The Idaho Virtual Academy (IDVA) is a virtual school serving high school students across the state. Each semester, students in roughly a dozen testing centers arrive for in-person, on-paper final exams covering each subject. Before 2016, a team of several staff from the office of Julie Ingwersen, Data Coordinator for IDVA, would run each test through a Scantron machine. Results were returned to students, teachers, and Academy leadership within 2-3 weeks.
According to Ingwersen, “We had to do something different. That Scantron was so finicky we had to use Sharpies to go over the bubbles, and it took too much time to make all of the reports.”
When we first met Julie Ingwersen, Quick Key was in its early stages, and the tool we would help replace was past its prime. We worked with Julie and her staff at IDVA to set up every test for all grades inside Quick Key. Then we created her roster and course assignments for her, strategized with Julie & her team about the best way to implement on testing day.
“Walter [was] superb to work with…” Julie told me when I interviewed her for an after-action analysis.
At the time, IDVA was one of our biggest customers. We held our breath on that first day of testing… and we faced our share of the unexpected. Of course, now we know that good change management includes expecting the unexpected. From our very earliest customers, like Julie and IDVA, we assumed a deeply collaborative and responsive stance. It just seemed like the right thing to do. As a result of that attitude, Julie remains one of our favorite partners, for going on three years.
