Brightways Learning

What it reported doing in 2024

During the 2023-2024 fiscal year, brightways learning continued the organization's momentum and focus of its goal to fill gaps in educational needs of k-12 students and the people who support them through collaborative engagement and technology solutions. Brightways learning specializes in rural and remote educational settings and communities, because every child, no matter where they live, deserves a great education and a bright future.brightways learning continued to vigorously engage our team after covid-19 created the need for social distancing and isolation, to re-vamp our services delivery to best meet the social, emotional, and resiliency needs of students, and the families and the schools that serve them. Brightways developed additional robust and engaging virtual resources to provide support and connection to and with our client students, educators, and school systems. We also saw a significant increase in requests for distance-based schooling support through our brightways global academy services. We were pleased to be able to increase our charitable offerings to provide many resources at no cost to families, students, and schools. Many of these resources can be found on our website at: https://www.brightwayslearning.org/covid19resources.the organization continues to receive excellent reviews from school districts and other clients for its competency, personalized caring and attention, and collaborative abilities. As one superintendent at a rural school district recently said, "the staff members at brightways learning help solve problems. When we have an idea that we want to develop or want to make a change in our system that better suits our needs, they spend the time with us to make sure they fully understand what we want and then figure out how to make that happen."a primary brightways mission is to assist students and educators by increasing the quality and quantity of their connections with their families, school personnel, and other community members. Strong adult relationships are proven tools to decrease a student's life-long risks associated with childhood poverty and trauma. These tools are particularly critical for students facing our greatest current challenge, covid-19. Through our unique, proven web of support framework and supporting services, we help improve immediate and lifelong resilience, wellbeing, and academic potential through building healthy relationships and growing protective factors for students and educators.brightways learning continues to support families who are schooling their children via distance learning and homeschooling through the cognia-accredited brightways global academy. Enrollment in this academy increased in the 2023-2024 school year, with most students living overseas and being schooled at home by their parents, who are stationed abroad through the department of state and department of defense. Brightways began serving a group of students and their parents who enrolled from greece to receive distance education support for their schooled-at-home students.brightways learning supports educator professional development and ongoing collaborative observation and evaluation by their supervisors through our classbright evaluate web-based application. We increased school users in 2023-24 to include three new clients. Current classbright evaluate collaborative educator development and evaluation system users incude: Alaska gateway school districtaleutians east borough sdbrightways learningbristol bay borough school districtiditarod area school districtketchikan gateway borough sdlower kuskokwim school districtsoutheast island school districtum education dept.wrangell public schoolsin addition to providing our brightways student management system to our brightways global academy students and their families, multiple school districts in alaksa also use the system to manage student information and personalized learning data. We added one new client in 2023-24 school year. The brightwa

Financial Efficiency

• Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
• Program expense ratio: 87.9%; rating input score 88
• Fundraising efficiency: $1 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 3; 3rd percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

• Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
• Pay-setting controls: Limited
• Foreign activity oversight: Limited
• Grant itemization coverage: Limited
• Major donor itemization: Limited
• Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

• Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
• Governance controls: 6 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 75
  • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
  • Whistleblower policy: Pass
  • Document-retention policy: Pass
  • CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
  • Other executive compensation review process: Pass
  • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
  • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
  • Audit committee oversight: Missing
  • Independent financial-statement audit: Fail

Sustainability

• Operating margin: -25.6%; rating input score 7; 7th percentile among comparable filings
• Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.9; rating input score 39; 39th percentile among comparable filings
• Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.32; rating input score 23; 23rd percentile among comparable filings
• Officer compensation ratio: 8.3%; rating input score 43; 43rd percentile among comparable filings

Growth

• Program expense growth: -0.1% per year; rating input score 0; 18th percentile among comparable filings
• Revenue growth: 3.7% per year; rating input score 100; 35th percentile among comparable filings
• Asset growth: 14% per year; rating input score 100; 70th percentile among comparable filings