Kelly Sia, President, Curriculum Associates

Curriculum Associates is invested in leveraging AI and technology to support the student and teacher experience in classrooms. “No tool will ever replace the teacher, and that is never the goal. To impact learning outcomes, technology needs to be a complement, and our job is to ensure it’s taking work off the teacher’s plate so they can focus on supporting students,” President Kelly Sia told Invest:

How would you describe Curriculum Associates in terms of what it provides? 

Curriculum Associates is a 50-year-old company. We’re in edtech, so we provide assessment and instructional technology, service offerings that support professional learning for educators, and print materials.  We also have an incredible research team that conducts a range of analyses, including synthesizing national data and sharing trends about student learning.

 We’re focused on making classrooms better for teachers and students. Our fundamental belief is that education is an equalizer for all and that every student can be successful and reach grade-level proficiency regardless of their backgrounds, zip codes, family income, and any other determining factor that we know often impacts student outcomes. 

We serve about a third of students in grades K-8 in the United States. That is about 13 million learners and about a million teachers. We have a flagship product called i-Ready, a learning experience that starts with an adaptive test called the i-Ready Diagnostic. Students leave the diagnostic with a personalized instructional pathway, whether it’s in reading or math, and teachers can see if they are below, at or above grade level.  Rich data from the diagnostic ensures the educator has a precise view of every child in their class, along with specific, relevant, and actionable insights to support each student.  It allows that teacher to group students effectively and to plan instruction, which is also available through i-Ready Personalized Instruction. With rich data, personalized reporting and clear instructional next steps, i-Ready supports teachers by saving time and allowing them to do what they do best, which is to teach. 

How does the acquisition of SoapBox Labs at the end of last year align with Curriculum Associates’ focus on improving equity and access for students?

We are so excited about adding the expertise of the SoapBox team and the opportunity to thoughtfully integrate new AI technology into our products to support learning. The biggest change happening in the education space is centered around AI and among the trends we see emerging is around voice activation and technology that brings student voice into the learning experience.

The SoapBox Labs team is based in Dublin, Ireland, and it’s an amazing team of 20 engineers and speech scientists.  Since 2013 they’ve been building an equity-based voice engine that understands the unique patterns of kids voices regardless of accent, dialect or the language students might speak at home.  The SoapBox engine has already delivered over 120 million learning experiences for students, and its accuracy and safety are proven. It generates granular insights for educators, which is an invaluable resource, and the tool is proven to work in the noisy environments kids inhabit, like classrooms filled with young, energetic students. In keeping with our focus on personalizing learning experiences with meaningful data and insights, this technology will be used to help teachers identify and address the unique needs of kids. It will be used to support early literacy, reading fluency, language learning, math, and so many more things. 

The idea, like with i-Ready, is to have a personalized plan for each learner. It very much aligns with what we’ve been committed to for years. It’s an extension of what we’re doing today, because it’s going to take things off the teacher’s plate, enhance what we know about kids, and provide an action plan that’s unique to them. We’re merging our roadmaps right now, thinking strategically about bringing these two great products together.

What is going to be the effect of AI in education?

 Implemented thoughtfully and responsibly, AI’s impact on education will be revolutionary.  I read somewhere recently that educators are using AI during 40% of the work week, and 40% of educators are using it at least once a week, 10% every day. I believe we will see more innovative and creative ways to think about how AI can help students and educators.

Like any classroom technology, AI tools will be most impactful when they are developed to supplement and support great educators. I don’t ever see a world in which meaningful learning happens without teachers working with students. The key is ensuring the technology complements teachers and is created to work in sync with the full classroom and teacher experience. 

That means AI implementation will need a human approach. Support and service for educators is going to be incredibly important, and we need to make sure we’re using technology in responsible ways focused on improving student outcomes.

Why is Boston, or Massachusetts, a good place for your industry?

When you think about education and all the accomplishments that have come from this region, so much happens in this great state. There are tons of companies in the edtech space in Boston: including another CA company, Ellevation Education, which serves nearly half of the nation’s English learners with their products for multilingual learners. Plus, many of the bigger curriculum publishers, and companies that focus on supporting multilingual learners and social-emotional learning. 

Massachusetts also has some of the best schools, from elementary and charter schools through higher ed as well as some of the top tech talent emerging from local universities. There’s no better place to be in edtech than in Massachusetts. 

What initiatives does the company have to foster a more positive or more inclusive workplace culture and attract and retain talent?

We deeply care about having the right team and the right culture. We’re consistently listed as a top place to work by the Boston Globe. We’re also ranked on Boston Business Journal’s Best Place to Work year after year. We’ve won best places to work distinctions with national outlets like Glassdoor, Comparably and Built-In based on employee feedback as well.

We’ve grown quickly, doubling our number of employees in the last four years. That means that we have to work differently to ensure we are supporting a diverse, national workforce. We need to embrace different ways of working, create opportunities for connection like employee resource groups, and give our employees better technology so that they feel included, supported, and able to focus on the things that matter. 

When I think about our staff, we have people who are supporting educators directly in the classroom and we have teams of people supporting the staff that’s supporting the educator. At every level, on every team, no matter how removed from the classroom, we all wake up thinking about how we can best support educators.

We care deeply about our employees and continuing to make Curriculum Associates a place where every individual can thrive. We conduct regular engagement surveys to hear directly about what’s working and what can be improved upon to ensure we’re staying attuned to the needs of the team. 

We recently launched several initiatives that aim to bring our teams together meaningfully; the first is monthly in-person onboarding at our North Billerica home office. This means that a cohort of new employees from all over, whether they work fully remotely, from one of our other offices, or in the Greater Boston area, come together to do their onboarding together and meet the local employees and executive leaders.

The onboarding training happens during a specific week each month when we ask local employees and senior leaders to work from the office for a few days so that invaluable community and culture building can happen organically. We invite distributed teams to have their retreats and trainings during this time as well. Most of our colleagues are remote or hybrid, so these weeks of intentional in-person collaboration are especially meaningful.

What is your outlook for your company over the near term, and what are your top priorities moving forward?

Our priorities continue to be around developing a pipeline of products that will improve the lives of teachers and students. We want to continue to enhance our service and the work we do with educators directly, every interaction we have, whether in the classroom or virtually, meaningful and support their needs. We have the same North Star we’ve always had, which is driving student outcomes.