We started in Cleveland as SOLECLE with the generous support of the DBJ Foundation and now have a presence in over 86% of schools in the Cleveland Metro School District and a broader community of 10,000+ educators in Ohio.
After experimenting with SOLE and prototyping our tools, we partnered with a network of Educational Service Centers (ESCs) to deliberately spread SOLE.
Northpoint ESC was one of our earliest partners in Ohio and is now an epicenter of SOLE activity. In less than three years more than 2 out of 3 teachers within this ESC have signed up for StartSOLE.
They also generously hosted our 2019 StartSOLE conference featuring talks from Sugata Mitra and our first ambassador cohort.
We're currently rolling out StartSOLE across the state thanks to a partnership with the Pennsylvania Department of Education.
We've worked with local experts at the Intermediate Units (IU) to align our materials to state curricula, career standards, and licensure requirements so educators feel right at home. Our support also includes train the trainer programming and webinars for IU leaders.
Not all our growth comes from large-scale partnerships. StartSOLE also has a cohort of ambassadors - superstar educators who have demonstrated deep expertise and a willingess to serve as advisors and advocates for our work.
Kori is one of our ambassadors located near Dallas. Our team has never traveled to the Lone Star state, but Kori's impact there has been undeniable. Thanks to her advocacy and leadership over 400 schools in Texas now use StartSOLE.
