In those classrooms, "there were many, many problems being done but just not of value," says Mercer, who works with all of Solvay's students and teachers in math and science. Students really didn't understand what was happening, and many times they couldn't model their thinking.

"We wanted them to be able to explain their thinking and have representation of their thinking mathematically." The school found many gaps there and began looking for programs that would meet each student at their own level.

Solvay began with a small pilot of Happy Numbers, Mercer says. Every student starts with an adaptive placement test, which gives them the chance to show what they know, and the results place each one at a level on an individual learning path. When a student needs "a little bit extra in the place value piece," the program teaches that skill before moving the student forward.

The learning path was the main reason Solvay chose Happy Numbers, Mercer says, along with the teachers' ability to group and regroup students from its data.

An example of the Yearly Dashboard. Each row shows a student’s Learning Pathway, starting at the level set by the placement test, along with benchmark results and growth over the year.

Building Happy Numbers into the Math Rotation
When teachers first asked how to fit it in, Mercer told them to build it into their core math instruction as a center rather than use it on its own.

In a typical rotation, she says, the Happy Numbers data has already been analyzed. Some students work in the program, the classroom teacher reteaches some Happy Numbers concepts to a group, and Mercer, who comes into the room, takes a third group for something like fluency.

Without a second adult, she says, a school can run two groups, one on Happy Numbers and one with the teacher, and switch them. "So that's how we do it and it works. It truly works."

The rotation is uncomfortable at first, Mercer says, and teachers have to stay with it longer than a day. The students love it, and she thinks that will help bring teachers along.

Teachers go right back to the data, Mercer says. Drop-down windows show which students struggled and at what level, and teachers regroup from there. In her example, a teacher sees that five students need help with fluency and works with them for a few days, then checks how they do and may change the groups the following week.

An example of the skills report. Each skill has a color for each student (mastered, developing, or help needed), and an icon marks the skill they’re working on now.

Sometimes the answer is a quick reteach, and sometimes a teacher looks at the data and thinks, "The entire class didn't get this. So that's on me. I just need to pull back and do a complete teach on all of this."

Having that information in Happy Numbers lets a teacher see it and reflect on it, Mercer says. "That's fair, right? Like it happens."

Early in the year, the school's numbers are low enough that "you kind of go, wow, that's not good," Mercer says, and by the middle they look better. "We really have shown so much growth at the end of the year."

She tells teachers to "just put in 10 minutes a day" of practice, and the classrooms that do are showing it in the school's scores, she says.

Solvay has used Happy Numbers for many years, and Mercer says the kids are learning and the program is worth the money.

Mercer presents the school's numbers to the board of education, showing where students started and where they're headed. The principals and the superintendent "can't argue with what they see," she says. "They truly can't."

Beyond the numbers, students can now talk about their math, Mercer says. "Anytime you have math dialogue, you know they're thinking about it. You know that they can explain it."

Mercer would tell a principal or district leader considering Happy Numbers, "You should pilot it."

Once students love math, she says, "then they start to build their math brains and they really start to reason and they start to have dialogue and they have problem-solving skills and that's what we want."