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Curriculum Associates Accelerates i-Ready Innovation with 2026-2027 Updates

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New enhancements give educators greater visibility into usage, make assessment more efficient, and provide clearer information to support all students

NORTH BILLERICA, Mass., Sept. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Curriculum Associates today announced a series of updates to the i-Ready suite for the 2026–2027 school year designed to give educators greater visibility into students’ usage, make assessment more efficient, and provide educators and families with clearer, more actionable information.

i-Ready Inform™ adaptive assessment results guide i-Ready Personalized Instruction’s individualized sequence of online reading and mathematics lessons for each student in Grades K–12. Students work at a level where they can make visible progress week to week, and teachers receive reports showing exactly what each student needs, so their time is spent where it matters most: delivering instruction. The program is designed as a targeted complement to teacher-led instruction.

The i-Ready suite of assessments and Personalized Instruction is used by 17 million students and one million educators nationwide. This year’s updates reflect Curriculum Associates’ ongoing product development process, which combines direct feedback from educators and students with classroom observations, product usage data, research, psychometrics, and guidance from outside experts and advisory groups.

Input from educators, education leaders, students, and families has helped shape several of this year’s most significant changes, including a move toward a shorter assessment experience and new tools that give schools greater visibility and control over when students use Personalized Instruction.

In 2025 alone, Curriculum Associates engaged more than 800 students and educators through user research and co-design activities to understand how its programs are working and where schools need something different.

“Technology should earn its place in the classroom,” said Kate Geusic, senior vice president for product at Curriculum Associates. “Every minute students spend on a device should serve a clear instructional purpose. Our responsibility is to make sure the technology educators choose supports their goals and gives them the information and control they need. These updates reflect what educators have been telling us, paired with what research tells us about how students learn.”

Greater Visibility and Control over Personalized Instruction

“Technology is now an essential part of modern instruction, but educators and families also want greater visibility and control over when and how students engage with it,” said Tyrone Holmes, chief impact officer at Curriculum Associates. “Giving schools more flexibility to manage students’ access to i-Ready helps educators make intentional decisions about technology use while respecting the important role families play in shaping students’ time outside the classroom.”

Curriculum Associates recommends a usage target of 30 to 49 minutes per subject per week—a recommendation grounded in research showing that consistent use within that range is what drives results. Close monitoring of students’ usage and progress is a key. Teachers have always been able to track that usage through i-Ready reports, and many have asked for a way to make these reports even clearer. Enhanced reports for teachers and administrators will now identify students who exceed recommended usage, providing details for follow-up and surfacing alerts on dashboards. This helps teachers monitor student usage and progress, ensuring that Personalized Instruction is effectively supporting each student’s learning needs. Leaders can also analyze usage patterns and enhance implementation plans.

Additionally, educators now also have the ability to restrict usage to select dates and times, empowering them to determine when students engage with lessons.

Together, these tools are designed to help schools proactively manage usage and keep Personalized Instruction aligned with their instructional strategy.

More Efficient Assessment That Informs Instruction

Beginning in the 2026–2027 school year, i-Ready Diagnostic becomes i-Ready Inform™ for Reading and for Mathematics for Grades K–12, reflecting the assessment’s role in giving teachers, families, and students actionable information to guide learning.

In response to educator feedback about the need for more efficient testing, Curriculum Associates is also moving toward a shorter assessment experience designed to provide trusted insights with less disruption to instructional time.

For Grades K–6, the new Student Literacy Profile will bring together information from i-Ready Inform and i-Ready Literacy Tasks to give educators a clearer view of students’ literacy performance.

Helping Families Better Understand i-Ready

Curriculum Associates is also launching an updated Family Center and public webpage for families to help caregivers find answers, better understand the role of i-Ready, interpret student results, and find resources to support conversations about student learning and progress.

“We recognize the importance of family involvement for student learning and continue to be committed to supporting it,” said Mara Rodriguez, associate vice president of i-Ready strategy. “We want to make it easy for caregivers to get answers to their questions, interpret their students’ i-Ready results, and help them find resources and supports to have productive, meaningful conversations about their students’ progress within their families and with teachers.”

