CHICAGO (PRWEB) December 08, 2020
Robert Avossa has worked with students and families as a teacher, a principal, a superintendent and an education thought-leader, and now he’s partnering with Elevate K-12 as an advisory board member as part of an effort to bring quality live teaching to low-income schools.
Elevate K-12 is a live-stream high-quality instruction service that’s been bridging the geographic gap between talented, certified, engaging teachers and the low-income schools who need them most since 2015. The brand prides itself on solving the most persistent problem facing low-income schools, of the teacher shortages, across the country by bringing high-quality, certified teaching live into their classrooms irrespective of zip code of the teacher and the classroom.
Shaily Baranwal, CEO and founder of Elevate K-12, describes the brand as “the Peloton of school teachers,” meaning schools anywhere can partner with Elevate K-12 to access the brand’s variety of live classes, live technology and outstanding best-in-class teachers to stream straight into a school’s classroom.
“Part of what I have witnessed over the last decade is a real shift in the availability of high-quality teaching,” Avossa said. “There's a lack of individuals going in to study education as a primary professional career.”
For both students and teachers, the inflexible traditional model of onsite education limited to local teachers and budgets creates untold losses of potential across America’s school systems. This problem, currently impacting core academic areas is expected to grow exponentially as schools pivot to changing class curriculum to bring jobs of the future skills teaching to school. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
Baranwal says the teacher shortage problem comes from the teaching industry’s failure to modernize. Passionate teachers who want to educate students shouldn’t be forced to choose between their living situation and their jobs, nor should they have to choose between a lucrative career and pursuing their dreams. Employees in other industries can work remotely, but until Elevate K-12 came along, the teaching industry was sorely lacking with that option. Elevate K-12 is creating a dramatic shift in an antiquated industry. By offering a solution to the teacher shortage crisis, Elevate K-12 is making an academic impact for students across the country, allowing for students to learn in classrooms with a real teacher rather than a substitute or watching a video.
“As the world is evolving, teaching is not going to continue in traditional ways,” Baranwal said. “Teachers now understand there are other ways to work beyond going to a school. A big part of the workforce of the future is flexibility in time and flexibility in where you live. The human capital strategy for every industry is going to change, and we’re finally changing that equation for teachers. The industry has to come together to make sure that teaching as a profession is not dying, and that’s the solution Elevate offers.”
Avossa, one of the top minds in some of the U.S.’s best school districts, says Baranwal has hit the nail on the head.
“When I realized just how innovative and strategic Elevate’s programs are, I decided to ask that we partner together to try to bring high-quality teachers to hard-to-staff schools in low income areas, rural America and certain urban centers,” Avossa said.
While Elevate helps schools solve the pressing teacher shortage, Avossa offers Elevate the much-needed perspective of a school superintendent to ensure that their services are aligned to the needs of the school districts.
“Robert brings his experience and understanding of K-12 schools to Elevate. He can help us understand how our brand can deliver better to schools because he brings the educator mindset to the company,” Baranwal said.
“Like Jeff Bezos of Amazon who always left one chair empty in board meetings. They would say ‘that’s your customer.’ We cannot grow as a company without having the perspective of the superintendents to know what their experience is and where they need help,” Baranwal continued.
But what makes Elevate’s approach so innovative and game-changing for schools in need? Quality, quality, quality, according to Avossa.
“What differentiates Elevate from others is a hyper-focus on finding the absolute best teachers and making sure they’re really trained and developed,” said Avossa. “They’re not just trying to fill in temporary positions.”
In fact, Elevate shies away from teachers looking to do short stints. Elevate is really looking for partnerships that allow a student to get to know a teacher and work with them for a minimum of twelve weeks.
“This isn’t about putting just any teacher in front of students,” Baranwal said. “It’s about elevating the kind of classes and instruction available to students. We work with the most talented teachers and provide them with a proprietary curriculum and our Elevate Live technology that is far more exciting, interactive and effective than what is being taught in most classrooms. Zoom and Google meets were not built for K-12. Elevate technology is and with years of experience of delivering over 6 millions hours of live teaching to K-12.”
What really sold Avossa on the project was Baranwal and her track record of putting students first.
“The cool thing about this company is that Shaily is so enthusiastic and energized by what she has developed. She really, really cares deeply about its social impact on the world. That's all she talks about — getting every child in America access to the best possible teacher in the subject they’re interested in, regardless of income or location,” Avossa said.
Together, Baranwal and Avossa dream of a world where Elevate K-12 can make sure that no matter where those children are, where they come from and which languages they speak, they can still take the courses they need to get into a great college and to prepare themselves for a fulfilled life.
About Elevate K-12
Elevate K-12 is a Chicago-based instruction-technology company that brings high-quality live streaming instruction into K-12 classrooms. Schools and districts partner with Elevate K-12’s unique instructional solution to solve their teacher shortage challenges, overuse of long-term substitutes or low-quality teachers. Its tech-enabled service comprises Proprietary Live Instructional Management Technology, Live Instruction Service, Curriculum and Classroom Management to provide the necessary tools for collaborative teaching and learning that emulates the experience of a real, physical classroom. Elevate K-12 currently operates in 11 states and is rapidly expanding to new states across the U.S. in K-12 schools. For more information, visit http://www.elevatek12.com and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.