District pilots RoboKind robots to support students with autism

Hernando County School District staff told the board they are piloting RoboKind robots to support students with autism and other communication or executive-function needs. "It provides another type of instructional tool that allows teachers and therapists to support skills across settings," Stephanie Duran, supervisor of exceptional student education, said during the presentation.

Duran said the district currently deploys one robot at each of five schools (EK‑eight, Floyd, Spring Hill Elementary, Pine Grove and Weeki Wachee High School), and that this year the program delivered 254 lessons and about 2,396 minutes of instruction. Christina Dansack, a speech-language pathologist who uses the device at Explorer, described strong student engagement, especially when teachers embed the lessons into daily social-emotional routines. "They are more engaged with something that is even toned," Dansack said, listing social communication, emotional regulation, phonics and foundational literacy among the skills targeted.

Board members asked how long students typically remain in the program and pressed for measurable outcomes. "I'd like to know how many students use the program, how many students showed gain from the program, how many teachers in each school are using the program," Mr. Johnson told presenters, saying the district needs hard numbers to decide funding priorities. Duran said the company does not deliver student‑level participation data by default because lessons are often run in groups; the district will need to create a method to capture which students participated to measure gains.

Next steps: staff agreed to provide the board with additional documentation, to arrange site visits and to explore short video documentation (with required clearances) showing the robots in use so members can assess classroom implementation.