Manchester School District Brings Cross-Curricular, Real-World Engagement to K-8 Students with Discovery Education
Success Stories
Manchester School District
Manchester, New Hampshire
Manchester School District is the largest district in New Hampshire and serves one of the most diverse communities in the state. As such, the district is on a mission to elevate learning across classrooms for all students. With a focus on addressing literacy gaps and creating cross-curricular learning opportunities, the district turned to Discovery Education Experience, an all-in-one digital learning platform with standards-aligned resources, real-world content, time-saving tools, and trusted instructional strategies. It’s been a game-changer for teachers, students, and administrators alike.
The Initial Challenge
Before adopting Discovery Education Experience, Manchester schools faced a common yet challenging issue—balancing literacy instruction with other essential subjects like science and social studies. Students were dedicating up to 2.5 hours daily to literacy, leaving little room for other critical subjects, and the instructional team desired better tools to integrate learning.
Lisa Delacey, Director of Academics and Instruction for Elementary at the district, saw an opportunity to address this challenge with Discovery Education Experience. She and her team needed an easy-to-use and effective platform that enriched learning across multiple subjects and addressed the diverse needs of the district’s learners, like a high population of English Language Learners (ELL). Experience checked every box.
A Versatile Tool Across Subjects
Currently, Experience is being used for science, math, English Language Arts, and social studies in elementary and middle schools throughout Manchester School District. Teachers across K-8 are finding innovative ways to incorporate the platform into their lesson plans, such as creating cross-curricular lesson activities that are engaging and fun. They particularly love Studio, the platform’s collaborative activity and presentation tool, because it allows them to easily build and share multimedia lessons seamlessly across entire grade levels, saving valuable time.
Specialized areas like reading intervention and Essentials classes (for students needing extra intervention) have found particular value in the platform as an easy way for students to learn new topics and build background knowledge in their group learning centers. “A great example of this,” explains Lisa, “is how Experience can help our immigrant students learn topics they may initially have no context or knowledge about, like the American Revolution.” Special education and ELL teachers also find the platform exciting because it presents an opportunity to differentiate learning and support their students’ learning needs. Overall, for students who might otherwise feel overwhelmed by traditional classroom lessons, Experience offers a user-friendly way to discover topics, build background knowledge, and bridge gaps in learning.
Setting Up Teachers for Success
Once the district introduced Discovery Education Experience, the leadership team made sure to set up their teachers for success, starting with a district-wide professional development day. Led by Lisa Delacey and advocates like middle school principal Kelly Espinola, scheduled trainings continued so that educators had hands-on experience navigating the platform and could experiment with its many resources and tools to find how it can best serve their needs and those of their students.
The district’s professional learning strategy has not only amplified teacher confidence and collaboration but also unlocked the full potential of Discovery Education Experience. They ensure teachers have access to:
- Personalized Training: Professional learning sessions tailored for each discipline, and for groups like K-5 reading specialists, STEM teachers, librarians, and special education instructors, ensure that every teacher can uncover how the platform uniquely supports their instructional needs.
- On-Demand Support: Discovery Education’s Partner Success Team works closely with the district to provide ongoing assistance, acting as an extension of the instructional team to empower teachers and build their confidence over time in using the platform.
Harnessing the Full Potential
After meaningful professional learning and successful experimentation with Experience, the platform has become an integral tool for educators. Lisa Delacey has also noticed that the platform is having a positive impact beyond their initial expectations. She loves how it provides students with a digital environment that is safe and accessible. Because all resources are vetted and contained within Experience, teachers are reassured that students can easily access and explore real-world content that is high-quality, engaging, and relevant.
Manchester is also leaning on Experience to support its district-led projects like flipped-classroom models. For example, teachers are exploring ways to use Experience for at-home assignments, preparing students for in-depth discussions and activities during in-person sessions.
Looking Ahead
Looking ahead, the district is committed to strengthening not only its usage of Experience, but also its partnership with Discovery Education. The Discovery Education team for New Hampshire continues to provide professional learning support, as the district explores new strategies to expand Experience across more schools and grade levels.
Experience has proven to be more than just a digital learning platform for Manchester School District—it’s a bridge to new opportunities for students and teachers alike. With Manchester’s commitment to high-quality content, adaptability to diverse learning needs, and focus on professional learning, Experience is helping Manchester move beyond traditional learning models into a world of discovery and possibility.