purpleruler×Florida · proven on FAST
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A proposal for the Florida Department of Education & district partners

Proven in Florida — on Florida's own FAST scores.

2.5 to 3.2× the state's typical growth, at every grade we tutored.

Holmes County · live K-5 29 students · 80% positive growth B.E.S.T. aligned · FAST measured Principal recordings inside

Prepared by Purple Ruler · Daniel Demarmels (CEO) · daniel.demarmels@purpleruler.com. Use ← → or the dots to move through. A principal's interview recording and a principal's own words are inside.

Florida · 2026-27

Three things make this the year to move your lowest readers.

📊FAST measures growth 3× a year

PM1, PM2 and PM3 track every student on the state's own scale. Growth is visible mid-year, not just in spring — the same window our tutoring blocks move students inside.

The 3rd-grade gate

A Level 1 on FAST ELA in Grade 3 means retention unless a good-cause exemption. The cost of a child not moving is a repeated year — exactly the risk high-dosage tutoring is funded to remove.

🎓Your school grade is mostly growth

For an elementary school, four of seven graded components are learning gains — and two of those are the learning gains of your lowest 25%. The students tutoring serves are the students who move your grade.

🤝B.E.S.T. + a funded lane

B.E.S.T. standards are fully in effect, and Florida Tutoring Advantage (UF Lastinger Center) already funds high-dosage tutoring — the lane we're delivering in Holmes County today.

Sources: FDOE FAST progress-monitoring model · Florida third-grade reading law · FDOE 2024-25 Guide to Calculating School Grades · Florida Tutoring Advantage / UF Lastinger Center. We track the accountability rules so your team doesn't have to.

The proof · Bethlehem Elementary, on FAST

2.5 to 3.2× Florida's typical growth — at every grade.

Across 29 students in Grades 3, 4 and 5, average FAST ELA scale-score growth from PM1 (Aug) to PM2 (Dec) beat Florida's state typical at every grade — after ~2.5 months of tutoring, measured on the state's own scores.

29
students measured on FAST ELA, Gr 3–5
80%
posted positive scale-score growth (23 of 29)
2.5×
smallest margin over state typical — largest 3.2×
7
students grew 20+ scale points — 2×+ state typical

From the Purple Ruler Bethlehem Elementary Impact Report (April 2026); benchmarked against the FDOE 2025-26 FAST Median Growth table. Student names withheld.

Grade by grade · FAST ELA growth

Purple Ruler vs Florida typical.

Purple Ruler average (purple) against Florida's state typical growth (grey — the average of the five achievement-level medians).

Grade 3 ELA · 6 students2.5× state typical
Purple Ruler
+15.2
Florida typical
+6.0
Grade 4 ELA · 5 students3.2× state typical
Purple Ruler
+12.6
Florida typical
+4.0
Grade 5 ELA · 18 students · most robust2.5× state typical
Purple Ruler
+8.9
Florida typical
+3.6
The top growers & the teacher's voice

Seven students grew 20+ points. Each has a story.

+32 · Gr5 +31 · Gr3 +30 · Gr4 +28 · Gr5 +27 · Gr3 +23 · Gr4 +22 · Gr5

Individual FAST gains in a single PM1→PM2 window (names withheld). Three Grade 5 students grew 22+ points — more than 6× the state typical rate.

"Outstanding work today. We worked on theme vs topic and finding the theme statement for poems. You had great ideas, strong sentences and good theme statements."

Teacher note · Grade 4 · +30 FAST points

Hear it first-hand · Ponce de Leon Elementary

"All of our students are showing growth."

"All of our students that are participating in Purple Ruler currently are showing growth in informational text… I have two students I always use as examples — they went from level ones to level threes, from below average to above average, after completing their first semester."

Shannon White · Curriculum & Assessment Coordinator, Ponce de Leon Elementary, Holmes County · edited highlights of a recorded program review (3½ min)

In her own words · Bethlehem School

More than double Florida's typical growth — at every grade.

The majority of my Purple Ruler students showed growth — at every grade.

April HatcherPrincipal, Bethlehem School, Holmes County · recorded programme review

And the FAST scores bear her out: average scale-score growth of +15.2 / +12.6 / +8.9 across Grades 3–5 against Florida's typical +6.0 / +4.0 / +3.6 — 2.5× to 3.2× the state median, with 78–83% of students growing at every grade (Bethlehem Impact Report, PM1→PM2 2025).

The rigour · how we prove impact

We measure on Florida's own scores.

