In the beginning of the 2025-2026 school year, the state of Washington is going to be paying for the same digital platform for all school districts across the state.
Through legislation, it was determined that the State should be incurring the costs instead of the individual school districts, since competition of beyond high school readiness is a graduation requirement.
They put out a call to all the different digital platforms, Xello being one of them, and then they narrowed it down. They had a team to decide what digital platform Washington would have for every school district, and SchooLinks was selected.
Principal Dave Sunich says he believes the changes will affect students’ readiness for beyond high school.
“I think that the lessons that are within SchooLinks are tailored more specifically to what students from Puyallup need to have to be able to be ready to make a plan for post-graduation as we can do some modifications as a district on them to meet our specific grad requirements and those sorts of things,” Sunich said.
Sunich says the new program will benefit students by allowing them to be able to access their information and keep their progress when switching schools, even outside the district.
“If they put a lot of work into a resume or some of their career findings, they can go back and access those when they’re no longer a student here, which is an improvement from Xello,” Sunich said. “Also, it’s web based, in a sense that even if a kid switches schools, their information will go with them, whereas beforehand, if someone left, they would have had to start over again because there wasn’t really a way to transfer that information.”
Sunich goes on to express his opinion on the change to SchooLinks and the positives that come with it.
“I think it’s a positive change, it was a change that was going to have to happen at one point or another. The state of Washington required everybody to start using the same platform, so they gave a couple of options. [SchooLinks] was one of them, Xello wasn’t. So, it’s just going to be a lot more user friendly when we get used to using it,” Sunich said.
Sunich shares how he sees the change affecting the future students.
“My hope is that once everybody gets familiar with it and used to using it, hopefully it’ll become really seamless, like people are comfortable with it and it is effective, and we’ll probably continue to modify it and make it better,” Sunich said. “I think it’s a lot more user friendly. It allows kids to kind of go at their own pace with the To Do lists and those sorts of things. So in it, the way, it kind of customizes based on the interests of the students.”
College and Career Readiness TOSA Shelley Jellison says that SchooLinks feels like more of an elevated program for students to use.
“It feels maybe a little bit more grown up. I did love Xello, but you know, we’re just ready to move on to whatever the state is going to be using,” Jellison said.
Jellison said SchooLinks is an improvement from Xello because of the modifications available for the students.
“[SchooLinks has] a lot of really great resources and lessons and things like that. But I know at the district level there have been some modified lessons to meet what we have been doing to help that transition,” Jellison said. “I also think that it’s better because the state is going to start paying for it, so that, you know, especially with this year being in such a budget crisis, that will open some additional funding for other things. So, I think that’s the best part of it, is that the state will start paying for it.”
Jellison said SchooLinks will be able to provide more information about apprenticeships in Washington state for students to learn about and partake in.
“It’s definitely evolving, I think that it will get to be to a point that that it’s super helpful for students. We have lots of different references for students when they’re exploring careers and apprenticeships and things like that,” Jellison said.
Jellison said the transitions that come with changing platforms from Xello to SchooLinks can be difficult, but the district is working hard to make it function.
“When you transition to a new program, there’s always some glitches. We’re trying to make it as seamless as possible. So, for an example, at the district level, they are uploading test scores. Where, in the past, we had a database or a spreadsheet that students went and looked for their scores and then entered that themselves,” Jellison said.
Jellison goes on to say how when the district and students were trying to upload scores at the same time, they weren’t saving.
“When people were putting in their goals for SAT or PSAT, things like that, it wasn’t saving. Because on the other end, at the district level, we’re trying to upload SBA scores and graduation pathways and things like that,” Jellison said. “We’re trying to get everything ironed out. So, there’s always going to be some little hiccups, but I wouldn’t say anything critical.”
