Highline Public Schools today announced the launch of a new partnership supporting college and career readiness with Discovery Education, the leading provider of digital content and professional development for K-12 classrooms.

Through this collaboration, all K-12 classrooms districtwide will have access to engaging digital content through Discovery Education Streaming Plus, an award-winning, comprehensive digital service supplementing instruction across all K-12 curricular areas. In addition, 35 teacher leaders and their principals, representing five elementary schools, two middle schools and one high school, will participate in Discovery Education’s Digital Leader Corps. A comprehensive professional development system, Digital Leader Corps develops teacher-leaders to propel the district's transition to modern digital learning environments.

This new partnership supports Highline Public Schools’ Strategic Plan for 2013-2017, which was developed with input from parents, students, community members, and district staff at all levels. The plan outlines six major goals designed to ensure that each student is prepared for college and careers, with one of the goals being that every student will graduate tech-savvy and tech-literate. Key components of the district strategy include providing technology devices to every student; partnering with local technology organizations to provide resources and access to leading-edge technology and industry professionals; and providing current and continuous professional development for teachers, leaders, and staff to ensure seamless integration of technology-driven approaches. Access to Discovery Education Streaming Plus ensures that educators and students using district-issued devices have the ability to access the highest-quality digital content for teaching and learning.  Discovery Education’s Digital Leader Corps supports the school system’s efforts to provide rigorous professional development that empowers all teachers to effectively integrate new educational technologies and digital media into classroom instruction.

“Highline Public Schools is committed to creating engaging personalized learning environments that ensure district graduates are college and career ready,” said Highline Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Susan Enfield. “The addition of Discovery Education’s dynamic digital resources and robust professional development will help our educators innovate and lead us in meeting this critical goal.”

Discovery Education Streaming Plus’ digital resources are aligned to state standards, are searchable, and include videos, images, primary source documents, podcasts, oral interviews, audio books, articles and more. Teacher resources in Streaming Plus include lesson plans, instructional strategies and content collections organized around themes, as well as instructional videos, skill builders, writing prompts, multimedia activities, and articles. Through its popular Board Builder feature, students can create virtual project boards using multimedia and text to synthesize their thinking and provide evidence of their understanding of a concept or problem.

Discovery Education’s Digital Leader Corps helps school systems develop a network of teacher-leaders prepared to design and implement successful and innovative teaching strategies to be shared with their peers.  Featuring a unique combination of professional learning, pedagogy and tools, Digital Leader Corps offers participating educators proven approaches to integrating educational technologies and digital media into classroom instruction.  Digital Leader Corps provides teachers with continuous customized, job-embedded consultation throughout the process with on-going modeling, coaching and feedback from Discovery Education experts in the pre-planning, stakeholder communications and implementation phases.

The Discovery Education Community will also support Highline Public Schools’ educators in their efforts to transform students’ learning experiences with digital media. A global community of education professionals, the Discovery Education Community connects members across school systems and around the world through social media, virtual conferences, and in-person events, fostering valuable networking, idea sharing and inspiration.

“Discovery Education shares Highline Public Schools’ belief that engaging digital content combined with high quality, ongoing professional development can play a critical role in preparing students for success beyond the classroom,” said Jolie Vigen, Director of Education Partnerships at Discovery Education.  “We look forward to supporting Superintendent Enfield and the entire Highline team as they create the authentic, real-world digital learning environments their students need for college and career readiness.”
For more information about Discovery Education Streaming Plus, the Digital Leader Corps and other Discovery Education services, visit www.discoveryeducation.com.

About Discovery Education
Discovery Education is the global leader in standards-based digital content for K-12, transforming teaching and learning with award-winning digital textbooks, multimedia content, professional development, and the largest professional learning community of its kind. Serving 3 million educators and over 30 million students, Discovery Education’s services are in half of U.S. classrooms, 50 percent of all primary schools in the UK, and more than 50 countries. Discovery Education partners with districts, states and like-minded organizations to captivate students, empower teachers, and transform classrooms with customized solutions that increase academic achievement. Discovery Education is powered by Discovery Communications (NASDAQ: DISCA, DISCB, DISCK), the number one nonfiction media company in the world. Explore the future of education at www.discoveryeducation.com.