Supporting Spanish Learners

Curriculum Associates continues to support Spanish learners with the introduction of My Path for Spanish Reading for Grades K–5. The program delivers personalized, authentic Spanish reading instruction in phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary, and comprehension through a distinct pathway for students, powered by i-Ready Inform de lectura.

Listening, Learning, and Improving

These and other updates are part of Curriculum Associates’ broader approach to continuous improvement in all of its programs. Product teams regularly examine platform use and point-of-use feedback, conduct surveys and user research, and work directly with students and educators to test and refine new features.

Research and psychometric teams study how programs and assessments are performing, while subject-matter experts, district leaders, and technical advisory groups help ensure changes remain grounded in research and meet appropriate standards for quality, validity, and reliability.

Additional i-Ready enhancements will continue to roll out throughout the 2026–2027 school year.

For more information about new i-Ready updates and features, visit CurriculumAssociates.com/Programs/i-Ready-Preview.

About Curriculum Associates
Curriculum Associates is a mission-driven company dedicated to making Grades K–12 classrooms better for more than 17 million students and one million educators nationwide. The company’s connected suite of i-Ready® solutions unites adaptive assessment, personalized instruction, and core curriculum in English language arts and mathematics—supported by expert professional learning and service teams—alongside Ellevation for multilingual learners and Stile Education® for middle school science. Through its innovation hub, AI Labs, Curriculum Associates designs forward-looking technologies educators can trust. The company measures success by the impact it makes on student outcomes and is honored to support the extraordinary work of teachers every day.

CONTACT: press@cainc.com

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SOURCE Curriculum Associates, LLC

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Roofing Restoration Expert Travis Frees Explains Roof Repair vs. Replacement in HelloNation

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The Article Outlines Warning Signs That Help Homeowners Determine Whether Roof Repair or Replacement Is the More Practical Long-Term Solution.

READING, Pa., Sept. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — What signs show whether a homeowner needs roof repair or roof replacement? HelloNation published an article featuring insights from Roofing Restoration Expert Travis Frees that answers this question.

The article explains that deciding between roof repair vs. replacement depends on several parts of a roofing system. Roof age, the extent of damage, and whether problems are isolated or widespread can all affect the decision. A professional inspection should consider shingles, flashing, valleys, pipe boots, attic ventilation, and decking, not just visible damage.

Storm damage is a common roofing concern in Reading and Berks County. The article notes that high winds, hail, and falling tree limbs can leave shingles missing or expose roofing materials. When damage is limited to a small area and surrounding shingles remain secure, targeted roof repair may provide sufficient protection.

The HelloNation article explains that widespread storm damage can look different. Shingles that repeatedly lift during windstorms, crack during handling, or become brittle may indicate aging materials. When deterioration affects larger portions of the roofing system, roof replacement may offer a more dependable solution than repeated repairs.

Granule loss is another warning sign the article discusses. Asphalt shingles naturally lose some granules over time, but excessive buildup in gutters can indicate advanced wear. As shingles lose their protective surface, they become more vulnerable to moisture, ultraviolet exposure, and further deterioration.

The article also identifies curling edges, cracked shingles, faded surfaces, and bald spots as signs of aging materials. Isolated problems may still be repairable, while widespread wear can indicate that the roofing system is approaching the end of its expected service life.

Roof age is another important consideration when comparing roof repair vs. replacement. According to the article, many asphalt shingle roofs last approximately 20 to 25 years. Actual lifespan can vary based on installation quality, ventilation, maintenance, and exposure to local weather conditions.

Interior warning signs can also reveal problems that are difficult to see from outside. Water stains on ceilings or walls may result from flashing failures, damaged pipe boots, or minor shingle damage. The article explains that repeated leaks in multiple rooms can point to broader roofing system failure.

Roofing Restoration Expert Travis Frees is also featured in the article’s discussion of problems beneath the roof surface. Poor attic ventilation can trap heat and moisture, contributing to warped decking, mold growth, and premature shingle deterioration. The article notes that a thorough inspection should evaluate attic conditions, ventilation, drainage patterns, and flashing details.

For older roofs, repeated repairs may temporarily address leaks while deterioration continues elsewhere. The article explains that homeowners should receive guidance based on the roof’s actual condition. Recommend proper repairs when they can realistically solve the problem, while widespread deterioration or recurring leaks may make replacement more practical.

