Project Education
Professional Development and Consulting for Student Success

School districts regularly invest huge sums in professional development (PD) programs for teachers to continually refine their teaching skills and keep abreast of the latest curriculum to benefit students. Does that mean students’ poor academic performances are always a reflection of their teacher’s failing to effectively deliver the PD lessons? Conversely, does a student’s exceptional track record necessarily imply that the teacher has made the most of these training sessions and developed engaging ways of learning? No. Rather, school districts are often overwhelmed with so many requirements that assessing the efficacy of PD programs that their effect on students is often neglected. To help districts optimize their PD investments and positively impact students’ learning, Texas-based Project Education provides a proven methodology for evaluating how productively teachers implement their PD courses.

Project Education tailors PD programs to best meet a district’s unique needs and delivers them online or in-person along with accurately analyzing the extent to which teachers comprehend the training lessons and how they present them to students. The company combines the findings of teachers’ analysis with electronically-stored student data to infer if the PD has been productive enough to help students succeed. “An English language learners (ELL) course can have 20 students speaking 20 different languages. We consolidate students’ diverse data pertaining to their varying needs, analyze it to extract valuable insights, and thus help teachers customize unique, individualized instructions for students’ overall success,” adds Steve Navarre, CEO of Project Education.

Beyond ELL, Project Education extends its methodology to multiple areas including special education, response to intervention (RTI) to assist pupils struggling with a skill or a lesson, and Section 504 that ensures persons with disabilities have equal access to education. The company provides detailed consulting services and professional development to address various loopholes that exist in school districts’ functioning, thus promising to better serve students across all populations.

Most of these districts employ RTI to determine whether a student requires special education, faces issues at home, and more. However, RTI processes vary across school districts, and students who switch campuses between school years or midway, are susceptible to being confused by these differences, which in turn, can hinder their academic growth. Project Education has developed the Project RTI data management system to evaluate these disjointed processes and unite them.

Marcy Canady, former assistant superintendent of a large school district in Texas and now, the director of Project Education’s consulting services, has been playing a pivotal role in Project RTI’s success. Bolstered by Marcy’s vast experience, the company maps school districts’ differing RTI processes into a program, identifies and eliminates the existing gaps, and eventually, integrates all the revamped processes with a universal data management system. Consequently, the student success rate has increased significantly and a number of students have been removed from RTI processes as they no longer need extra assistance. This has helped teachers save significant time and better recognize students in need of special education. “We have assisted several school districts in driving students’ academic growth, and the quality of our staff is the biggest contributor to our methodology’s success,” remarks Navarre.

Project Education’s proficient staff not only consists of a former assistant superintendent but also former directors, coordinators, and PK-12 classroom teachers, whose collective wealth of experience sets the company apart. Project Education’s value proposition is further enriched by adding a parent section to the consulting services, which emphasizes constructive communication between teachers and parents to expedite students’ progress. The company is now looking forward to announcing several promising partnerships in the near future to improve its services around PD. “As the education sector continues to evolve, the onus is on us to add products and services that address the increasing needs,” concludes Navarre.