A local company is investing more research-and-development capabilities into an online tool focused on students' emotional health.
Aperture Education, a Fort Mill-based startup, provides social and emotional learning assessments for K-12 schools and other organizations. Teachers fill out the behavior assessments online to see where students may need extra support. Aperture provides data and hundreds of growth strategies to help teachers support those students. There is also an option for high-school-age students to self-report on assessments.
Aperture obtains data using the Devereux Student Strengths Assessment, or DESSA, system.
"Social and emotional learning has been on this accelerated path for as long as I've been working with the company, which is coming up on seven years. I have never seen more growth than I have in this last year, and it really is (in) direct relation to the pandemic," said Kristin Hinton, vice president of sales and marketing at Aperture. "(Students) had to adapt, and their well-being and mental health was impacted."
The R&D team is now looking to implement more practice-informed research, working collaboratively with clients to produce better resources. Five people comprise that team, with plans to add at least one more this year, Hinton said.
Aperture as a whole is also growing. It added close to 40 positions in 2021 and plans to have more than 100 employees by the end of this year. It logged 200% year-over-year growth in revenue from 2020 to 2021, Hinton said.
Founded in 2017, Aperture has served more than 2 million students and 128,000 educators across 800 school districts. Locally, it works with several organizations, such as Communities in Schools of Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Kannapolis City Schools, Stanly County Schools and the Fort Mill School District, to name a few. The startup recently landed a five-year partnership with the New York City Department of Education, rolling out its program to roughly 1 million students, Hinton said.
Last year, Aperture acquired Charlotte-based Ascend, a firm providing student engagement software. It also secured a contract with the Connecticut State Department of Education.
"It's always been a vision for Aperture, but until we've been able to expand, it's hard to dedicate the resources if you don't have them," said Dr. Evelyn Johnson, a former special-education professor at Boise State University. "With the expansion of the team, we're really excited to be collaborating with practitioners and get started on this important work."
Johnson came on board last October to serve as vice president of the R&D team. She was also CEO at the Lee Pesky Learning Center, which seeks to overcome obstacles related to learning disabilities.
Johnson said part of the new research agenda is about looking at practice issues and how these tools can best be implemented in schools. Aperture is conducting a client survey to get more input on educators' questions or challenges. Those results will inform the team's priorities.
The SEL field is growing, Johnson said, and she sees future opportunities to expand adult SEL services and help students with disabilities.
