How Hillsboro School District transformed CCR programming into an engaging experience with Xello
Michelle Buyas, the K-12 School Counselor Support COSA, works to support elementary and secondary counselors to improve student achievement. She provides professional development opportunities for counselors and supports them in meeting the academic, emotional, and postsecondary needs of students.
Melissa Pendergrass, Coordinator of Career and College Pathways, supports K-12 career and college readiness systems at the district level. In this role, she collaborates with CCP and Career and Technical Education (CTE) teachers, building administrators, counselors, and community and industry partners to ensure that programming is accessible to all students.
Buyas and Pendergrass worked closely with the district’s transition to Xello, and they recently shared the pain points they faced with their former platform, and the immediate success they found after switching to Xello.
The challenge: When tools create barriers instead of momentum
The district experienced many challenges with their previous CCR platform. One of the biggest concerns was that students didn’t find the program intuitive or engaging.
“It didn’t feel user-friendly to students,” explained Buyas. “The experience was not engaging, so they would struggle to complete the activities in the time that we allotted for them.”
The purpose of the activities was also unclear, which meant that counselors and teachers had to spend more time explaining the directions and the objectives.
The district also wanted to improve the college application process and portal, which Buyas explained, “felt clunky, compartmentalized, and confusing to students.”
They struggled to move through applications and planning steps with ease, and staff found reporting and accessing data to be difficult.
From a systems perspective, Pendergrass said that staff spent years trying to make their former solution fit into a box that it just didn’t fit into.
“It was really hard to see staff struggle year after year. The contract ended, and we renewed it even though we weren’t happy. How do you find the capacity to pull a team together to thoughtfully choose something else?”
The district also struggled with the four-year planning feature, finding it cumbersome for staff and not valuable enough for students to justify the time and effort required to use it effectively.
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Location
Challenge
The solution
The solution: A thoughtful shift to a platform that fits
When the district decided to consider a new platform, they approached the decision as they would a curriculum adoption process.
“We pulled together a team with district and building-level people in roles that pertain to delivering and working with students. We had middle school, high school, and district-level representation,” explained Buyas.
“We had the team identify what we wanted this new platform to have in terms of features or characteristics, and that guided the work.”
The team rated a number of CCR platforms against the qualities that they had identified at the beginning. “Xello pretty consistently was the highest choice. It seemed very natural and obvious, which is why it was the frontrunner the whole conversation,” Buyas said.
But they were very diligent in their search. They explored each of the platforms, provided pros and cons, and even set up demo accounts with a couple of companies before making a final decision.
It’s important to note that funding didn’t play a significant factor in their decision making process. Career and college readiness activities are tied directly to graduation requirements, so funding exists in the general fund.
The results: Higher engagement, stronger systems, and real student ownership
The first year of implementation was gradual, focusing on counselors in grades 7–12 and school-to-career specialists, who are the district’s main hands-on users of the platform.
In spring of last year and the beginning of this academic year, they expanded training to education liaisons at the district level, AVID teachers, special education staff, and those with Teacher on Special Assignment (TOSA) and Counselor on Special Assignment (COSA) roles in the district.
“The feedback every single time has been super positive in that the program is so engaging and so intuitive to use,” Buyas shared.
The shift is also noticeable in student behavior and participation. Students now complete assigned activities within allotted class time, and enthusiastically engage in other areas of the Xello.
“They’re excited to learn more, and they find it easy to find those other activities, go to them, and complete them. So that speaks volumes,” explained Buyas.
“Seeing how much energy comes from the people who get trained on it or introduced to it says a lot,” she added.
Staff have responded favorably to Xello’s reporting tools, making something that previously required a lot of effort accessible in a meaningful way. Staff can easily access completion data, student interests, and trends across classrooms or grade levels.
Following a foundational first year implementation, Hillsboro’s use of Xello’s Course Planner has evolved into a highly efficient, streamlined process.
By working in close partnership with Xello’s support team, Buyas ensured the district was fully optimized for this year’s course planning season. The system now features a sophisticated integration with their SIS and course history, allowing for seamless data organization and effortless state reporting.
Since implementation, the district has also added Xello’s Work-Based Learning module. Previously, they tracked work-based learning, career and technical student organization participation, and industry-recognized credentials in another platform, and it proved to be cumbersome. Xello now supports all three areas with ease.
The consolidation and accessibility enables easier reporting and benefits students. The district can meet state reporting requirements, while students can build resumes and profiles that reflect their experiences and credentials. “It’s a win-win,” said Pendergrass.
Xello is steadily becoming part of the regular classroom routine in advisory and AVID settings. Students are using it in advisory to update profiles, reflect on goals, and explore careers, while in AVID classrooms, increased collaboration between teachers and counselors is helping connect Xello activities to classroom learning in meaningful ways.
“We’re already hearing from our counseling teams how they’re getting poked by their AVID teams to work together, to coordinate, and get more Xello work in earlier in the school year, so AVID can build off of it, which is really exciting,” shared Buyas.
Through integration with the local chamber of commerce, the district is using Xello to support its school-to-career program, where students complete career-related learning experiences. Students can now sign up for these opportunities within Xello, helping simplify the process while giving staff clearer insight into participation.
“We wanted the students to be able to sign up for these opportunities on their own, so we can track attendance and see who has registered,” Pendergrass shared.
Scholarships, career fairs, and career-related learning experiences are also in Xello. “We wanted to see how many things we can put in Xello, so students have multiple touchpoints,” said Pendergrass.
The district’s vision is for Xello to become the go-to starting point for conversations about future planning. By centralizing more activities within one system, that vision is quickly becoming a reality and strengthening Xello’s role as a foundational tool across the district.
And it’s already showing meaningful results. “If we’re looking at our student engagement data, students have popped on more than what’s required for their grade level. It shows that students have found value in it. I think that’s a huge win for us and what we were hoping for with the new platform,” said Buyas.
Looking ahead, the district plans to build on this momentum by increasing family engagement, expanding teacher use within core academic classes, and continuing to deepen student familiarity across grade levels.
The strong uptick in student usage, combined with positive staff feedback, reflects the kind of engagement and enthusiasm Hillsboro set out to achieve when transitioning to a new platform, and shows even greater potential ahead.
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