Colorado's Largest School District Selects Schoology as Its Collaborative Learning Platform

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - May 8, 2012) - Schoology, developer of the leading cloud-based collaborative learning platform for K-20 classrooms, today announced it has been selected as the learning management system (LMS) of choice by Jefferson County Public Schools (aka Jeffco), Colorado's largest school district with 86,000 students and 12,000 employees.

Jeffco joins nearly one million users at more than 18,000 progressive schools and districts to use Schoology to improve communication and collaboration inside and outside of the classroom by socially connecting educators, students and parents. Schoology bundles online learning, classroom management and social networking into a single, secure platform.

Recognized as one of the nation's most technically advanced and forward-looking districts, Jeffco decided it had outlived its locally hosted LMS from Blackboard and sought a more agile solution that could better meet its evolving needs. The district wanted a low maintenance, cloud-based solution that could easily scale, integrate with existing systems, and could be customized to support district-wide programs and curriculums now and into the future. Schoology was the standout vendor based on the openness of its platform, proven ability to scale quickly with ease, premium social and collaboration features and the cost benefits offered by a hosted vs. server-based delivery model. Jeffco will use Schoology to facilitate classroom instruction and curriculum management, foster collaboration and power the district's Virtual Academy, which offers online courses for grades 7-12 for students throughout Colorado.

"We pride ourselves in being a cutting-edge district when it comes to embracing new technologies and innovations that will benefit our students, teachers and parents," said Matt Cormier, Executive Director of Education Technology for Jefferson County Public Schools. "On the front-end, we wanted our LMS to offer a user experience that is fun, intuitive and engaging by providing tools and services that look and feel like the popular social networking sites. While on the back-end the system needed to have an open application programming interface (API) for easy customization and integration with existing systems like Infinite Campus, PeopleSoft and Blackboard Collaborate. With Schoology we avoid the high costs of vendor lock-in and have selected a technology partner that will grow and evolve in lock-step with the district's near and long-term goals."

Schoology provides teachers and administrators with a full suite of learning management tools to manage lessons and homework assignments; administer and grade tests and quizzes; discover and embed new educational content and resources; share and collaborate with other educators on course materials; analyze individual student and overall classroom performance; and effectively communicate and engage with students in a secure online environment.

"Jeffco joins a rapidly growing list of large school districts that are replacing server-based LMS systems in favor of cloud-based systems like Schoology due to the flexibility, scalability, price and performance advantages the cloud offers -- it's an investment in their future," said Jeremy Friedman, CEO of Schoology. "The openness of Schoology allows districts to interact with data like never before and build custom applications that further extend the Schoology platform. With Schoology in place, Jeffco teachers, administrators and students will enjoy greater flexibility and collaboration in learning activities, improved teacher efficiencies and workload management and a fully optimized district-wide LMS -- all at a significantly lower price."

About Schoology
New York City-based Schoology is the developer of a K-20 collaborative learning platform that incorporates online learning, classroom management and social networking in one platform. The cloud-based solution is available as both a free, stand-alone product and as a fee-based, integrated enterprise-class solution for schools and districts. Schoology integrates seamlessly with existing school/district technologies to create a single, scalable interface where educators can teach, assess, administer and analyze student progress. Schoology has transformed how educators communicate and collaborate with students, parents and peers. The platform expands the educator's support and resource network by enabling meaningful academic collaboration through the sharing of best practices and digital content via school-to-school networking and an easy-to-access centralized resource library. For more information visit schoology.com or follow the company on Twitter @schoology.