Success Story: Gila Vista Junior High School

Gila Vista Junior High School in Yuma, Arizona was recognized as an Edmentum Rockstar School and featured in their local paper, the YumaSun.  The Edmentum Rock Star School program recognizes outstanding schools and their inventive and effective uses of the full range of Edmentum learning solutions.  Gila Vista has done an exemplary job of integrating Plato Courseware into their classroom instruction, and they have seen an increase in student achievement since their initial implementation.

Rusty Tyndall, Principal at Gila Vista Junior High tells us about their success with Plato Courseware and how the program has helped serve a variety of learners at different grade levels.  Since implementing Plato Courseware, Gila Vista has seen a 15% increase in their Galileo #3 Benchmark results.

Edmentum: What are the strengths of your online learning solution?

Tyndall: Plato Courseware is offered to all our sites by Yuma District ONE.  The engaging tutorials that also offered practice and mastery quizzes to support student learning.  Students are more engaged with content online so the school began to take advantage of the available online content.

Edmentum: Describe who you’re serving and what unique needs they have that this solution addresses?

Tyndall: We have a variety of learners at different grade levels.  Some need basic skill development while others require individual intervention to fill gaps in their learning.  Plato Courseware provides the opportunity to address individual needs to tutorials to support the learner.

Edmentum: What results can you share about the success of this implementation?

Tyndall: Galileo #3 Benchmark results indicate that we have approximately 70% of our students meeting the standards.  We began this year at 55%. The students also indicated that they are much more willing to attempt 40 problems on the computer than with pencil and paper.  Students shared that the tutorials help them understand math better.

Find out more about how Gila Vista used Plato Courseware to increase student engagement and how the program’s flexibility allows for a variety of implementation scenarios including whole group or small group classroom settings.  

“While there is rarely a single solution to student achievement gaps, it appears that utilizing technology to motivate and support student learning is one ticket that works.”  

~ Rusty Tyndall, Principal, Gila Vista Junior High School

Read their full story here.

 Accepting the Rock Star banner are (from left) Darwin Stiffler, Yuma School District 1 superintendent; Jessie Hanna, sixth grade teacher at Gila Vista Junior High; Janna Perez, District 1 online learning coordinator; Rindy Ward, District 1 curriculum coordinator; Duane Sheppard, District 1 associate superintendent; and Rusty Tyndall, Gila Vista Junior High principal.