Schools are complicated systems with many moving parts. Frequently, it feels as though schools feature a combustible mix of problems that require jumping through hoops. Educators want solutions that are simple, fast, and – if possible – a little bit beautiful. In turn, they look for ways to do their jobs better and with ease.
This is particularly true with the unconventional times of Covid-19. With so many uncertainties facing the next school year, flexibility and innovation is crucial.
Abre is in the business of solving problems. By solving problems, we help students grow, staff learn, and the community to engage in the education process.
We’re a comprehensive and flexible platform. We solve many challenges. Here’s a list of ten problems we help solve.
1. Abre Provides the Start
Problem: Your district is a 1:1 district (oftentimes with Chromebooks), and your students and staff use them every day. When they turn their devices on, what do they see? And what should they do?
Abre provides that automatic landing page for your students, staff, and parents. From that landing page, they have a launch point to all of school.
This is particularly helpful in blended and distance learning environments. Everyone enters learning from the same location.
Ever try to tell a class of 2nd graders to visit three websites by typing in long URL addresses? It’s a challenge. With Abre, their most common links are featured and customized to their needs right from the start!
2. Abre Centralizes Student Information
Problem: As a teacher and an administrator, I spend an inordinate amount of time searching for information about my students across multiple platforms and countless spreadsheets.
I might visit my student information system for contact information, grade book for grades, state websites for assessment data, MAP, ACT, student behavior, student education plans, and on and on.
This takes time.
Abre collects and integrates data surrounding a student and presents the information in a beautiful and simple visual format. As a result, you can easily see outcomes or download the data for a deeper dive.
Spend less time jumping through hoops.
3. Abre Limits Student Distractions
Problem: Every student in the classroom has a device. How do teachers provide structure for them to only visit the websites needed for instruction?
Solution: Abre Focus! Teachers determine the websites to use with their class. Students open their devices and activate Focus, enter a Focus Code, and can only visit approved websites.
Give teachers control.
4. Abre Makes Staff Professional Development Plans a Breeze
Problem: How do educators effectively track their growth, prove attendance, and participate in the license renewal process?
Abre simplifies this process. Educators build online professional portfolios and their own PD growth plans. In effect, you can eliminate binders full of professional development plans and spreadsheets for tracking.
5. Abre Delivers Professional Development
Problem: How do schools deliver consistent and rewarding professional development to their staff? How do schools collect all opportunities in a central place and allow staff to access opportunities outside of scheduled professional development days?
With Abre, schools create self-paced and guided professional development courses complete with credit tracking, gamification, and badging. Schools can share courses with other schools, increasing collaboration. Lastly, courses can satisfy mandatory compliance training.
Save time and money.
6. Abre Improves Student Behavior Tracking
Problem: How can schools create learning environments that might encourage desirable behavior and discourage undesirable behavior?
Effective classroom and school management are essential for learning to occur. The root of addressing behaviors is to understand them and provide timely communication to all student stakeholders. Abre tracks behavior, integrates with state reporting systems, and provides insights for schools to improve school culture.
Equally important, we make the entire process intuitive and easy to use.
7. Create Formative and Summative Assessments
Problems: How do schools create and deliver standardized, summative assessments? How do teachers create and provide formative and summative assessments in their classrooms?
With Abre, schools can create unified summative assessments. Schools can deliver assessments to students with a Focus code that presents their tests in a locked-down mode. Teachers, likewise, can create and give formative and summative assessments to their classes..
Improve outcomes.
8. Abre Makes Curriculum Creation Easy
Problems: How do schools present curriculum maps, pacing guides, model lessons, and resources in a unified manner to all their educators?
Abre empowers curriculum leaders to create robust curriculum maps that can be shared with all staff. Additionally, they can collaborate with other districts to create and share curriculum. Already have your curriculum maps built? No worries, simply link to them in Abre, allowing for a single place to find and access resources.
9. Abre Tames Student Education Plans
Problem: There are many variations of student education plans. From 504s to RTI to graduation plans, states and schools have a variety of requirements.
Abre provides a simple process for creating and sharing student education plans. We make the process transparent, easy to understand, and simple to use. In addition, education plans can be shared with parents and community partners. This helps achieve the central goal of education plans: to grow students.
10. Abre Shapes the Narrative
Problem: Staff, students, parents, and the community at large have many different tools (with many different logins) that present a narrative of what happens at school. Too many tools creates confusion and frustration.
As Abre becomes the central meeting ground for all things school, the school has all the eyes. As such, you get to shape the narrative with stories, information, and tools targeted to roles and buildings. The Abre Hub provides the launch pad for communication announcements and a single access point for all third party tools.
Reduce confusion.
Does Abre Solve Other Problems?
Absolutely! One of the main advantages of Abre is that it is an incredibly flexible platform. We continue to work with the learning community to help solve problems in this challenging time of Covid-19. Abre exists to find ways to help schools focus on what matters: Educating students.