The Columbia County School District assures that it did not utilize a digital education platform that has proven controversial in the county in the last several months.
“We just decided it didn’t fit us at the time,” said Superintendent Steven Flynt about Panorama, an education technology company based in Boston that has developed a program to gather data and provide support to schools and districts.
The platform is designed to help educational institutions, via specialized surveys and management systems, collect and analyze information on the behavior of students for the development of strategies and solutions to improve student outcomes.
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Panorama’s program is based upon, and geared toward the application and improvement of, social-emotional learning, an educational practice that focuses on incorporating interpersonal and emotional management skills into academic curriculums. Some parents have expressed concern about the platform during school board meetings since last year.
Eric Feldkamp, during the Oct. 12, 2021 meeting, addressed his worry that data gathered about students could potentially be shared with third parties. In that same meeting, Janet Duggan, who has spoken before the board several times about Panorama before and since, voiced her concern that social-emotional learning was essentially a component of critical race theory.
Duggan also wrote a letter to the editor, published by The Augusta Press on Feb. 2, claiming that the school district, on its website, indicated that they had never had a relationship with Panorama.
Flynt affirms that there was a period in which the district was considering using the platform, but between a resurgence of COVID-19, the time and energy required for professional development and promotion of the platform among the teachers, a complaint about the platform and other issues, the district ultimately elected not to implement the program.
“We did not say it wasn’t here; we just said we didn’t use it,” said Flynt. “We have some very stringent data requirements and so, nothing against them, we just couldn’t resolve those issues.”
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The district has an invoice for purchase of access to the Panorama platform and its services for more than $105,000, dated April 23, 2021. In November of last year, Panorama issued the district a refund for the service totaling over $89,000.
Flynt says that district did pay the company for some work on integration. The invoice from Panorama includes “roster integration with Infinite Campus” among its services. Infinite Campus is a digital information management system marketed to school systems.
The invoice also lists a fee for project management at $16,830, the exact difference between what the district paid Panorama Education, and what Panorama refunded.
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter covering education in Columbia County and business-related topics for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
