2025/26 back-to-school AMA recap: Xello updates you won’t want to miss
Recently hosting our annual back-to-school AMA, we take a look back at our top takeaways from the 2024/25 school year and the Xello updates educators can expect this year.
To recap the year and look at what’s to come in 2025/26, I was joined by Xello CEO & Co-Founder Matt McQuillen and Xello VP of Customer Success Meredith Beyer-Alldridge for Xello’s annual back-to-school AMA. We walked through recent releases and opened the floor up for questions from our clients.
The AMA webinar covered key releases like Completion Standards and Student Task List, our new guides for Scope and Sequence, expansions to our College Planning tools, Credentials, and our first-of-its-kind immersive, play-based CCR tool, The Real Game. We also shared some sneak peeks at new features coming soon.
In case you couldn’t tune in last month (we missed you!) I’ll recap what was discussed, give you a glance at each feature, and share what educators are excited about.
Reflecting on the 2024-2025 school year
Xello is thrilled to welcome 285 new districts this past year, and that number continues to grow. We’ve received lots of positive feedback from our new and existing clients on some of our recent launches, including the 2024-2025 Dashboard Feed feature, which offers a highly engaging display for students—similar to the targeted feeds they see on social media. Educators have shared some of the creative ways they’re using the feed to engage their students—whether it’s as a classroom warm-up, exit ticket, or Friday kick-off.
Another big change for schools this year was the expansion of our scholarship database, which resulted in students saving 369,000 scholarships to their databases, totaling a potential $2.5 billion in postsecondary funding. Coupled with Scattergrams, the interactive graph that allows students to visualize their chances of scholarships and admissions, students now have the intuitive toolkit they need to help plan and pay for college.
What’s new in Xello?
Xello rolled out dozens of updates this year to better meet the evolving needs of our districts, but a few launches stand out.
Completion Standards and Student Task List
First, let’s talk about Completion Standards and Student Task List: The customizable system for tracking student progress. Launched in July of this year, Completion Standards has been helping educators streamline reporting, monitor task completion, and customize plans to meet specific regional requirements.
The impetus behind this new feature came from an awareness that educators were struggling to effectively track progress at scale. Completion Standards and Student Task List were designed to provide students with clear learning objectives, while making it easier for educators to report and track their progress. With over 90 customizable activities, educators can seamlessly approve tasks individually or in bulk, export reports, set due dates, and offer exceptions when needed. Comprehensive reporting also makes it easy to view progress at a glance, drill into detailed data, and message students directly.
As part of the Completion Standards release, Xello is working with educators and experts to create grade-by-grade learning objectives, mapped to Xello activities, and built into a flexible scope and sequence schools can adapt to meet CCR requirements.
College planning tools
Preparing students for their postsecondary plans is at the heart of every Xello feature. It’s the reason we’ve spent the last year bolstering our College Planning Tools to be even more advanced and accessible.
Driven by on-the-ground feedback from educators, we’ve transformed our college application workflows into a new Application Manager where students and educators can access a unified system for college applications—including both Common App and direct applications, early and mid-year documents, year-end transcripts, fee waivers, and more. In this centralized system, educators have clear visibility into where students are with their applications and can easily upload transcripts and other records into their documents hub.
We’ve also expanded our Fee Waiver feature to encompass more of the student application lifecycle. Now, students can request both application and enrollment fee waivers for the Common App and direct applications. Students simply need to complete the form, upload it to their College Applications page in Xello, and submit the request.
To further support students’ postsecondary funding efforts, Xello recently launched the FAFSA tracking tool, which helps students and educators keep track of FAFSA and state aid applications. As more states add these applications to their graduation requirements, there’s an increasing need for schools to support and guide students in this area. The FAFSA tracking tool is built to bring clarity and organization to the often stressful financial aid process.
Credentials tracking
Xello’s new credential tracking tool provides a streamlined approach for tracking and reporting student achievements. Students can log any credential—completed or in progress—directly within Xello, such as certifications, micro-credentials, or awards. They can also upload proof of achievements, like digital copies of certificates or other supporting evidence.
Any changes or additions educators make will automatically appear on the student side—and vice versa. Educators can also record student credentials in bulk, saving time and ensuring accuracy. We also built the tool to support state-specific tracking requirements and performance-linked metrics, so educators can assign specific point values to each credential.
The Real Game
Since its pilot run with our Florida districts in 2024, The Real Game has been tested and refined into a fun, motivating, and educational resource for students preparing for postsecondary life. The module guides students through interactive simulations of adulthood, prompting them to explore and make choices regarding finances, health, careers, and lifestyle. Meanwhile, educators can use built-in resources to help them identify student trends, as well as easily run reports by student, grade, and career pathway.
We’ve already received some incredible feedback from our initial rollout in two Florida districts last year, and we’re so excited for more schools to get their hands on it this school year. It will be accessible to all Xello users this fall, with more exciting updates coming this winter, like gameplay components and chance cards. The fun is just getting started!
Course Planner
Xello is making four-year planning more intentional and efficient with new updates to our Course Planner. Educators can now bulk manage course plans and mass add courses based on a specific diploma or specialization. They can also choose to recommend courses individually or in bulk, giving students the ability to accept or remove suggestions to their plans. We’ve also focused on improving the user experience by adding Quick Delete, optimizing printable plans, reorganizing pop-up course lists, and more.
These updates come alongside another exciting launch: Course Planner for Middle School. Now, younger students are empowered to make thoughtful choices towards their future goals, practicing those essential planning skills they’ll need in high school. Educators can import course histories, set up progress trackers, and manage plans the same way they do for high school students. Activating the Middle School Course Planner is easy—reach out to your Success Manager to get started.
Work-Based Learning Hour Tracking
Xello’s hour tracking module now makes it easier for students and educators to track work-based learning hours in a centralized, audit-ready system. Designed with state auditing requirements in mind, WBL Hour Tracking ensures students keep accurate records of all WBL hours that meet states’ specific auditing requirements. Students can submit their hours for verification and upload supporting evidence if needed—all from the convenience of their mobile devices. Educators will automatically receive an email when hours are awaiting approval, and can approve or reject with one click.
Plans
In our updated version of Plans, we reconstructed the way students explore different careers and pathways into a more accurate, simplified model. Students can now calculate ROI, construct a budget, consider best-fit careers, and other features through the lens of a single career and multiple pathways. This ensures greater accuracy in projecting career outcomes and making financial calculations, while still ensuring students have the flexibility to choose the pathway they want—such as a two-year college, four-year college, or apprenticeship.
Xello Connect: Events
We know that some of the most important connections students will make in their postsecondary journey happen at events—whether it’s a college visit, career fair, FAFSA night, or district info session. To make event logistics easier and maximize impact, we’re launching Xello Connect: a modern, unified system for planning and registering for school and district events. Creating events is simple, and educators can manage all invitations to college representatives in one spot. On the student side, discovering and registering for events is easy and organized. District administrators can also manage multi-school events directly in Xello
Looking ahead to a successful school year
We’ve had a jam-packed year of product updates and new launches, and we’re eager to see the momentum these bring to school districts this year. Each new feature is designed to support CCR educators, making their jobs easier, more efficient, and more impactful for their students.
Educators have already expressed their excitement about some of the tools they think will be most beneficial for their students–most notably The Real Game, Completion Standards, and updated College Planning tools. With these and more, districts will have the tools they need to set each student up for success this year and beyond.
If any of these features caught your eye, be sure to reach out to your Success Manager or contact help@xello.world with any questions. Not a Xello user yet and curious to learn more? Request a demo.