We take each student's FAST scale-score growth from PM1 to PM2, benchmark it against the FDOE's published state median growth table, and cross-reference every attended lesson's attendance and teacher observations. No separate assessment layer is needed.

Attendance
every lesson attended or missed
+
Behaviour & notes
teacher observation, every session
+
FAST growth
PM1 → PM2 scale-score change
vs state median
benchmarked to Florida's own table

We report what the data does and doesn't show. In this small cohort, headcount attendance alone was only weakly correlated with score movement (Pearson −0.11) — engagement quality, captured in teacher notes, mattered more. We don't claim a dose-response we can't prove.

The course · what we teach, and how

Florida's curriculum, taught again — small group, same teacher.

  • Math & Reading, K-5 on the district's pacing, aligned to Florida's B.E.S.T. standards, with the 3rd-grade reading stakes and FAST in view.
  • Small groups, same teacher — every child speaks and is checked every lesson.
  • Test–Teach–Test — a mini-quiz bookends each lesson; the in-lesson growth measure.
  • TESOL-certified teachers available for English learners — ENL/ESOL where needed.

The course in brief

Math & ReadingGrades K-5B.E.S.T.Small group (≈3)Category D · Academic TutoringMini-quiz each class
FIRST · BASELINE DIAGNOSTIC

It begins with a real test.

Before any tutoring starts, every student sits a short, standards-coded diagnostic. It tells us exactly where each child is against Florida's B.E.S.T. benchmarks — not a single number, but a profile.

  • Week one, every learner, about 25 minutes. No tutoring begins without it.
  • Coded item by item. Each question carries the Florida B.E.S.T. benchmark it tests, so the result reads as standards, not a single score.
  • Adaptive by design. Each response routes the next item to find gap depth, whether a learner is one grade level below or several.
  • Straight into grouping. The profile places the learner with peers who share the same gap, taught by one teacher.
Baseline diagnostic · MathematicsItem 4 of 18 · adaptive
MA.8.AR.2.1● Coded live
Solve for x:   3x + 4 = 19
Ax = 3
Bx = 5
Cx = 7
Dx = 15
Tagged to B.E.S.T. as the learner answers
Number Sense & Operations · MA.8.NSO  secure
~Algebraic Reasoning · MA.8.AR.2  developing
!Functions · MA.8.F.1  gap, two grade levels below

Illustrative item. Every question is tagged to a Florida B.E.S.T. benchmark. The Reading and Science diagnostics run the same way.

THEN · MATCH, GROUP & REGROUP

One teacher. The right group. Re-tested, then regrouped.

This is how we deliver individualised instruction at scale. A learner is matched to a teacher who stays with them, grouped only with students who share the same gap — then re-tested and regrouped as gaps close.

Diagnose
B.E.S.T.-coded baseline profile.
Group by gap
Peers who share the same need, one teacher.
Teach
Small-group, mini-quiz each lesson.
Re-test
Mastery checks at each cycle point.
Regroup
At the fall→spring break only — when eligibility is rechecked anyway.

👤A consistent teacher

The same experienced teacher all semester — we hold well above the 80% tutor-consistency benchmark. By the end of session one they know each learner by name, one strength and one growth area.

👥Small groups, never 1:1

Always taught in groups of up to four students to one teacher — small enough that every child speaks and is checked each lesson, never one-to-one.

🔄Regrouped at the natural break

Only a small share of pupils move, and only at the fall→spring break — the same point progress-monitoring rechecks eligibility, so it's a clean transition, not a mid-semester shuffle.

The data behind a match · illustrative
Profile: Grade 8 Math, algebra-readiness gap, 2+ years below This teacher with that profile: 230+ comparable students, average mastery on the targeted benchmarks rose 61% → 88%

Every teacher is scored, lesson after lesson, against the six-metric rubric on the next pages. The same model serves students with disabilities and multilingual learners — the diagnostic flags accommodations, and teachers scaffold and pace for them.

The platform · everything a state evaluator looks for

Seven things districts ask of a tutoring platform. We do all seven.

The exact dimensions a rigorous district RFP evaluates — and we're glad to give a live platform demonstration.

📐Standards-aligned

Mapped to B.E.S.T. and district pacing.

🎯Individualized

Small groups by need; plans tailored from data.

📊Tracking

Attendance, behavior, mastery — live.

👥Rostering

Clean onboarding with district IDs.

📈Data & reports

Dashboards + mid/end reports + impact analysis.

🤖AI, responsibly

Safeguarding filter on every session.

🔒Security

FERPA-aligned; own servers; monitored platform.

