Jan Barrick, M.Ed., founded Alpha Plus Learning Systems in 1986 to help students improve their performance in school. Her mission quickly grew into helping schools improve their “report card grades” under the various state and federal accountability systems.
An educator since 1973, Jan Barrick has taught in elementary through college levels and specializes in learning disabilities and gifted-and-talented programs. With bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education from the University of Oklahoma (OU), she tutored children while developing a data-driven training for teachers.
The author of The Way to an A: How to Help Your Child Succeed in School, the Alpha Plus CEO is a frequent conference presenter on school improvement strategies. An active member of Oklahoma City Rotary Club 29, and on the Board of Advocates for OU’s Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education, Jan is a member of the Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics (OSSM) Executive Committee and Foundation Board as well as the Board of Trustees for the Oklahoma Foundation of Excellence. 
In 1990, when the Oklahoma Legislature created the state’s first academic standards and mandated a new type of state tests, the Alpha Plus team of educators began developing tools to help educators meet the changing mandates in state and federal law. Because teachers needed interim assessments to provide the data they needed to ensure mastery of state subject-matter standards, Alpha Plus educators began writing assessments. This led to publishing the popular Prepare to PASS series of student workbooks (aligned to previous state standards).
Since 2016, when the Oklahoma Academic Standards (OAS) were adopted, Alpha Plus has rewritten all assessments to align to the OAS. Today, Alpha Plus also publishes Success with OAS reading and mathematics curriculum.
- The K-8 series is being written by Oklahoma teachers for Oklahoma students to Oklahoma standards. As each book is completed it is being transitioned to the Alpha Plus Learning Management System piloted in schools statewide in the 2020-21 school year.
- Benchmark-summative and common-formative assessments are available in a web-based platform that produces real-time reports aligned to state measures. Alpha Plus Online has been used by thousands of educators since 2016 to monitor teaching pace and student proficiency during the school year.
- Evidence-based practices help low-performing schools become high-progress ones focused on each student’s success. Teachers and administrators learn to use data in making decisions that improve both instruction and school results.
Alpha Plus uses scientifically based methods to help low-performing schools become high progress. Teachers and administrators learn to use data in making decisions that improve instruction and school performance. (Click on graph to view enlargement.)
Alpha Plus Educational Systems has been customizing services to meet the needs of rural, suburban and urban schools since 1992. Alpha Plus trains educators how to improve performance in English/reading, mathematics and science using a continuous cycle of school improvement. Alpha Plus schools have outperformed the state average for every year of the A-F Report Cards (2013 to 2016) and on the 2018 and 2019 Oklahoma School Report Cards as well.
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