KIPP DC Public Schools, the second-largest preK–12 district in Washington, DC, is dedicated to providing students with access to high-quality, culturally affirming education. Central to this mission is their commitment to hiring exceptional talent—whether or not they are certified teachers—and helping them grow into top educators. Read on to see how KIPP DC used TORSH Talent to help streamline teacher recruitment and development.

KIPP DC streamlines teacher recruitment and professional development with TORSH Talent

Transforming Teacher Recruitment with TORSH Talent

After the COVID-19 pandemic, KIPP DC aimed to transition back to in-person interviews. However, scheduling in-person demo lessons for time-strapped principals and district leaders posed a challenge. Rather than requiring candidates to present their demo lessons multiple times, the hiring team sought out technology to streamline the evaluation process.

Shanelle Trenard, Associate Director of Instructional Hiring at KIPP DC, initially considered having candidates film lessons on their phones and upload them to Google Drive. However, concerns about data security prompted the team to explore a more secure solution. That’s when they turned to TORSH Talent, an innovative coaching and professional learning platform.

Secure and Convenient Demo Lesson Review with TORSH Talent

One of TORSH Talent’s standout features is its secure video upload functionality, enabling seamless collaboration across the district.

TORSH Talent’s flexible platform allows for various modes of teacher development

• Reimagined Demo Lessons: Candidates present their demo lessons in person on a KIPP DC campus, and the hiring team records and uploads the lessons to TORSH Talent. School leaders across the district can log in at their convenience to review and assess multiple candidates.
• Data-Driven Hiring Decisions: KIPP DC’s hiring team plans to implement competency-based rubrics and data-driven assessments in TORSH Talent, ensuring a thorough and consistent evaluation process.

“This year we focused more on quality over quantity, and TORSH Talent has definitely helped us do that.”

— Shanelle Trenard, Associate Director of Instructional Hiring, KIPP DC

Nurturing Exceptional Teachers through the Capital Teaching Residency

As one of Washington, DC’s highest-performing school districts, KIPP DC prioritizes teacher quality. When hiring, the focus is less on prior teaching experience and more on whether candidates are mission-aligned and committed to continuous growth.

For individuals without teaching credentials—such as recent graduates or career changers—KIPP DC offers a pathway to state licensure through the Capital Teaching Residency. This program welcomes candidates from all backgrounds and provides intensive, hands-on training, including mentorship and coaching.

TORSH Talent: Supporting Teacher Development in the Residency Program

KIPP DC leverages TORSH Talent to deliver personalized, job-embedded coaching to Capital Teaching Residents. The platform supports both synchronous and asynchronous learning, ensuring residents receive ongoing, tailored feedback to help them grow as educators.

• Pathway to Licensure: As an accredited Educator Preparation Program (EPP), residents engage in meaningful coursework that aligns with the daily work of high-performing teachers. Torsh seamlessly integrates with our learning management system, enabling resident faculty to grade teaching videos and provide actionable feedback on residents’ practice.
• Feedback for Growth: Residents utilize the goals feature to set performance objectives aligned with the built-in rubrics. With support from the residency team, Capital Teaching Residents work towards mastery with clear action steps and models provided in the exemplar showcase.

With over 100 Capital Teaching Residents becoming KIPP DC Teachers of the Year, and 70% of alumni remaining in teaching or leadership roles after four years, the program is a proven success.

Professional development and teacher coaching can take place in virtual or hybrid settings with TORTH Talent

TORSH Talent: Empowering KIPP DC’s Mission for Educational Equity

Thanks to TORSH Talent, KIPP DC has not only streamlined its recruitment process but has also fostered a culture of continuous improvement and educational excellence. By investing in both quality hiring and ongoing professional development, KIPP DC continues its mission to ensure every student has access to top-tier educators dedicated to transforming lives through education.

To find out more about how you can use TORSH Talent to streamline your teacher development, book a demo today. 

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NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA, UNITED STATES, August 5, 2024 — TORSH, Inc., a leading educational technology provider, is thrilled to announce a new collaboration with the Early Learning Center of Northwest Florida (ELCNWF). Through this partnership, ELCNWF will streamline their coaching processes in child care centers, focusing the mentor-mentee relationship on effective classroom strategies, access to resources, and quick and effective information sharing. By investing in improving this process, the coalition moves closer to achieving its vision to ensure all children receive world-class early education preparing them for kindergarten.  

