Youngstown school official nominated for national award

John LaPlante among nominees for Illuminator of the Year

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

John LaPlante, chief information officer at the Youngstown City School District, is one of three people from across the U.S. to be nominated for an Illuminator of the Year Award.

LaPlante, who came to the school district in January after 12 years as executive director of the Area Cooperative Computerized Educational Service System, was nominated in November by several colleagues both locally and nationally.

Illuminate Education is an Irvine, Calif.-based company that specializes in software and other services that allow educators to make data-driven decisions. More than 14,000 schools, 1,600 school districts and 5 million students use it.

This is the first time the company has presented this award, which will go to an educator and administrator for the outstanding work he or she has done in the use of Illuminate software.

“I’m extremely humbled to even be considered for the award,” LaPlante said. “I know we are doing some amazing things with the program, but so are many other districts across the country.”

“Just in the short time that John has been with our district, he’s done some extraordinary things through the use of data,” said Krish Mohip. YCSD’s chief executive officer.

The CEO listed the creation of B.A.G. – behavior, attendance and grades – reports that allow educators to quickly spot when a student may be at risk. That identification allows school personnel to intervene and offer more support.

The Illuminator of the Year Award recognizes exemplary work in three areas of impact of the company’s software: student learning, parent engagement and educator success; sharing resources and best practices with other Illuminate Educate software users; and engaging stakeholders – students, parents, colleagues – to use Illuminate to grow, make a change or improve education.

The award winner will be announced by Lane Rankin, Illuminate’s president and CEO, on Tuesday during the keynote speech at Illuminate’s annual conference in San Diego.