By Bill DeBaun, Senior Director, Data and Strategic Initiatives
Reading time: Five minutes
Many school districts around the country have adopted college and career platforms to assist with postsecondary advising and improve students’ ability to complete key milestones before graduating high schools. Over the past several years, more states
have moved toward adopting a single, statewide college and career readiness platform for K–12 students. Florida is one of the clearest recent examples. Through a statewide contract with Xello,
districts across the state now have access to a shared system for career exploration, academic planning, and work-based learning.
Statewide adoption matters because it changes what districts can focus on. Instead of spending time and resources on procurement, licensing, and platform decisions, districts can invest their energy in implementation, integration, and making sure students
and staff actually use these platforms. Two Florida districts illustrate what this shift makes possible.
Osceola County: Making Career Exploration Coherent and Consistent
In the School District of Osceola County, with Xello available statewide, the district did not need to negotiate contracts or justify costs. That cleared the way for Danielle Malfara, the district’s Coordinator
of College and Career Counseling, and her team to focus on how the platform would most benefit students and staff.
Before Xello, Malfara notes, “College and career platforms were really only utilized for high school students and transcripts…What I really do like about Xello is it’s K-12, and the program grows with the age of the student. Xello is how we meet the career
exploration piece of our middle school curriculum. K-5 and nine-12 are icing on the cake.”
The district wrote its own curriculum that goes alongside lessons already built into Xello. Malfara notes that the goal with these lessons isn’t “passive instruction” instead it’s to use this tool to “help students plan for their futures.”
Osceola has leaned into Xello as a common language for career exploration across grade levels, starting as early as elementary school. Students encounter the platform early and return to it often, building
portfolios, documenting interests, and connecting coursework to postsecondary options. Counselors and educators use the same system, which reduces fragmentation and makes it easier to reinforce career planning throughout the student experience.
Just as important, Xello functions as districtwide infrastructure rather than an add-on. It supports advising conversations already happening in schools instead of competing with them. That alignment allows the district to scale practices more
quickly and ensure that students across schools receive a comparable baseline experience.
Broward County: Using a Shared Platform to Support Scale
In Broward County Public Schools, scale is the defining challenge. One of the largest districts in the country needs tools that can support tens of thousands of students while still leaving room for local
adaptation. According to Dr. Lacresha Cooper, the district’s Supervisor of College, Career and Life Readiness, Xello has helped create that balance.
With statewide access in place, Broward has been able to integrate Xello into broader district strategies around career readiness and postsecondary planning. The platform supports consistent data collection and reporting while allowing schools to tailor
how they engage students. For district leaders, this creates visibility into usage and participation. For schools, it reduces the burden of juggling multiple disconnected tools.
In Broward County, Dr. Cooper and her team lean on a variety of features in the platform to understand students’ interests and connect them with the right pathway after high school. “We have the learning styles, personality quizzes, career interests,
and we think about how to use this data for identifying student-centered opportunities like apprenticeships, career fairs, virtual visits, and more.” Parents are also getting involved, asking questions about the schools in which their students are
interested.
Broward is constantly thinking about how to match students up with schools and programs in the area. “Consistently we’re seeing different ways the lightbulb goes off,” says Cooper. “How can I use this reporting better? Even down to the college and career
days we host. We see what students are saving into pathways and colleges and we recruit those schools to come and talk with our students instead of having all of these random schools come out.”
The result is efficient and bolsters the district’s college and career readiness capacity. When foundational tools are shared and supported (and paid for) at the state level, districts can spend more time improving practice and less time managing systems.
Why Statewide Adoption Changes the Equation
Florida is not alone in this approach. Other states have made similar moves with different platforms, each reflecting local priorities and policy contexts.
In Wisconsin, Xello is also available statewide, giving districts a common career exploration and planning tool. In California, Maia Learning has been
adopted broadly through the California College Guidance Initiative to support postsecondary planning aligned with state priorities. In Washington, districts use SchoolLinks as part of a statewide strategy to help students fulfill their High School and Beyond plans.
While the platforms differ, the underlying logic here is the same. Statewide adoption creates economies of scale that individual districts cannot achieve on their own. States can negotiate pricing, ensure baseline functionality, provide training and support,
and align on statewide college and career readiness standards and key learning outcomes for students. Districts benefit from reduced costs, faster implementation, and greater consistency. Students benefit from predictable experiences that do not depend
on where they live or which school they attend.
This approach also makes it easier to align technology with policy goals. When a state has a clear vision for career readiness, work-based learning, or postsecondary planning, a shared platform becomes a vehicle for implementation rather than a patchwork
of local solutions.
For National College Attainment Network (NCAN) members, these examples perhaps offer a useful frame. The question is not just which tool to use (though it is a big one, and NCAN remains impartial on that question). It illustrates how states can
facilitate districts’ work by building (or acquiring) systems that support consistent, high-quality college and career advising at scale. Florida’s experience shows that when states invest in shared platforms, districts can focus on what matters most:
helping students plan for what comes next.
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