ELCNWF selected TORSH Talent, an innovative professional development and coaching platform for early learning professionals, in order to improve the efficiency and impact of their early learning educator coaching process. 

TORSH Talent has initiatives specifically targeting early learning through their technology solutions, aiming to improve educational outcomes for young children and can be particularly beneficial for early learning environments in several ways:

1. Observation and Feedback: Early childhood educators can record their interactions with children and receive feedback from ELCNWF mentors and coaches. This helps in refining teaching strategies to better support the developmental needs of young children.
2. Professional Development: The platform provides access to professional development resources tailored for early childhood educators. This includes training modules, best practices, and instructional strategies that are essential for fostering a high-quality early learning environment.
3. Collaboration: TORSH Talent facilitates collaboration among early learning educators. Teachers can share videos and resources with their peers, participate in discussions, and learn from each other’s experiences.
4. Documentation and Assessment: The platform allows early learning educators to document and assess children’s progress over time. This can be particularly useful for early childhood education where continuous observation and assessment are crucial for understanding and supporting each child’s development.
5. Parental Involvement: Torsh’s solutions can also enhance parental involvement by sharing selected classroom videos and progress reports with parents, helping them stay informed about their child’s learning journey.

“The ELCNWF offers coaching to early learning educators which is a key element of high-quality professional development,” said Suzan Gage, Executive Director of ELCNWF. “By streamlining our internal processes, our coaches are able to shift their collective focus to in-class instruction, which helps to positively impact child outcomes.”  

Courtney Williams, Founder & CEO of TORSH, expressed, “Our team is honored to serve such an important mission in partnership with the Early Learning Coalition of Northwest Florida. Modern technology and data analysis offers so much potential to improve children’s lives, by improving the quality and impact of the educators who serve them.”

By using TORSH’s technology, early learning centers and educators can create a more effective and collaborative environment, ultimately improving the quality of early childhood education.

About TORSH, Inc.
TORSH, a New Orleans-based education technology company, is dedicated to improving childhood outcomes by increasing educator instructional effectiveness. TORSH Talent, an online coaching and professional learning platform, enables organizations to support educator growth through the entire development cycle of observation, assessment, goal setting, feedback, and coaching. Learn more by visiting torsh.co.

About the Early Learning Coalition of Northwest Florida
The Early Learning Coalition of Northwest Florida are the behind-the-scenes team ensuring young children in Northwest Florida have access to affordable, high-quality early learning experiences. We envision a Northwest Florida where all children receive world-class early education and care, thereby being fully prepared to learn upon entering kindergarten. We offer a variety of programs and supports, including Voluntary PreKindergarten (VPK), Mental Health Services, Child Development Screenings, and more. Learn more by visiting elcnwf.org.

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The Launch Network offers educators crucial resources to aid them in better serving their students and partnering with their families. Among these resources are coaches who serve kids, families, and teachers across multiple school sites and districts in Colorado. To facilitate greater collaboration and quality coaching among these sites, the Launch Network selected the innovative TORSH Talent platform, a secure web-based solution with a mobile application.

Justin Darnell, Co-Founder and Chief Navigator of the Launch Network, shared, “It’s time for better, and we are excited to partner with TORSH in creating a social network for kids, families, and teachers where they can share practice, learn together, and co-create better outcomes for everyone.”

TORSH Talent is well-positioned to support the Launch Network in nurturing personal and professional development by opening doors across learning environments. With the Communities feature, teachers and families can connect to share insights about their approaches and swap resources that further student growth. Time-stamped video feedback, a comprehensive resource library, and the ability to build Learning Paths tailored to each person’s needs for professional learning also set up Launch coaches for successful, individualized mentorship with each student, family, and teacher they serve.

“TORSH is beyond excited to collaborate with the Launch Network as their team innovates on ways to up-level collaboration and drive positive learning outcomes for all students, families, and educators through high-impact coaching,” said Courtney Williams, Founder and CEO of TORSH.

The Launch Network will roll out TORSH Talent across all currently supported locations and extend the social network service to as many K-12 classrooms as possible in the Rocky Mountain region. Through in-person and virtual coaching, as well as centralized teacher collaboration, Launch looks forward to promoting every child’s success and every family’s opportunity to thrive. Learn more by visiting launchnetwork.org.

