far below grade level that they can't successfully access their grade level curriculum’ fully,” explained Ms. Rineberg. “Providing small-group instruction has helped them have more confidence and take on their grade-level work.”

Ms. Rineberg and her team review data after each Exact Path diagnostic and group students into three tiers of support. Tier three students are students who are performing at least two grade levels below their current grade level. These students work with a designated academic support teacher alongside their regular teacher. The academic support teacher analyzes learning path data and assessment scores to tailor small-group instruction utilizing Exact Path lessons.

Support for students in tiers one and two is integrated in the mainstream classroom. Teachers monitor how much time students spend working on their learning paths each week and how students perform on each skill. From this data, the teachers track student improvement, as well as see where additional instruction is needed. Once students complete their second Exact Path diagnostic assessment, educators utilize the data to determine whether students need to be moved to a different level of support.

“Even though we have some students that are working two or more grade levels below [their current grade level], we were able to see growth from where they started with diagnostic one to diagnostic two, just from them getting that small-group instruction, working on their learning paths, and teacher support,” explained Ms. Rineberg.

Result

The success of Exact Path at CalPac is evidenced by the growth students have shown during the 2020–21 school year. After the first eight weeks of using Exact Path during the fall, at least one-third of students moved up an entire grade level. By the spring, nearly all students had increased their learning level a full grade level, with some moving up as many as two grade levels.

“I highly recommend [Exact Path] to anybody,” said Ms. Rineberg. “The results speak for themselves. The kids enjoy it. The lessons are engaging. It's easy to use. Teachers like that it customizes down to where the student is. We are proud of the growth we are seeing with our kids.”