New Design High School – K12 School – New York

New Design High School is a grade 9-12 school located on the Lower East Side of Manhattan with 550 students. Darren Chase is a teacher at the school, and since 2018 he has been using Off2Class with his students. Like thousands of K12 schools across the US, in 2020 Darren and his colleagues were plunged into uncertainty as remote education became widespread. However, as New Design High School had been using Off2Class before the pandemic began, they were well placed to offer remote lessons to their students.

How does Off2Class help English Language Learners?

The student population at New Design High School is 88% Black and Hispanic and 64% female, and 15% of the population have Individual Educational Plans. The school has a focus on design education. In addition, they are committed to empowering students with the skills, tools, and capacities to become successful after high school.

Darren uses Off2class to provide support to his English Language Learners (ELLs) and students in English literature classes. He uses the program to supplement the core curriculum with break-away lessons on grammar. These lessons are thematically related to the core content. With Off2Class, the teacher does not have to create materials for each group from scratch. This makes it a great tool for supporting students at different levels because it is easy to target specific skills. Furthermore, the presentations and practice examples are clear, the homework is easy to review and the assessment data is all in one place.

Teaching ELLs remotely at New Design High School

In 2020, teachers faced the challenge of supporting students remotely due to the Covid 19 Pandemic. ELLs faced particular barriers to remote education, and some have been at risk of falling behind their peers. As Off2Class is a digital-first tool, it works seamlessly between face-to-face, remote and hybrid learning. Therefore, teachers like Darren can support ELLs whether they are studying remotely or in the classroom. There is no need to awkwardly change materials or resources. As explained in our 2021 Equity Statement, Off2Class can be used in a low bandwidth environment which makes it as accessible as possible to all students.

Working in partnership with teachers

We’ve enjoyed working with Darren for the better part of three years! Darren offers feedback on how we can make Off2Class a better tool for K12 teachers. Particularly, teachers that have a group of ELLs, each with their own unique language issues. After such a challenging academic year, it is a privilege to support K12 teachers in the US as they prepare for hybrid learning in 2021/2022.