High Tech High Success Story
- High Tech High adopted Helios for all of their six schools in December 2007
- HTH likes that Helios is specifically designed for K-12 needs
- Helios has allowed HTH to be more systematic, share knowledge and data easily
- Specific fields in Helios have enabled HTH to find and record missing data on teachers
- Ease of reporting at the click of a button has saved HTH considerable time not just
in state compliance reporting but also in internal administration
High Tech High (HTH) is a group of innovative charter schools spanning grades
K-12, which was founded by San Diego business leaders and educators to combat the
problems of student disengagement and low academic achievement. It is setting a
pioneering trend in innovative curriculum by creating personalized, project-based
learning environments, where all students are known well and are challenged to meet
high expectations. HTH schools attempt to show how education can be re-designed
to ensure that all students graduate with a strong preparation for college, work,
and citizenship.
The establishment of such innovative institutions as HTH also brings along the challenges
of creating, maintaining, and reporting information accurately and efficiently.
Imagine having to juggle a million facts in your head, ranging from teachers’ credential
details to reporting requirements. Dr. Jennifer Husbands, director of Teacher Credentialing
and Support at HTH, which incidentally is the first school in California to have
its own graduate school of education to credential its own teachers, had been doing
just that until she found out about Helios.
Helios is a web-based K-12 credential, compliance, and reporting tool that allows
educators and administrators to manage HR and credential data and run various compliance
reports quickly and easily.
So, why did Dr. Husbands choose Helios over the various other software systems/tools
that are out there? She and her team discovered that, unlike others, Helios was
the only one of its kind designed specifically for education. Dr. Husbands says,
“Helios allows you to take information out of your heads and into the system and be more systematic, share knowledge.” It is anticipated that the benefits from Helios
will be even more pronounced as HTH sees exponential growth, opening up almost one
new school every year.
HTH has benefited from Helios in a number of ways. For instance, when they adopted
Helios in December 2007 for all of their six schools, they discovered that transcripts
on a few teachers were missing. Anais Stenson of HTH, who is working with Helios,
acknowledges that, "It helped us organize our own records and fill in the data
that we did not know we were missing."
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Dr. Jennifer Husbands, director of Teacher Credentialing and Support
at High Tech High in her office
Anais used to keep data in spreadsheets and manually create and update them every
time their internal administrators or the state required reports on EL or credentials.
But today, Anais is happy that those days are gone when they used to email 100 Excel
documents back and forth. Instead, she now maintains information on over 100 teachers
in Helios and runs reports at the click of a mouse.
Moreover, all of the data may be shared with other people in the organization.
"Imagine principals and HR folks and directors calling me for this information
and that report. Now I would just give read-only access to Helios to whoever needs
that data and get peace of mind," exclaims Ms. Stenson. It is estimated that
such features as sharing of information, reporting capabilities and a centralized
database help save 75% of the time that users like Anais devote in record-keeping
and reporting areas.
Additionally, the CBEDS reporting feature of Helios will also save time and a chunk
of errors. Helios has a built-in report in CBEDS PAIF format that the California
Department of Education accepts online. This feature eliminates the need to compile
extensive data from various sources and arrange it in the state mandated format.
Another instance that illustrates the benefits of using Helios is when Amy Jackson,
director at HTH, was planning for the district intern program, and she
decided to put together a report from different spreadsheets as usual. Her eyes
lit up when Anais pulled up a report with a mouse click showing info on the teachers
participating in the district intern program, their program status, education, English
learner authorization, class assignment and NCLB compliance status.
On another occasion, Anais ran into a delay when some of the universities her teachers
attended were not in the system, and she had to enter the names of those universities
manually. She contacted Helios and was really glad when the Helios team responded
to her request within a day and expanded the list of colleges and universities.
"I just love the support I get," she said with a big smile.
Awards won by High Tech High students
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