The article concludes that homeowners in Reading and Berks County should watch for missing shingles, granule loss, water stains, storm damage, and attic ventilation problems. A professional inspection can help determine whether repairs are sufficient or replacement offers the more practical long-term approach.

Do You Need Roof Repair or Roof Replacement in Reading, PA? features insights from Travis Frees, Roofing Restoration Expert of Reading, Pennsylvania, in HelloNation.

About HelloNation

HelloNation is America’s Good News Network, a premier media platform built on the idea that good news travels faster when real people tell real stories. Through its community-focused publications and innovative “edvertising” approach, HelloNation delivers content that informs, inspires, and spotlights the leaders making a meaningful impact in their communities.

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Hivelocity Launches Gaming Bundle for Studios’ Always-On Infrastructure

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Dedicated bare metal infrastructure for build pipelines, production backends, and live game servers with predictable pricing for sustained workloads.

TAMPA, Fla., Sept. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Hivelocity, an infrastructure-as-a-service provider of bare-metal dedicated servers, colocation, and virtualized cloud solutions, today announced the Hivelocity Gaming Bundle.

Built for studios running live service titles and platforms, the bundle pairs single-tenant dedicated hardware with predictable, steady-state pricing and direct control over how game workloads are deployed and operated. It gives game studios, game-server orchestration platforms, and gaming security vendors a clear path to running build pipelines, production backends, and match-server fleets without paying cloud rates for elasticity their servers never use, and without handing off the orchestration they need to control.

The bundle is built around three common areas of game infrastructure:

Engineering Compute supports the development work behind modern games, including build farms, continuous integration pipelines, asset processing, testing environments, and other workloads that consume compute for long periods of time.

Production Compute runs the backend services players depend on every day, including account systems, authentication, progression, leaderboards, in-game commerce, telemetry, and matchmaking services.

Live Service Compute is designed for the latency-sensitive core of live games, including match servers, persistent world-state systems, voice services, and anti-cheat infrastructure. These workloads depend on consistent CPU performance, fast local storage, and network paths that can support a reliable player experience.

Game studios are taking a harder look at where public cloud fits, and where it starts to work against the economics of a live service business. Public cloud can be useful for burst capacity, GPU-heavy workloads, and development flexibility, but many live service workloads run continuously. Match servers, backend services, leaderboards, and telemetry systems often operate around the clock, and dedicated infrastructure can offer a more predictable cost model and greater operational control.

For content-heavy titles, bandwidth can also become a major cost driver. Large game patches, seasonal updates, and new releases can move massive volumes of data in a short period of time. Hivelocity’s Gaming Bundle is built to support sustained traffic with high-capacity network options, including 10 Gbps unmetered ports for appropriate workloads.

“Hivelocity’s Gaming Bundle is built for studios that want more control over the infrastructure behind their live games,” said Ned Pope, Chief Product Officer at Hivelocity. “Game teams already own the player experience, the matchmaking logic, the fleet orchestration, and the live operations model. We give them dedicated hardware, predictable economics, regional placement, and engineering support so they can run that stack with confidence.”

The bundle draws a clear line between what Hivelocity provides and what the studio operates. Hivelocity supplies the bare-metal foundation: single-tenant hardware, regional placement near concentrated player populations, network connectivity and transit, and network-level DDoS protection for the estate. The studio keeps matchmaking, fleet orchestration, anti-cheat operations, application security, and live ops uptime. A hybrid pattern is preferred by most organizations to take full advantage of all the cloud can offer, with bare metal for latency-critical core workloads for tick-rate-sensitive engines, a partner CDN at the edge, and the studio’s own cloud for burst and GPU workloads.

Studios manage their fleets through the myVelocity portal, public APIs, and Infrastructure as Code (IaC), with the same operations available in code as in the console. Hivelocity holds a SOC 2 Type II attestation for its core facilities, and a PCI-validated facility foundation is available at the Tampa facilities, with expansion in flight.

The Gaming Bundle is designed for studios already running their own server orchestration that have committed to a tick-rate target and need single-tenant bare metal, regional placement, and state persistence that shared infrastructure can’t reliably provide.

