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Omaha teacher says SuccessMaker software frustrates students, lacks actionable reports
Summary
An OPS 8th-grade teacher told the board that SuccessMaker repeatedly assigns irrelevant problems, lacks teacher-facing reports, and harms student engagement; she urged the district to discontinue the program.
Anna Peters, an 8th-grade teacher who spoke during public comment at the Aug. 17 meeting, described ongoing classroom problems with the SuccessMaker program and urged the board to stop using it.
Peters said students were repeatedly presented with the same 'partial products' long-division questions and that the software failed to surface a reliable teacher report showing which topics students truly struggled with. "SuccessMaker is a waste of time, and we need to let it go," she told the board, describing how students were incentivized to enter random answers just to move past repetitive items.
Peters said the mismatch between the program's tasks and the classroom curriculum leads to lost instructional time, student frustration and damaged assessment percentages. She asked administrators to explain why the district continues to deploy the program and to provide evidence that its use improves learning outcomes.
The board did not respond during public comment. Peters’ remarks were framed as a request for administrative follow-up rather than a motion; no formal action was taken at the meeting.