About TORSH, Inc.
TORSH, a New Orleans-based education technology company, is dedicated to improving childhood outcomes by increasing educator instructional effectiveness. TORSH Talent, an online coaching and professional learning platform, enables organizations to support educator growth through the entire development cycle of observation, assessment, goal setting, feedback, and coaching. Learn more by visiting torsh.co.

About Launch Network
At Launch Network, we believe learning is beautiful. We believe every kid, every parent, every teacher, and every community member has unlimited capacity to launch their potential and realize transformational learning, together. That’s why Launch provides its partner educators with coaches for both teaching staff and families to guide greater collaboration and co-creation, leading to greater student and educator success, wellbeing, and unity. Learn more by visiting launchnetwork.org.

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Watch this on-demand webinar to hear from Dr. Christi Moore, Director of Professional Learning at the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning (DECAL), how DECAL has built, expanded, and sustained professional learning programming across the state using the online learning platform (OLP) TORSH Talent.

During the 45-minute webinar you’ll learn tips for how to:

• Utilize synchronous and asynchronous coaching to provide educators with targeted feedback on practice and make learning digestible for busy schedules
• Use standardized rubrics and frameworks so 1:1 coaching is aligned to evidence-based practices and providers stay on track with portfolio completion
• Create the space for self-reflection so that both educators and coaches can easily revisit and build upon their learnings
• Leverage data, insights, and reporting in all facets of your professional strategy to support informed decision-making 

Take advantage of this opportunity to see how one enterprise-level program provided more coaching to educators with greater efficiency and, as a result, cultivated high-quality educators who improve developmental outcomes for the families and children they serve.

Fill out the form to watch the on-demand webinar.

Webinar Presenters:

Dr. Christi Moore 
Director of Professional Learning at the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning (DECAL)

Christi Moore is the Director of Professional Learning at the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning (DECAL). She guides the work of the Professional Learning Unit, which oversees DECAL’s early learning workforce development and professional learning initiatives. In 2011, Christi earned her Ph.D. in Early Childhood Education from Georgia State University. She has a variety of experiences in education, including service as a classroom teacher in Georgia’s Pre-K and in K-5 classrooms, as well as working as a guidance counselor in a middle school setting. She has also worked in teacher education, serving as a language and literacy instructor in a university teacher preparation program and as a facilitator and trainer for a non-profit professional development center. Before joining DECAL, Christi led the development of an award-winning online learning platform for teachers of children ages birth through third grade.

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NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA, UNITED STATES, May 17, 2024 — TORSH is excited to announce its strategic collaboration with Indiana University’s Special Education program. Their partnership will implement a five-year research project investigating a framework of systematic support to early intervention providers who serve families of toddlers with autism and its effects on provider, parent, and toddler outcomes.

The research team behind this project selected TORSH Talent, a HIPAA-secure web-based platform with a mobile app, to centralize collaboration between the university’s team of intervention consultants and study participants, made up of early intervention providers selected from across multiple states. Kathryn Horn, Intervention Coordinator with Building Interactive Social Communication (BISC) at Indiana University, said, “Using TORSH Talent will make participation in this research project seamless and easy for all participants, storing and transmitting our data to allow for analysis of BISC’s impact on provider, parent, and child learning.”

TORSH’s innovative platform is a useful resource that enables providers to collaborate with the research team. The free mobile app and video recording features allow providers to capture parent-child interactions remotely by seamlessly uploading data and video clips into the platform. The app stores curated resource collections for providers’ easy access to needed tools for weekly sessions with families and allows them to submit self-reflection notes. Secure user permission management maintains the integrity of the study, protecting the “double-blind” nature of data collection and analysis.

“TORSH embraces this unique opportunity to enable critical research on ways to empower the early interventionists who provide essential early intervention services to children with specific developmental needs,” said Courtney Williams, Founder and CEO of TORSH.

About TORSH, Inc.
TORSH, a New Orleans-based education technology company, is dedicated to improving childhood outcomes by increasing educator instructional effectiveness. TORSH Talent, an online coaching and professional learning platform, enables organizations to support educator growth through the entire development cycle of observation, assessment, goal setting, feedback, and coaching. Learn more by visiting torsh.co.

