Otus

Just six months in, West Valley School District #208 is already expanding its use of Otus into broader schoolwide work like MTSS and student plans.

What began as a search for a platform to support competency-based learning has become a clearer way to capture mastery and make student progress easier to understand.

Read our latest case study to see how West Valley is using Otus to bring more visibility to grading, assessment, and student support 👉

How West Valley Innovation Center Uses Otus to Support Competency-Based Learning After moving away from another K-12 grading platform, West Valley School District needed a way to support its transition to competency-based grading and give teachers, leaders, students, and families clearer visibility into student learning.

A letter grade can tell you the outcome, but standards-based grading can help tell the story behind it.

For schools using MTSS, that's huge.

SBG helps educators see where support is needed and whether interventions are working over time.

Our blog breaks down how SBG fits into MTSS and why the two work so well together 👉

How SBG Fits Into MTSS Rather than combining effort, behavior, homework completion, and test scores into a single letter, SBG reports on each skill separately — showing exactly what a student has mastered and where they still need support.

AI shouldn’t decide whether a student has mastered a skill.

That’s educator work, and that will never change.

But for schools using standards-based grading or competency-based learning, AI can help educators spot patterns faster, connect evidence across assessments and rubrics, and make the next steps clearer.

Our latest blog looks at how AI can support mastery learning while keeping teacher judgment at the center.

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How AI Supports Standards-Based Grading and Competency-Based Learning Standards-based grading (SBG) and competency-based learning (CBL) already offer a stronger way to think about progress, feedback, and evidence of learning. What AI can do is help schools carry that work with more clarity and less friction.

📣 Calling our community! Otus was nominated for two categories in the SmartBrief Readers' Choice Awards, and we need your vote!

We're extremely grateful for our incredible community and this recognition. Thank you for your support!

Reader's Choice Awards 2025 presented by SmartBrief on EdTech - Voting VOTE NOW in the Reader's Choice Awards 2025 presented by SmartBrief on EdTech!

Most schools can see *what* students scored.

Seeing *how* they learn? That changes the game.

Watch cognitive insights and classroom data come together to create a fuller student picture and more targeted support. Only with Otus + MindPrint Learning
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MindPrint + Otus: A Clearer Path to Student Success Meet MindPrint, a certified ESSA cognitive assessment developed at the University of Pennsylvania that shows how students think and learn. See student streng...

A Portrait of a Learner can’t just live on a poster in the hallway.

It needs to show up in classrooms, in feedback, in student reflection, and in the systems districts use every day.

See 5 steps districts can take to turn Portrait work into something that sticks 👉https://hubs.li/Q04dB6890

The nominations are in, and wow...you all really showed up.

Thank you to everyone who submitted a nomination for the 2026 Otus Excellence Awards and helped spotlight the educators, leaders, coaches, specialists, districts, and AI champions doing incredible work.

We’ll be contacting winners this month and announcing them in June. Stay tuned.

Learn more about the awards 👉 https://hubs.li/Q04fZfly0

Before everyone heads into summer, there are a few questions district leaders should be able to answer with confidence.

Which students still need support? Where is absenteeism hitting hardest? Which K-3 students need a stronger handoff next fall?

Join us on May 14 to see how districts are using connected data to head into next year with a whole lot more clarity.

Register 👉 https://hubs.li/Q04dB5jP0

🌟 Educator of the Month Spotlight Winner 🌟
Congratulations to our May winner, Juanita Butler, 4th grade teacher at Abe Lincoln Elementary School in Monroe, WI!

Juanita brings 27 years of experience and passion to her classroom, leveraging Otus to empower her students to take ownership of their learning, building confidence and growing as learners!

Thank you Juanita for all you do!

Learn more at https://hubs.li/Q04fqHYf0

Test prep gets a lot better when it stops feeling like a last-minute scramble.

Practice feels more useful when it reflects the real test. Results matter more when teachers can turn them into next steps.

See how districts are taking the guesswork out of test prep in 2026 👉https://hubs.li/Q04dzWkb0

Standards-based grading has a way of bringing out some very strong opinions.

This blog breaks down 7 of the biggest SBG myths, where they come from, and what schools should understand before buying into them.

👉 https://hubs.li/Q04bCJYf0