The Palm Beach County School District spent nearly $6 Million on a system being mandated for home use. It is incompatible with iPads and Android Tablets.
BOCA RATON, FL (BocaNewsNow.com) — BocaNewsNow.com has learned that teachers throughout Palm Beach County are assigning iReady as mandatory homework in elementary schools, in direct violation of Palm Beach County School District policy.
As we have reported, iReady is Palm Beach County’s $6-Million, arguably highly ineffective online assessment system created by Curriculum Associates of Massachusetts. Despite assurances of tablet support when Palm Beach County entered into its long-term contract, iReady is incompatible with iPads and Android devices. iReady runs on “Adobe Flash,” a buggy, virus susceptible system that even Adobe is terminating. On computers, iReady does not run on Apple’s Safari. When it does work on third-party systems, parents complain that it looks as advanced as AOL’s welcome screen in 1992.
Curriculum Associates has not responded to multiple requests, over several months, for comment on iReady’s effectiveness or modernization.
The Palm Beach County School District instructed teachers not to assign iReady as homework during the 2017-2018 school year, however, BocaNewsNow.com has received documentation that teachers at Waters Edge elementary school, as well as several others throughout Palm Beach County, are in fact sending notes home to parents instructing them to require their children to use the system.
We are not publishing these notes, which include teacher names, at this time.
Wrote one parent to BocaNewsNow.com, “I feel that they know and do not care. I brought this up during a parent teacher conference and was told we send them home with this so we can teach more.”
Wrote another parent, “What if I didn’t have internet at home? Are they going to pay the bill since it’s mandatory?”
The School District has issued several statements to BocaNewsNow.com affirming that iReady is never to be assigned as homework.
Is your teacher demanding iReady use at home? We want to know. Email news (at) bocanewsnow.com.
