New York (Oct. 18, 2011) – eChalk, a pioneer of school communication and instruction management software, has reached a new milestone in helping educators foster an engaging 21st century learning environment personalized to students’ needs. The company’s software is implemented in more than 100 Brooklyn schools, a microcosm of eChalk’s impact in educational institutions across the New York City area.

eChalk serves as their hub for online learning and collaboration, chosen by New York school communities for its ease-of-use, flexibility, and effectiveness in helping them achieve their teaching and learning goals. Among the schools that use eChalk are the Dr. Rose B. English School PS/IS 327 and The Weeksville School PS243.

While the schools have web pages through the New York City Department of Education to communicate official information, school leaders wanted to provide an online destination for daily use by students, parents and teachers to connect anytime, anywhere to the information they need to improve learning outcomes. The information that schools provide includes calendars, events, grades, homework, instructional resources, and class discussions.

Dr. Stephen Appea, principal of The Dr. Rose B. English School, explains: “One of the main reasons we use eChalk is for communicating with parents. School communication with parents has always been important, and it is currently a major theme by Chancellor Walcott. Before using eChalk, we did not have an easy ‘back office’ way to coordinate and update all the individual teacher pages in a uniform way without having a full-time website manager. When we saw what eChalk had to offer, and what other schools had done with eChalk's services, we jumped at the opportunity. When it comes to communicating with parents and staff, and maintaining a web presence, eChalk is superior.”

The school has used eChalk to create online class communities, to enable collaboration among administrators, teachers and staff, and to deploy tools such as “Family Blast” emails and The Principal’s Blog in actively reaching out to parents. eChalk has helped the school increase positive responses from parents and teachers across the board. The school’s Learning Environment Survey showed a 64 percent parent response rate, an increase of 26 percent over last year and well above the city average. Parents responded more favorably to all four areas of the survey (academic expectations, communication, engagement, safety / respect) than last year, and 90 percent felt satisfied, or very satisfied, with how the school communicated with them.

The Weeksville School experienced similar results. Its Learning Environment Survey indicates that an overwhelming majority of parents feel engaged in an active partnership with the school to promote student learning.

“We were looking for ways to share our Quality Review, School Survey, and Progress Report with parents. eChalk gave us a way to display the school data in a parent-friendly format that was easy to understand and use,” said Karen Hambright-Glover, principal of The Weeksville School. Since then, the school has used eChalk to further enhance its school-home connection, host a collaborative online learning environment, and support its local Parent-Teacher Association. Hambright-Glover continued, “eChalk is an invaluable tool to bridge the gap between the school and the community.”

“As a New York-based education company, we feel a special connection to local schools. It’s exciting to get to partner with schools in our very own neighborhoods and it’s inspiring to see the successes they’ve achieved,” said Nancy DeVore, eChalk account director for New York City. “As we approach 400 schools in NYC, we look forward to continuing our work to streamline school communication, improve parent involvement, and engage students throughout all 5 boroughs of NYC.”

About eChalk

eChalk software is the preferred platform among K-12 schools to manage communication and instruction. The company's patented software enables K-12 schools and districts to increase community engagement and improve student outcomes while saving time and streamlining technology systems. eChalk products safely connect more than 1 million school leaders, teachers, students and parents to the people and information they need to make learning successful. eChalk is headquartered in New York with regional offices throughout the country to provide customers with personalized tech support and hands-on training, consistently earning the company the highest customer satisfaction and renewal rates in the education industry.Visit echalk.com to learn more.

Contacts

C. Blohm & Associates, Inc.
Kristen Plemon
608-216-7300 x18
kristen aat cblohm dot com
www.cblohm.com

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