Success Stories

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WILLIAMSTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS
WILLIAMSTON, NORTH CAROLINA

Empowering

“Special education students come to the middle school level with gaps in their learning,” says Donnie Wallace, a special education teacher at Williamston Middle School. “Our department was looking for a supplemental program that would help fill in the learning gaps and allow the students to work independently at their own pace.”

Williamston used the reading, writing, and mathematics program to prepare Wallace's students for the end-of-grade North Carolina Test. Twenty students, ages 12-14, used the program in 45-minutes sessions three times per week for eight months.

Each of Wallace’s students requires an Individual Educational Plan, and PassKey is a complement to those plans. “We can see very quickly where a student’s learning gaps are, and PassKey helps us focus on each student’s individual needs. We can work one-to-one with each student.”

The results of the PassKey experience were gratifying. A passing score on the North Carolina test is 3. Prior to using PassKey, Wallace’s students’ average score was 1.8. After working with PassKey for 8 months, the lowest grade was 2.8 and the highest
was 3.

“We can see very quickly where a student’s learning gaps are, and PassKey helps us focus on each student’s individual needs.”

“The students liked it,” Wallace says. “They felt empowered by having some control over their learning. The program breaks the skills down and leads students to the right answer. Teachers can teach on the computer, helping students understand the skills they’re learning and explaining things in more detail. It’s the supplement we were looking for, and we’re going to keep using it.”