About Indiana University Graduate School of Education, Special Education
Indiana University’s Special Education program prepares teachers and researchers to work with all kinds of learners. The faculty and staff of the School of Education embrace an ambitious mission “to improve teaching, learning, and human development in a global, diverse, rapidly changing, and increasingly technological society.” Through fieldwork, collaborative coursework, and research experiences, students gain knowledge and confidence to pursue educational careers. More information is available by visiting education.indiana.edu and the PI’s faculty profile.

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First Connections is a Little Rock-based agency within the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE), Division of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), Office of Special Education (OSE) that provides early intervention support and services to parents and other caregivers of program-eligible children from birth to three years old. First Connections also provides technical assistance to early intervention professionals to meet program certification requirements, offers ongoing professional development, and supports providers in applying evidence-based practices in their work with families.

First Connections employs only two full-time technical assistance and training professionals to support a diverse group of early intervention professionals spread across the state. With such a small team and such a big mission, First Connections needed a better way to provide certification training, ongoing professional development, and technical assistance beyond in-person training workshops. The program also needed more effective ways to track completion and collect data on the effectiveness of their technical assistance and training. Last, early interventionists working toward certification needed more flexibility in when and how they accessed training while they managed full caseloads.

These challenges led First Connections to search for a comprehensive online platform to help them manage and deliver technical assistance. In particular, First Connections wanted a solution to enable early intervention professionals to navigate certification requirements at their own pace. They also wanted an intuitive, simple-to-navigate platform to accommodate different technological abilities.

The goal: Ensure that all early intervention professionals, regardless of their location or schedule, have equitable access to essential resources and support opportunities.

The Solution 

First Connections was excited to discover TORSH Talent, a HIPAA-secure online platform that streamlines technical assistance and certification processes for staff in early intervention programs. With TORSH’s extensive expertise in supporting early intervention and care programs, First Connections found an ally to help them meet their goals and overcome obstacles.

Using TORSH Talent’s advanced suite of tools, First Connections has successfully launched a robust, accessible online environment for practitioners to tap into technical assistance services that support their practices. First Connections immediately began using TORSH Talent to:

• Offer on-demand, asynchronous courses
• Track completion of certification requirements
• Offer a variety of on-demand technical assistance modules to support in-service development of
  practitioner’s knowledge, abilities, and skills
• Offer Learning Paths tailored to the core competencies needed for specific roles

Core Competencies For Early Interventionists:

• Teaching families their IDEA rights in the context of the Part C Program process;
• Completing the Child Outcomes Summary (COS) rating as a team with the family using the state-approved tool
• Determining Part C Program Eligibility as a team with the family
• Developing a family-centered Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) around typical routines, child and family interests, and family priorities and concerns
• Selecting the Part C service necessary to reach the goals and objectives on the IFSP

Core Competencies For Therapists:

• Evaluation practices and sharing results of evaluations in the evaluation report within Part C Program guidelines and timelines
• Providing IFSP services within typical child and family activities to meet Natural Environment requirements
• Documenting Home and Community Visits (service sessions) in ways that describe the parent or caregiver participation

With its expanded reporting on practitioner engagement with content, TORSH Talent also enables First Connections to assess the effectiveness of their courses and course content in ways that the program was unable to do previously with in-person workshops or even in live webinars.

“The TORSH system provides an online platform to coordinate a variety of technical assistance activities and offer content and ongoing certification training courses to meet the needs of home visitors around their schedules.”

Tracy Turner
Part C Coordinator
The Arkansas Department of Education, Division of Elementary and Secondary Education, Office of Special Education

Initial Successes

With the comprehensive technical assistance and certification platform now fully operational within TORSH Talent, early intervention professionals are successfully engaging in coursework that historically had limited offerings. The result is that the statewide network of early intervention professionals are obtaining certification credentials in a timely manner with minimal support. And so far, feedback from in-the-field professionals about the experience has been positive.

First Connections is seeing significant improvements to both engagement and satisfaction levels among early intervention professionals, who appreciate the flexibility offered by TORSH Talent to access technical assistance on their schedules and supportive content specific to their needs. The collaboration between First Connections and TORSH has also yielded improved data collection, collaboration, and communication among stakeholders through the use of reporting tools.

As their partnership with TORSH progresses, First Connections anticipates a notable improvement in the effectiveness of their technical assistance offerings. Ultimately, bettering this support will also strengthen the practices that early intervention professionals leverage to serve families and children across the state.

