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Fall Lighthouse Pilot

A free fall pilot

Use Storytime AI in your classrooms this fall, free. Before day one, we both agree to three success criteria — usage, progress to goal, and teacher satisfaction — so at the end of the pilot we can report on the impact of Storytime AI in your classrooms.

Accepting a limited number of fall 2026 pilots

Applying doesn't commit you to anything — the next step is a 30-minute scoping call to better understand goals and fit.

The offer

What we bring. What your team brings.

A pilot only proves useful if both sides show up. Here's the deal.

We provide

  • Full setup and rostering — from a roster spreadsheet (CSV) your team already has; no single sign-on (SSO) project required.
  • Optional: A small custom reading collection — books and decodables built around the reading materials your educators want and need, added to the pilot scope if you'd like it.
  • A live training webinar for pilot teachers, plus short asynchronous refreshers.
  • A regular usage report to your pilot champion — which classrooms are on track, which need a nudge.
  • A dedicated success manager (the same person throughout the pilot) has regular standing check-ins with your champion, at a cadence that works best for you.
  • A midpoint review and an end-of-pilot results readout, built from your own data.
  • Priority roadmap influence — if your teachers need something to be more successful, their needs move to the front of our list.

Your district provides

  • Classrooms ready to start this fall.
  • A rostering CSV (name, grade, classroom) before day one.
  • A named pilot champion — usually a literacy coach or curriculum director — who owns the pilot on your side.
  • Optional: Your custom reading collection wish list — the types of characters, locations, and plots that your students will connect to — aligned to your scope and sequence. Only if you'd like to add this to the pilot scope.
  • Time for the standing check-in (we'll land on a cadence together).
  • Participation in a case study, a reference call, and an honest review — whatever the outcome, we both learn from the experience.

Signed up front

Three success criteria. Agreed before day one.

These go into the pilot agreement with your name and ours next to them — reviewed at the midpoint, scored at the end of the pilot. If the pilot misses them, it failed, and we'll say so.

Students actually use it.

A commitment to regular usage — we'll define what that looks like for your classrooms together at scoping. If kids aren't opening it, nothing else matters — so we track this first.

Progress to goal.

Measurable progress toward the goals you care about — reading growth, progression through your scope and sequence, skill attainment, stories read, comprehension, or another use case entirely. We agree on the metrics that fit your goals at scoping.

Teachers would keep it.

Pilot teachers confirm the tool is beneficial for them and their students — and that they'd keep using it.

Inside the pilot

What a week actually looks like.

Monday Your usage report lands in the champion's inbox — sessions per classroom, minutes read, skills practiced.
In class Students read during the practice block your teachers already run — on a usage rhythm we agree together at scoping. Practice stays aligned to the scope and sequence each classroom is already teaching.
Check-in A standing check-in with your champion and your dedicated success manager: what the data says, what teachers are hitting friction on, what we fix before next week.
Midpoint Midpoint review — usage and progress-to-goal signal against the agreed criteria, in a deck you can forward to your leadership team.
Wrap-up Results readout scored against the criteria we agreed on, plus a School Plan proposal timed to your spring budget cycle — only if the pilot earned it.

From here to day one

Four steps between this page and students reading.

Step 1

Apply

The form takes about two minutes. We reply within one business day.

Step 2

Scoping call

30 minutes to better understand goals and fit — classrooms, champion, start date, and more. This is a necessary step to help us pick our pilot partners.

Step 3

Agreement + NDPA

If approved, a 2-page pilot agreement — scope, success criteria, data handling — alongside our standard NDPA and your agreement process.

Step 4

Start this fall

Rostering from your CSV, teacher webinar, and students reading in week one.

Questions districts ask

The fine print, out loud.

Is the pilot really free? What's the catch?
The pilot is free — no invoice, no auto-renewal, no credit card. The honest exchange: every pilot partner participates in a case study, a reference call, and an honest review, whatever the outcome. If the criteria are missed, we learn from the experience together and the write-up stays internal unless you choose to share it. That commitment is written into the 2-page agreement, not implied.
How is student data handled?
The same way as a full deployment: Storytime AI runs on AWS US-East, we sign the standard NDPA (National Data Privacy Agreement), and we provide our sub-processor list and Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) consent package up front. Pilot data belongs to your district, and we delete it on request if you don't continue.
We don't have SSO or Clever set up. Can we still pilot?
Yes — pilots roster from a CSV (student name, grade, classroom), which every student information system (SIS) can export. Students sign in with simple class credentials. SSO and rostering sync (Clever, ClassLink, OneRoster) are scoped later, as part of a full deployment, not as a pilot prerequisite.
How much teacher time does this take?
One training webinar before launch (under an hour), then students practice during a reading block teachers already run — no new lesson prep, because practice is aligned to the scope and sequence each classroom is already teaching. The standing check-in is with your pilot champion, not with every teacher.
What happens if we miss the success criteria?
The pilot ends, you keep the results readout, and there's no fee and no obligation to continue. We'll still capture the honest review and case study — for internal purposes at minimum — because a clear, data-backed account of what didn't work makes the next pilot better, and you keep that account too.
Why a limited number of pilots?
Because we're singularly focused on the success of every pilot we run. Each pilot gets a dedicated success manager, standing check-ins, hand-built reporting, and a custom reading collection if desired. We're determined to support these partners however we can to ensure meaningful outcomes by the end of the pilot period. That said, any districts that are not chosen for the fall will be considered for future cohorts.

Free fall pilots. Limited availability.

Pilot partners are confirmed based on goals and fit after a 30-minute scoping call. Prefer to talk through it first? Book the conversation — or apply and we'll contact you.

Apply for a fall pilot