Case Study: Placentia-Yorba Linda USD prepares students for new standards and Smarter Balanced assessments with Learning.com EasyTech

District Prepares for New Standards and Assessments with Technology Curriculum

Placentia‑Yorba Linda Unified School District, serving 26,000 students across 43 schools in Orange County, faced a fast‑moving shift to California’s new standards and computer‑based Smarter Balanced assessments. Director of Assessment and Accountability Joey Davis found the district’s eight‑year‑old, inconsistently implemented curriculum—created before Google Apps—couldn’t build the typing, critical thinking and information‑fluency skills students now needed, and rewiring the curriculum in‑house would be unsustainably time‑consuming.

A 15‑teacher selection committee chose Learning.com’s EasyTech for its alignment to district criteria and features like prescriptive typing lessons and digital citizenship for younger students. The district launched a multi‑year rollout beginning in elementary schools, using custom sequencing, principal goals, on‑site training and teacher resources; the result was an aligned, maintainable curriculum that better prepared teachers and students for the state’s new performance expectations while removing the ongoing burden of in‑house redevelopment.

Placentia-Yorba Linda USD

Joey Davis

Director of assessment and accountability