Case Study: Helping Students Succeed by Understanding How they Learn
Umatilla School District
Despite heavy investment in professional development, Umatilla School District saw flat outcomes and rising behavior challenges, especially in middle school. After implementing MindPrint Learning across grades 3–12, the district discovered students were struggling with Flexible Thinking and used that insight to redesign cohorts, schedules, and instruction. These changes led to a more effective, personalized, strengths-based approach that enables students to reach their full potential.
Umatilla School District, located in rural northeastern Oregon, serves a diverse student population in grades K–12. Many students face systemic challenges, including poverty and language barriers. Despite these obstacles, Umatilla has made a district-wide commitment to providing quality educational opportunities that recognize the individual needs of students.
Prior to adopting MindPrint Learning, Umatilla had invested significantly in professional development around instructional strategies and curriculum. However, district leaders realized that these efforts were not resulting in the student outcomes they expected. Superintendent Heidi Sipe, reflecting on her own experience understanding how she learns, saw a gap: while schools routinely tailor content, few consider how students actually think and learn. She believed that this kind of personalized insight shouldn’t be reserved for only the most at-risk or elite private school students—it should be a right for all.
Despite dedicated efforts, Umatilla faced a number of persistent issues:
- Increased behavior challenges, particularly at the middle school level
- Stagnant student outcomes, even after extensive PD around instructional practices
- A need to make instruction more personalized and effective for every learner
Umatilla educators wanted more than test scores—they needed a tool to reveal the “why” behind student performance and to empower teachers with actionable strategies.
In Spring 2024, Umatilla School District began implementing MindPrint Learning with students in grades 3–12. MindPrint provides research-based cognitive assessments that generate personalized learner profiles. These profiles help teachers understand each student’s learning strengths and needs in areas such as memory, processing speed, flexible thinking, and executive functions.
Key Implementation Highlights:
- MindPrint for Students: All students in grades 3-12 completed the MindPrint Assessment to establish a baseline understanding of how they learn best.
- MindPrint Champions: Umatilla selected teacher-leaders who received in-depth training to support implementation across schools and provide onsite expertise.
- Strategic Professional Development: Teachers and administrators participated in professional development sessions including: The Science of Learning; Understanding MindPrint Data; Admin Strategic Planning Workshops; in-person and virtual workshops on integrating NWEA MAP Growth with MindPrint profiles.
- Data Integration with MAP Growth: MindPrint data was used in conjunction with MAP assessments to align instruction not just to what students need to learn, but how they best learn it. This pairing gave teachers practical strategies and helped remove the sense of data overwhelm.
“One of the things we found very exciting about MindPrint was the way in which the MindPrint data aligns with the NWEA MAP data to help us really understand which students have the greatest opportunity for potential growth. That's been really helpful for teachers because it helps them understand who needs additional instruction and not only in which areas (which they get from MAP) but also how to best teach that content through strategies that will work for each student (which they get from MindPrint).”
- Heidi Sipe, Superintendent
- Students were grouped into cohorts based on shared thinking strengths.
- The school day was redesigned to minimize transitions, providing more stability and predictability.
- Staff used strategy recommendations from MindPrint to plan lessons tailored to the cognitive profiles of each cohort.
“To meet the strengths of this group of students, there are now fewer transitions and more opportunities for them to build bonds with each other, allowing students to know what to expect in the class with stable teaching and instruction. It is exciting to see staff empowered and ready to use the data they could see—making strong instructional decisions in the best interest of student strengths.”
- Heidi Sipe, Superintendent
Umatilla is expanding its use of MindPrint as part of a broader vision for continuing to strengthen the district’s personalized, strengths-based education:
- BOOST Implementation: The district has begun using MindPrint’s BOOST strategies to provide targeted instructional support in small groups.
- High School CTE Integration: MindPrint will be incorporated into the district’s Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs to help students understand their cognitive strengths and apply them across academic, college, and workforce pathways.
- Grades K-12
- 1,451 Students
- 51.4% Economically Disadvantaged
- 80% Minority Enrollment