A San Bernardino innovator recently honored for using technology to boost academic success at the Colton Joint Unified School District (USD) finds students gained a love for learning that helped them to thrive through an online platform called Subject.
“Subject has profoundly impacted our students at Colton Joint Unified, fostering their growth, engagement and overall academic success. Subject provided our students with invaluable opportunities to extend their knowledge and skills far beyond the classroom,” Director of Secondary Education Dr. Eric J. Mooney of Colton Joint USD said in a recent interview.
Mooney credits Los Angeles-based education company Subject with helping students conquer academic challenges; for instance, a few students struggling with math began to change their perspective and excel, he said. Mooney said that students also gave the Subject program, which enhances curriculum with cinematic-quality short-film videos, rave reviews.
“Students shared that the engaging and interactive learning materials, innovative teaching methods and real-world applications really help them to be more successful,” he said. “Subject also impacted our students by providing them with dedicated teachers and support via tutoring. It was also evident that Subject supported our students by tapping into their critical thinking skills.”
For going the extra mile to enrich student opportunities to learn, Mooney was one of seven honorees recognized last month at the Subject Impact Awards Gala. The ceremony was designed to recognize innovators for “their courage, commitment and dedication in their use of educational technology,” a Coachella Valley Times article said. Mooney has devoted approximately five years to his position at Colton Joint USD, according to LinkedIn.
One of the qualities that stands out about Mooney is a leadership style “characterized by a deep commitment to empowering students and families,” according to Subject in a blog on the honorees. The blog also said his efforts “contributed greatly to the success of Colton USD as a whole.”
Colton Joint USD is not alone in experiencing improved student engagement and learning as a result of video content available through Subject’s more than 65 engaging and accredited courses. As the company website describes, this online learning platform has a proven track record of elevating student success. Launched in 2020 by Felix Ruano and Michael Vilardo, Subject empowers teachers to bring classroom lessons to life.
Locally, Photography 1 was “super popular” with students at Colton, Bloomington and Grand Terrace high schools, while students also gravitated to English and financial literacy at Bloomington High and psychology and cryptocurrency at Grand Terrace, Mooney said.
In the interview, Mooney said the district used Subject "a little differently than most other districts," which means students could enroll directly with Subject in addition to their regular classes at Colton.
"In only one instance did we pilot having a teacher of English work with a Subject teacher in providing the course to his students," he said. "This model was somewhat effective but needs more support to ensure we are getting (the) type of student outcome we expect."
The district’s No. 1 goal, he said, is giving each student the foundation needed to pursue postsecondary education and ultimately a career that pays a living wage. In helping the district work toward that goal, Mooney described the Subject team as “super responsive and supportive."
"It was evident the team at Subject cared about our district and demonstrated a strong commitment to supporting our district's unique needs," he said. "They were attentive to hearing about our district's graduation criteria, timelines and specific data points ensuring alignment in our overall goals of not only improving graduation rates for the class of 2023, but 2024 as well,” he said.
All of this harmonizes with the district’s mission statement, he said, which promotes “engaging, challenging and enriching opportunities and specialized programs” so that each student can pursue college and career success, while also becoming compassionate human beings able to communicate, and even advocate, for themselves. Subject has helped substantially with the core content component, he said.
Giving a scenario of how Subject helped the district meet its goals, Mooney cited major setbacks threatened by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the fall of the 2022-23 school year, the Educational Services Division outlined the lingering impacts of COVID on the class of 2023.
“In Colton Joint USD, we were seeing staggering statistics such as 20.5% of all seniors in the class of 2023 having at least one grade of F on their transcript. We also had a combined total of 281 seniors from our three comprehensive high schools in the class of 2023 with less than 110 credits,” Mooney said. The district launched Mission 220 with credit recovery classes using Subject to provide extended-day intervention, which helped 41 students conquer the academic consequences of COVID, he said.
Besides being part of the academic rescue mission, Subject made it possible for the district to react quickly by compiling graduation data that enabled Colton Joint USD to analyze the pandemic’s toll on learning.
“Subject.com was super reliable in its communication with our counselors and administrators. This robust level of data collection allowed our district to be analytical and process and interpret our student success criteria in a timely and effective manner,” Mooney said.
Not only did the award from Subject come as a “total surprise” to Mooney, but he takes a humble outlook on the accolades, saying: “This impact award may have my name on it but it belongs to all of the counselors, administrators and teachers who make these opportunities available to our students.”