No slides — the real district, school, teacher and student dashboards.
TRACK & MONITOR · LIVE

Real time, any time.

Your team doesn't wait for a report. Live dashboards are open to each district and school whenever you want them, scoped to what your role is allowed to see.

  • Four live views: attendance, mastery by B.E.S.T. benchmark, session dosage, and engagement trends.
  • At-risk alerts fire automatically — below attendance target, missed-session thresholds, or not growing as expected.
  • Role-scoped: a district sees its schools and students; a school sees its own; a teacher sees their groups; a student sees their lessons.
  • The student's own view — they see upcoming lessons and click one to drop straight into the room, no links or codes.
📈Attendance · this week
Live
Mon–Fri · 5 groups92% present
Mastery by benchmark · rising across reassessments
BaselineCheck 1Check 2End

Illustrative. The same data your team opens live.

Sign in and see it yourself — click a role to open the live platform with Clever / ClassLink sign-in and that role's real dashboard.
Quality, assured by people · the rubric

Every lesson observed and scored — six metrics, max 18.

Category D — Academic Tutoring. North Star: did the child move toward grade level? A low score triggers coaching and re-observation, on top of 100% lesson review.

1AdaptabilityEvery minute used with precision; pacing reverse-planned from the assessment and the child's target.123
2UnderstandingMisconceptions diagnosed in the moment; assessment-for-learning confirms mastery.123
3PresentationStandards-accurate explanation, explicit modelling, clear success criteria.123
4ProfessionalismPrepared, punctual, safe and consistent.123
5EngagementThe child practises more than they listen — active, not passive.123
6Content & curriculumReverse-planned from the grade-level target; aligned to B.E.S.T. and the district pacing guide.123

▶ Watch · 60s: how we quality-assure every lesson.

Onboarding

First meeting to first lesson: about a school week.

Standing up a cohort is our job, not your team's. You confirm enrollment and the timetable — we do the rest, and the first paid minute is a teaching minute.

🗂️Rostering that fits you

Clever, ClassLink or a simple CSV. We build the schedule, group the learners from the baseline diagnostic, create the materials and run student welcome webinars.

Proven fast, proven big

We've taken districts from first meeting to first lesson inside two weeks, and run hundreds of lessons simultaneously in a single half-hour window. Scale is not the risk.

🎭A free dress rehearsal first

Every course opens with a free dress-rehearsal session — students log in, meet their teacher, test sound, screens and routine. Glitches die in the rehearsal, not in a lesson you paid for.

The same machinery runs summer programs — ESOL intensives, credit recovery and exam prep — in 4-week blocks with daily sessions.

▶ Watch · 60s: first meeting to first lesson, in your words.

Reporting & reflective improvement

A programme that reports clearly and corrects itself.

Live dashboards through the year, mid- and end-of-programme reports, and delivery that adjusts from its own data — plans re-tailored from ongoing testing and Tier 1 teacher feedback.

Deliver
Live small-group lessons, same teacher.
Measure
Mini-quiz + attendance + teacher notes.
Review
Dashboards, mid/end reports, school meetings.
Adjust
Re-tailor plans & regroup — then repeat.

In the Bethlehem review, attendance was tracked rising from the mid-70s into the mid-90s — and we exchanged student-level data with the school to investigate every cohort, including the ones that grew least.

▶ Watch · 60s: the reporting you will actually get.

What a report looks like · sample artifact

This is the report card a school actually receives.

Not a mock-up — the same format we delivered to Bethlehem School. Switch between a mid-program student card and the school-level end-of-program summary.

👈 Tap to switch
🎓Grade 5 student · FAST ELA
On track · growing
+32
FAST scale-score growth, PM1 → PM2
94%
lesson attendance this cycle
3.6×
Florida's typical Grade 5 growth (+8.9)
B.E.S.T. benchmarkStatus
Key Ideas & Details · ELA.5.R.1Secure
Craft & Structure · ELA.5.R.2Secure
Integration of Knowledge · ELA.5.R.3Developing
Vocabulary in context · ELA.5.V.1Developing
Teacher narrative: "Outstanding work today. We worked on theme vs topic and finding the theme statement for poems. You had great ideas, strong sentences and good theme statements." Focus next cycle: extending inference across paired informational texts.
✓ Moved more than three times the state's typical Grade 5 growth in one PM window.
🏫Bethlehem School · FAST ELA, Grades 3–5
2.5×–3.2× state typical
29
students measured on FAST ELA
80%
posted positive scale-score growth
7
students grew 20+ scale points
GradePurple Ruler avgFlorida typicalvs state
Grade 3 · 6 students+15.2+6.02.5×
Grade 4 · 5 students+12.6+4.03.2×
Grade 5 · 18 students+8.9+3.62.5×
Principal's verdict, in her own words: "The majority of my Purple Ruler students showed growth — at every grade." — April Hatcher, Principal, Bethlehem School. Cohorts that grew least were reviewed jointly with the school using shared student-level data.
✓ Beat Florida's typical FAST growth at every grade, measured on the state's own scores.

