Teachers in Lubbock Independent School District Celebrate Student Growth and Engagement!
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From Lubbock’s Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning
The Challenge
As the largest district in the Lubbock, TX, metro area, Lubbock ISD serves more than 25,000 students across 47 campuses—including 27 elementary schools, nine middle schools, four high schools, and several special-purpose campuses. The district reflects the heart of its community: diverse, resilient, and deeply committed to student success. More than 73% of LISD students are economically disadvantaged, and district leaders work hard to balance resources, sometimes consolidating schools and reducing costs while ensuring every child continues to have access to strong academic opportunities.
Between 2021 and 2025, LISD students made impressive gains in reading. On STAAR assessments in Grades 3–5, Meets Grade Level performance rose by nearly 30 points—a testament to the district’s focus and the hard work of students and teachers alike. Yet challenges remain. In the face of declining enrollment and financial pressures, LISD leaders knew they needed new solutions to maintain and enhance their positive reading achievement momentum.
The Solution
Lubbock ISD’s longstanding partnership with iStation made the transition to Amira a natural next step. With a decade of experience using technology-enhanced literacy tools, teachers across the district had already built trust in digital solutions to guide instruction and RTI for PK–5 students in both English and Spanish. When iStation and Amira Learning joined forces, district leaders recognized Amira Tutor as a natural extension—building on that foundation while significantly strengthening the effectiveness of reading assessment and instruction in a cost-effective way.
In spring 2025, Lubbock ISD launched a focused, eight-week pilot of Amira Tutor. Despite the short timeframe, the results were remarkable. Teachers, principals, and students quickly embraced the program. “We were still struggling with having kids read and getting feedback on students’ reading,” explained Kim Callison, Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning. “Any time we want to improve at something, we have to practice it. If we want to become better basketball players, we shoot more baskets. The same thing is true with reading.”
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Amira gave students those much-needed “at-bats” in reading—safe opportunities to practice aloud with instant feedback. Teachers noted that their most struggling readers responded the most enthusiastically. The pilot also showed how quickly Amira surfaces actionable data. Even with the district’s strong history of digital assessment, Amira Tutor proved to be a step forward: giving students more practice, providing teachers with sharper insights, and strengthening instruction across classrooms.
Amira Tutor’s ability to provide frequent, individualized reading practice and feedback led to student engagement that surprised and impressed teachers. Teachers specifically said that their most struggling students were the ones who seemed to respond the best to Amira. Beyond engagement, the speed and specificity of the data and feedback that Amira Tutor provided to students and teachers also meaningfully enhanced classroom instruction over the course of the pilot.
The Outcome
The increase in student engagement came not only from time spent in Amira, but also carried into classroom learning. Callison noted that Amira’s ability to match reading passages to classroom themes built a sense of “consistency and coherence” for students—bridging Tier 1 instruction with Tier 2 and 3 support in a seamless way.
Even Lubbock’s most experienced teachers found that Amira Tutor gave them extra bandwidth. As one of Callison’s strongest teachers shared, “I would love to say that I listened to all of my students read every week, but I just didn’t have time. I focused most on my struggling readers. That meant some kids who were on track, or even ahead, didn’t get the attention they deserved. Amira can give that feedback to every student.”
Parents, too, appreciated this “second set of ears and eyes.” With Amira capturing and replaying each student’s reading, teachers could bring richer insights to 504 meetings, family conferences, and instructional planning.
Building on the pilot’s success, Lubbock ISD is launching the full Amira Reading Suite districtwide in fall 2025 across all 27 elementary campuses, serving more than 12,400 students. With the addition of Amira’s new AI Lesson Planner, connected to their Bluebonnet curriculum, the district is weaving Amira into daily instruction—representing a holistic integration of Amira into instructional planning, not just assessment, practice, or intervention.
Amira Helps Lubbock ISD Increase Engagement, Confidence, and Reading Growth
