Intellispark Announces General Availability of the Intellispark Platform to Help PreK-12 Schools Realize a Whole-Child Vision for Student Success

The analytics and action platform ties together a student-centered view of disparate data, research-based assessments and engagement recommendations, and communication tools — empowering teachers and school counselors to enable all students to reach their full potential.

ARLINGTON, VA – May 14, 2020 – Intellispark, an education technology company focused on improving student success for PreK-12 schools, today announced that the Intellispark® platform is generally available. The first-of-its-kind software platform helps PreK-12 schools engage the entire school community to support the whole child. The platform has been under development for nearly two years. Oswego East High School (Illinois) and Hutchinson High School (Minnesota) are among the schools that have served as design partners throughout the development process.

“The Intellispark platform has more than met our expectations,” said Melissa Gleason, co-director of student services for Oswego East High School in Oswego, Illinois. “It saved hours for our problem-solving teams and helped us reach additional students. Having Intellispark is like having another team member!”

Today’s employers seek students who are flexible, critical thinkers, and experienced with project-based collaboration. While focusing on academic subjects like math and writing, districts and schools are working to ensure that students also develop socially and emotionally — holistically embedding these skills in academic studies rather than stand-alone programs or lessons. The Aspen Institute’s National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development in its Nation at Hope report highlights, “Educating the whole student requires rethinking teaching and learning so that academics and students’ social, emotional, and cognitive development are joined not just occasionally, but throughout the day.”

The Intellispark platform makes it easy for districts and schools to check in with their students throughout the school year — to understand and improve their success skills, career and college readiness, sense of engagement, and connections with faculty and staff. The platform layers in students’ daily academic performance and other key indicators to offer teachers weekly recommendations to incorporate research-based social and emotional learning (SEL) content into their existing classroom curriculum. Throughout, the platform enables seamless and secure communications between the teacher, school counselor, students, and parents.

“Districts and schools are investing in SEL initiatives to develop the soft skills that students take beyond the classroom and into careers. For schools that are serious about helping students develop these critical skills, SEL student surveys aren’t enough. With the Intellispark platform, we see a new opportunity to align the whole school community to achieve social and emotional learning goals for all students,” said Stephen M. Smith, CEO of Intellispark. “As enthusiastic as we are about the launch of the platform, this is just the beginning. Future releases will help schools integrate and elevate other important initiatives such as those related to anti-bullying and diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Smith is a co-founder of Naviance, a leading college and career readiness platform now offered by Hobsons.

A vital component of the Intellispark platform is the research-backed Insightfull™ assessment, which was created by Dr. David Conley and aligns with his Four Keys to College and Career Readiness framework, commonly referred to as “Think, Know, Act, and Go.” The assessment is exclusively available to the PreK-12 community through the Intellispark platform. 

“In our work with districts and schools, 90% of their effort is aimed at helping students ‘know’ or master content. In reality, however, our research points to the other three Keys as being the most significant indicators of life-long success for students,” said Conley, professor emeritus at the University of Oregon, founder of the Education Policy Improvement Center, and senior advisor to Intellispark. “We are excited to work with Intellispark to make Insightfull available to PreK-12 schools where it can help inform classroom practice, every day, every period, for every student.”

To learn more about the Intellispark platform, please visit www.intellispark.com and register for a complimentary webinar on June 16 at 2 pm ET. 

About Intellispark

Intellispark® believes that student success is a team sport and is re-defining how PreK-12 schools, students, and families can work together to prepare successful, future-ready students. Intellispark offers an enterprise student success platform for PreK-12 which ties together a student-centered view of disparate data, research-based assessments and engagement recommendations, and integrated communication tools — all to realize a whole-child vision for student success. By fostering a culture of student success where every student can be known, supported, and appreciated, the Intellispark platform creates the conditions for all students to thrive. For more information, please call 800.709.5405 (+1 703.397.8700 outside of North America) or visit www.intellispark.com.