From the Purple Ruler Bethlehem Elementary Impact Report (April 2026), benchmarked to the FDOE 2025-26 FAST Median Growth table. Student names withheld; benchmark statuses illustrative of the per-student profile.

Security & compliance · your data is safe with us

Built to a standard a Florida district can trust.

Student data is handled to FERPA from day one. We run on our own servers, sign a district data-sharing agreement drafted in the district's favor, and act strictly as a school official with a legitimate educational interest — we never sell, share or repurpose student data. We already hold a live DSA in Holmes County.

FERPA-aligned

School-official model; no onward use of student data.

Our own servers

Data we control, not a third-party reseller.

DSA in place

District-favorable agreement, live in Holmes County.

Independently certified

Cyber Essentials information-security certification.

Safeguarding · background checks & Florida vetting

Thoroughly vetted by us — and Florida Level 2 agreed with you.

Every Purple Ruler teacher is a directly-employed member of staff, recruited under our Safer Recruitment policy and vetted before they ever meet a student. Every session runs on a monitored platform, and our staff operate as mandatory reporters. The Florida-specific Level 2 screening requirement is one we work out with each district — it is still being confirmed for the year ahead, and we will meet whatever the state, FTA and the Clearinghouse set.

🛡️What we always do — every teacher, before any student

  • Criminal background check on every teacher before they meet a student — and we coordinate Florida Level 2 screening with each district (below).
  • Identity, eligibility-to-work, qualifications and references verified under our Safer Recruitment policy.
  • A named Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) with deputies, annual child-protection training, and clear mandatory-reporting escalation to the district and authorities.
  • Monitored platform — verified individual logins, live in-lesson moderation with an automated safeguarding filter, and a full recorded session record.
  • FERPA-aligned handling of all student data, with a district data-sharing agreement and full policies available on request.

Florida Level 2 — open, and being confirmed with you

We're not the screening authority and we don't claim this is settled. The Florida statute and its enforcement change year to year, and the Jessica Lunsford Act requirements are tightening. Here is exactly how we'll handle it:

  • Coordinate Florida Level 2 screening with each district through the Care Provider Background Screening Clearinghouse.
  • Fallback: where a district requires a Level-2-cleared adult present in the session, a cleared adult joins each live lesson alongside the qualified lead.
  • We defer to what FTA and the district confirm, follow the annual vendor toolkit, and adapt — nothing here is assumed resolved.
English learners · the same model, proven on ESOL

For Florida's multilingual learners — measured gains in four weeks.

Florida has one of the nation's largest English-learner populations. Our TESOL-certified teachers run the same diagnose → group → re-test → regroup model on a WIDA-coded diagnostic. Last summer the Iberia Parish (LA) district handed us twelve students from migrant and multilingual families for an intensive four-week ESOL programme. This is what came back.

+25pp
average within-lesson growth in quiz performance — the strongest we've measured
63→89%
average pre → post quiz score across 115 graded sessions
67%
of sessions ended at full mastery (4 of 4 items correct)
76%
average attendance across the consistently engaged students
  • WIDA-coded diagnostic, regrouped as proficiency moves — the same individualised, gap-targeted flow you've seen, tuned for language acquisition.
  • Built for interrupted schooling — these were migrant ESOL learners with significant gaps; the programme started further behind and closed it, growing vocabulary, reading fluency and willingness to speak academic English.
  • Defensible to auditors and funders — runs at the cadence a summer window allows, mapped to the Louisiana Migrant Education Programme; the same applies to Florida's Title III and migrant-served districts.

Source: Iberia Parish Summer 2025 ESOL Impact Report (12 students, four weeks, 115 graded sessions). Student names withheld. Available in full on request.

Deployable by design

A handbook for every role — principal, teacher, coordinator.

Everything your staff need to run the program — setup, the classroom environment, dashboards, lesson structure, data and quality monitoring — lives in one guide. Flip through it right here.

Why Purple Ruler

A real teacher, live, in every single session.

At this price, most "tutoring" is self-paced software. Ours never is: 100% live teaching, the same experienced teacher every session, mapped to Florida's B.E.S.T. standards and your district pacing — and reported back with live data.

