Kelli Campbell’s motivation to take over as chief executive officer of Acceleration Academies was the great work that the nation’s leading provider of tech-enabled flexible education is doing and being able to concentrate on high-need students.
The network includes Acceleration Academies of Ector County in Odessa. Campbell said it helps students who have struggled in a traditional education setting and gives them a chance to succeed in a hybrid environment. Students may be working a full-time job and need to complete some of their courses during off hours or in a virtual setting.
“Our software enables that and then we couple that with the ability to come in and be supported in the physical academy with all of the other wraparound services that are important for the success of these kids. Being able to have a Graduate Candidate Advocate who is working as … a mentor and helping those kids be successful and ensuring course completions on time. What this has allowed me to be able to do is take my background around building at scale and using technology to fuel a terrific, flexible experience for students and then be able to impact even more of these kids across the country and give everybody an opportunity to succeed,” Campbell said.
Campbell spent 17 years at Discovery Education, the global leader in standards-based digital content for K-12 school districts, and most recently served as president of the company. She brings a track record of success leading the sales and marketing, product development and operations functions for pioneering educational technology organizations.
Acceleration Academies will have partnerships with about 20 districts by the end of the year.
In some districts, Campbell said, they have multiple academies such as in Clark County, Nevada.
“The academies grew very organically to date. There are two founders, Dr. Joey Wise, who is a former superintendent came up with the concept of Acceleration Academies and being able to provide an alternative education program for kids who are really struggling on the other side of the equation. The other co-founder, Steve Campbell, was a founder of the technology side. These two businesses came together, and over the last several years, have created a model that is very operationally sound and very instructionally sound,” Kelli Campbell said.
Campbell said Acceleration Academies’ instructional content model is “beautiful” and “very well delivered.”
She added that what she can help with is finding more students, partner with more districts and help bring this model to more students across the country.
“The company has a concentration of schools in Florida, in Nevada, a little bit in some other spots around the country, but Ector County right now is the only county in Texas. … I see a tremendous opportunity with the leadership that Dr. Muri has shown in being able to show the success of the program in Texas. I’d love to see more kids benefiting from it in your state,” Campbell said.
Discussing the importance of a high school diploma, Campbell said if a child doesn’t graduate from high school that means about $500,000 in lost revenue and salaries that they would make over the course of their lifetime “and it’s about an additional 500,000 in expenses that the economy would bear on behalf of that individual — whether it’s welfare or some other system that needs to be provided to help them.”
If you expand those impacts to that child’s family and the community, Campbell said it’s an economic and moral imperative to create a way for these students to succeed.
“In most cases these kids, they don’t think of themselves as dropouts. They were more pushed out. They were in a situation where they could be successful. They may need to work full time, or maybe somebody had a baby, or mental health challenges,” Campbell said. “Maybe getting back into a classroom post COVID was very difficult, so there’s all these reasons are not because the kids don’t want to go to school, it’s because they have a situation that makes it unsuccessful. We’re both creating a situation where we can support the students, we can support the school district because it should help provide more graduates into the system.”
Getting a high school diploma also creates more and better opportunities for students “and a lot of softer ways as well that aren’t necessarily things that are being reported on — the sense of worth, the sense of accomplishment, the ability to get up and find a purpose. It’s really, really compelling,” Campbell added.
The technology used by Acceleration Academies also provides engagement and an opportunity to learn in a different way than a traditional textbook, for example.
“They can work their way through the content at their own pace. The software enables them … to reach out to their content coach in real time if they’re struggling with a concept and get that response right way and then utilization of interactive media and little checks for understanding to make sure they’re learning the content as they go along,” Campbell said.
She added that they are able to tell in real time, on a day-to-day basis how many students are working their way through the courses, where they are in the course and their percentage of course completion.
“All of this data enables the graduation candidate advocates … to be really up-to-the-minute on each of the kids in the program and then intervene as necessarily either to give them words of encouragement — you’re doing great — or wow you haven’t been in the system in two days and your course completion is a little behind schedule what can we do to help, what do we need to do to get back on track? That use of data is super compelling and really starts to deliver on individualized learning plans for everybody,” Campbell said.
Co-founders Steve Campbell and Wise will remain actively involved in the business, a news release said.
The change in leadership came as Acceleration Academies is rapidly expanding its school district partnerships nationwide to provide a flexible, supportive and personalized program for students who are not experiencing success in a traditional high school, the release said.
“As our organization has matured and we are serving a record number of students, we are excited to welcome additional leadership expertise to help us reach the next level. We must support our accelerated growth so that we can serve more students and school districts, while maintaining the efficacy and integrity of our model,” current CEO and co-founder Steve Campbell said in the release.