About Hivelocity
Founded in 2002, Hivelocity operates bare-metal infrastructure across globally distributed data centers, serving mid-market and enterprise customers in gaming, healthcare, SaaS, fintech, and high-performance computing. The company provides 24/7/365 in-house support with a 15-minute average ticket response time, backed by an SLA-guaranteed 99.99% network uptime.

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Foundation Fighting Blindness Renames Venture Philanthropy Arm the Gund Vision Fund, Honoring Five Decades of Gund Family Leadership

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The new name honors the decades of leadership and giving by Foundation co-founder Gordon Gund and his family, honoring the Fund’s evolution into one of the most innovative venture philanthropy models in the retinal disease market

COLUMBIA, Md. and RALEIGH, N.C., Sept. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — The Foundation Fighting Blindness today announced the rebrand of its venture philanthropy arm, formerly the Retinal Degeneration Fund (RD Fund), to the Gund Vision Fund.

The new name honors more than 50 years of leadership, advocacy, and philanthropic support from Gordon Gund and the Gund family, whose contributions to the Foundation have been immeasurable. It also reflects the Fund’s evolution since its launch in 2018, growing from an early-stage research funder into one of the most innovative venture philanthropy models in the market, catalyzing the translation of decades of research into real treatments.

“The Gund Vision Fund name reflects both where this Fund has been and where it is going. Gordon Gund and the Gund family did not support this work from a distance. They helped build it, and this name honors that,” said Jason Menzo, CEO, Foundation Fighting Blindness. “Vision speaks to our mission of advancing treatments and cures for the diseases that cause blindness, and to the forward-looking way we deploy capital to get there. We are proud of what the Fund has become and excited about what comes next.”

Since it was founded in 2018, the Fund – now the Gund Vision Fund – has built and proven its model by managing more than $140 million in strategic capital, deploying over $100 million directly into a portfolio of 20 companies, and syndicating with more than $1.5 billion in institutional capital from more than 60 co-investors. The Foundation is already the leading private funder of retinal disease research, with nearly $1 billion invested since 1971 and a patient registry of over 43,000 individuals.

The rebrand coincides with an active $100 million capital campaign to accelerate the development of treatments and cures for inherited retinal diseases and dry AMD. To anchor the campaign, the Gordon and Llura Gund Foundation has committed a $50 million lead challenge gift, matching every new or increased contribution to the Gund Vision Fund dollar for dollar up to $50 million. Every gift made during the campaign will be doubled, advancing more programs into clinical development and reaching more patients sooner.

“Building this Fund from the ground up has meant taking greater risks to bring treatments to patients and believing in companies when the path forward is uncertain. That conviction is being rewarded, treatments are reaching patients who had no options,” said Rusty Kelley, PhD, managing director of the Gund Vision Fund. “The Gund Vision Fund name honors the family that made this possible, and the gift from the Gordon and Llura Gund Foundation signals even greater conviction for the model, the momentum, and what’s next.”

The Gund Vision Fund’s updated website, GundVisionFund.org, has launched alongside updated social channels, marking the start of a new chapter for the Fund, with more to come in early 2027. For more information, visit GundVisionFund.org.

About the Gund Vision Fund
The Gund Vision Fund, formerly the Retinal Degeneration Fund (RD Fund), is the venture philanthropy arm of the Foundation Fighting Blindness and a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit subsidiary. Launched in 2018 as the first and only fund solely dedicated to advancing therapeutics for inherited retinal diseases and dry age-related macular degeneration, the Fund bridges the critical funding gap between discovery-stage research and drug development. For more information, visit GundVisionFund.org.

About the Foundation Fighting Blindness
Established in 1971, the Foundation Fighting Blindness is the world’s leading private funding source for retinal degenerative disease research. The Foundation has raised nearly $1 billion toward its mission of accelerating research for preventing, treating, and curing blindness caused by the entire spectrum of retinal degenerative diseases, including retinitis pigmentosa, age-related macular degeneration, Usher syndrome, and Stargardt disease. Visit FightingBlindness.org for more information.

Media Contact:
Chris Adams
Foundation Fighting Blindness
410-423-0585
CAdams@FightingBlindness.org 

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SOURCE Foundation Fighting Blindness

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