What’s Next

The next step for First Connections is to work with TORSH to develop internal reports that group leaders can use to track their Provider Program staff’s completion of certification and annual professional development hours to further engage users. Additionally, First Connections plans to leverage TORSH Talent’s data collection capabilities to enhance the fidelity of technical assistance implementation and ongoing quality improvement. The program anticipates additional growth for practitioners and transformational practice improvements across the state through this collaboration.

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Teaching Lab aims to increase student achievement by building systems of support for high-quality teaching practices through hybrid and virtual coaching and educator training, each designed with careful attention to crafting teacher-led learning communities. Through the innovative TORSH Talent platform, coaches will support partner school districts across the country to observe teaching practices for improvement, mentor aspiring teacher leaders, and facilitate cross-district collaborations for shared learning. 

With their expertise and background in professional learning and coaching, TORSH is a partner well-positioned to help Teaching Lab ensure the success of these support systems for educators. “By using TORSH Talent across our organization and partners, Teaching Lab will merge the best research on teacher coaching with modern tools for collaborating, innovating, and improving teaching practices,” said Dr. Sarah Johnson, CEO of Teaching Lab.

TORSH Talent is a secure web-based solution with a mobile application, built to seamlessly support the implementation of those elements of professional learning that research shows lead to improved student outcomes. Through features like time-stamped feedback on coaching videos, in-platform video conferencing, goal setting and tracking, discussion forums, and a resource and exemplar library, TORSH Talent offers a robust toolkit for Teaching Lab to drive its mission forward. 

“TORSH looks forward to partnering with Teaching Lab on this vital effort to improve teaching practices for the benefit of all students,” said Courtney Williams, Founder and CEO of TORSH.

Together, Teaching Lab and TORSH will create a model for future district and school partners to successfully implement teacher-led continuous improvement through virtual and hybrid coaching and training. 

For more information about TORSH, visit torsh.co.

About TORSH, Inc.

TORSH, a New Orleans-based education technology company, is dedicated to improving childhood outcomes by increasing educator instructional effectiveness. TORSH Talent, an online coaching and professional learning platform, enables organizations to support educator growth through the entire development cycle of observation, assessment, goal setting, feedback, and coaching. Learn more by visiting torsh.co.

About Teaching Lab

Teaching Lab is a nonprofit organization with a mission to fundamentally shift the paradigm of teacher professional learning for educational equity. We envision a teaching profession where educators own and drive a culture of learning and continuous improvement in their instructional practice, dramatically improving equitable student outcomes. Our approach is based on rigorous research, which we summarize as “Head, Heart, and Habits”, with educational equity as the end goal. 

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Oxford is using the TORSH Talent online professional learning and coaching platform to: 

• To support students’ self-reflection on their classroom practice
• To conduct four formal evaluations during the clinical year
• To facilitate ongoing coaching with students

In this short video Kimberly Eckert, Dean of Undergraduate Studies at Oxford Teachers College, shares how she’s using TORSH Talent and how it has revolutionized the coaching process for her and her students. 

Interested in learning more about how TORSH Talent can streamline, simplify, and strengthen coaching for your organization? Get in touch!

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What’s most exciting about our work with CEC-RAP is that they serve a specific segment of the population, namely children from zero to three years of age with special needs, for whom early intervention can have a life-altering impact.

CEC-RAP focuses on, “the continued expansion of research, personnel preparation, and service delivery through collaboration with interrelated projects.” They serve kids with disabilities, communication disorders and/or multiple risks. CEC-RAP is not our typical client, as they aren’t in the business of training teachers. Rather, they help coach and train service providers such as speech, occupational and physical therapists, and social workers who are not pursuing degrees with Florida State but are already at work in the field. These service providers work with a child’s caregivers to coach them on strategies that will help them support the healthy development of their children. TORSH Talent, our customizable video-based coaching and professional learning platform, is how CEC-RAP is providing targeted coaching and training to providers thereby increasing the quality of the early intervention children and families receive.

Departments of Education and Health as well as individual programs from multiple states across the U.S. contract with CEC-RAP to receive this type of ongoing professional development for their service providers. We are very proud to be affiliated with a program that is doing so much for the youngest members of society. We feel confident that our work with CEC-RAP is changing the lives of these kids with special needs and helping prepare them to become lifelong learners.

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