Icahn Charter School in the Bronx had strong curriculum, experienced teachers, and clear instructional goals. Everything was already there. The challenge was that it lived in different places. This is what happened when ClassHero brought it all into one place.
Strong Curriculum. Strong Teachers. Everything Just Spread Out.
Icahn Charter School serves K–8 students with two classes per grade. It had strong instructional materials — Core Knowledge resources, district-provided tools, and network mandates. The challenge was not the quality of those materials.
The challenge was that they lived in different places — and every teacher had to bring them together on their own before instruction could begin.
"You get handed a stack of curriculum, tools, and network mandates, and then it's like, 'Go teach everything.'"
For newer teachers, the coordination was especially steep. Valuable resources went unused — not because they weren’t good, but because there was no clear system for how and when to use them. The materials were there. They just needed to live together.
ClassHero Didn't Replace Anything. It Organized What Was Already There.
ClassHero mapped every lesson to Icahn’s pacing guide and instructional goals, connected all resources to the right point in the instructional sequence, and gave every teacher a single view of what to teach that week — and exactly where to find it.
No new curriculum. No disruption to what was already working. Just a simpler way to access what the school had always had.
What ClassHero organized at Icahn:
- Core Knowledge and all district resources mapped to pacing guides and instructional goals
- A week-by-week, lesson-by-lesson view for every teacher across every grade
- Network mandates aligned with the daily instructional sequence
- One-click access to the right resource at the right time — no navigating between platforms
- Admin visibility into curriculum usage and pacing across all K–8 grades
Instead of navigating between systems to find materials, teachers open one view on Monday morning and know exactly what to teach that week — everything already connected and ready.
The adoption story
From Skeptics to Superusers: What 100% Adoption Actually Looks Like
When Cassie — Icahn’s Staff Developer — first saw the ClassHero email, she almost deleted it.
"I honestly thought it was impossible. But then we saw the platform and realized — it does exactly what it says."
Onboarding was structured but light. ClassHero’s Head of Product joined at the start of the year for a full walkthrough, followed by one support session a month later. That was all it took.
By the end of the first year, every teacher at Icahn Charter School was using ClassHero daily — including the veteran educators who had been the most resistant at the start.
100% adoption. No exceptions.
Math practice activities drove particularly strong student engagement, giving students meaningful preparation for state assessments without the repetitive drill that leads to burnout. Teachers who had previously been the biggest skeptics became the most active users.
What Changed Across the Building
The impact was felt across every grade level and every role in the building. The shift Cassie describes is not just about time — it is about what teachers do with that time.
What this means for your district
The Lesson That Goes Beyond Icahn
What happened at Icahn Charter School is not a charter school story. It is a story about how curriculum actually reaches classrooms.
Most districts have made significant investments in high-quality curriculum. The materials are real, the programs are strong, and the professional development has happened. What often hasn’t happened is the organizing layer — the structure that connects those materials to each other, to the pacing guide, and to every teacher’s Monday morning in a single view.
The path to consistency does not require new programs or a disruptive rollout. It requires one change: bringing everything you already have into one place, connected to your pacing guide, and accessible to every teacher in a single view.
Comments
annabrown
Good Blog!
cmsmasters
Thanks.