Lone Pine USD Turns to Online Speech Pathology
The Lone Pine Unified School District (LPUSD) has gone public with its use of
an online speech therapy service.
The district, economically disadvantaged and near the California-Nevada border, found it difficult to recruit and retain qualified
personnel for the position and decided to use PresenceLearning's services.
"Research shows that socioeconomic status is the number one statistic in predicting overall student and school district underachievement,
and approximately 70 percent of our students are socioeconomically disadvantaged," said Sean A. Cianfarano, superintendent of LPUSD, in a
prepared statement. "However, with PresenceLearning and our pre-academic early intervention efforts spearheaded by our excellent educators and
support staff, we are now beating the odds at LPUSD."
After adopting the service in the 2013-2014 school year, LPUSD received the company's Award of Excellence, which goes to the "districts with
the highest percentage of students who improved one level or more in spoken language production and spoken language comprehension on the
Functional Communication Measures (FCMs) scales during the school year," according to a news release.
"I would not choose a service option for our school district that we, as a family, would not choose for our own child," added Cianfarano,
whose sone used PresenceLearning as a kindergarten student. "Early literacy is so important for young learners, but if the student cannot
speak, it is really hard for them to be literate because it is all tied together. PresenceLearning empowers students to speak, but it's more
than that. It empowers students to be successful."
About the Author
Joshua Bolkan is contributing editor for Campus Technology, THE Journal and STEAM Universe. He can be reached at [email protected].