2016
teaching live online since — 100,000+ students taught across 33 countries
100%
live instruction — the same experienced teacher every session, never software or recordings
NSSA
member of Stanford University's National Student Support Accelerator
500
tutoring hours a day of capacity — including summer cover for unspent FTA budget

And we're already delivering live, state-wide, across the country — so the model, staffing and reporting are proven before they reach a new Florida district:

🍊 Florida ⚜️ Louisiana 🎓 Mississippi 🏖️ Delaware 🏫 Michigan 🗽 New York 🌴 South Carolina ⭐ Texas
Transparent pricing & a no-cost trial

Simple per-session pricing — and a free week to see it first.

We bill by the small group, not per child per hour, so high-dosage tutoring stays affordable at district scale — and we lower the barrier to entry to zero with a one-week, no-cost trial.

$5
per student, per session — billed by the group, not 1:1
≈3
students per group, one consistent teacher all term
1 week
no-cost trial cohort — real lessons, real data, no commitment
$0
to start — see the model work before any funding decision
  • Fits the funding you already hold. Supplemental high-dosage tutoring maps cleanly onto Title I, Title III (English learners) and remaining ESSER / FTA budget — including summer cover for districts with unspent FTA dollars.
  • The trial is open to any Florida district. A small cohort runs live and free; your team watches the model and reviews the FAST-aligned data before committing a dollar.
  • Scale what works. Move into full school-year or summer cohorts with funding mapped — exactly how we grew in Holmes County.

Per-session pricing is Purple Ruler's standard high-dosage rate, billed by the group. Final pricing and funding fit are confirmed per district scope.

Cost calculator

Price your program right now, on this slide.

👈 Change the numbers to price your program live
10-week course · 30 lessons per subject 3 lessons a week · 30 min groups of up to 4 — we round up
$16,875
total · 25 groups · 750 lessons
$168.75
per student, whole program
$5.63
per student, per lesson

Billed by the group at $45 per teaching hour ($22.50 per 30-minute lesson), never per registered child — an absent student never bills twice. Per-student figures shown for full groups of four; if your numbers don't divide evenly we round up, and the last few students still get a full group. Final pricing and funding fit are confirmed per district scope.

From this deck to lesson one

What happens after you book the call.

📅Week 0

30-minute planning call. Pick schools, subjects and cohorts from your FAST data; we draft the schedule and the roster plan.

🧪Week 1

Free trial week — real groups, real lessons, your staff watching — opened by the free dress-rehearsal session. Rostering via Clever / ClassLink / CSV in parallel.

🚀Week 2

Full launch: baseline diagnostics sat, groups formed by gap, dashboards live with baseline data, welcome webinars done.

📈Every week after

Weekly reports, progress checks each cycle, regrouping on live data at the natural break, mid- and end-of-programme reports to your board.

Summer programs — ESOL intensives, credit recovery and exam prep — run on the same machinery in 4-week blocks with daily sessions, including cover for districts with unspent FTA budget.

The partnership

Who we'd build this with.

In Florida · Holmes County

Shannon White — Curriculum Coordinator, Ponce de Leon Elementary (live program reference)

April Hatcher — Principal, Bethlehem School (FAST-measured impact reference)

Florida Tutoring Advantage — UF Lastinger Center program that matched us into Holmes County

Purple Ruler

Daniel Demarmels — Chief Executive Officer · daniel.demarmels@purpleruler.com

US operating base — Dover, Delaware

Directly-employed, trained teachers — held to the six-metric rubric with 100% lesson review

Holmes County stands as a live Florida reference for both FAST-measured academic growth and the importance of consistent teachers working with small, well-matched groups.

Let's do more, together

Bring proven, FAST-measured tutoring to more of Florida.

We're live in Holmes County, we've measured the impact on Florida's own scores, and we have the capacity and security a state can trust. Let's talk about serving more Florida students — this year and over the summer — and a live platform demonstration whenever it suits you.

2.5–3.2× state typical FAST growth FERPA-aligned · Level 2 coordinated 500 tutoring hours/day capacity

Purple Ruler · learn@purpleruler.com · 8 The Green, Dover, DE. FAST data from the Bethlehem Elementary Impact Report (Apr 2026), benchmarked to the FDOE 2025-26 FAST Median Growth table; student names withheld. Principal recordings are from Purple Ruler review/interview calls, used with the district's knowledge. Purple Ruler is a selected Florida Tutoring Advantage partner; FTA is referenced factually and does not endorse this proposal's broader scope.

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