‘They’re Vimme Kids. They Get it’ – Jessica Miller of Grandview Elementary Vimme Learning Spotlight

By: Jacob Christiansen

Return of the Vimme Kids

Early August shines its light on another school year as Jessica Miller returns to her fourth grade  classroom and finds herself in her eleventh year of teaching.  Nestled in the middle of Connorsville Indiana, Grandview Elementary is entering the 2026-2027 school year, and its third year partnering with Vimme Learning for math instruction.

The familiar new-school-year rituals unfold: organizing supplies, learning names, reading files, scanning the room.  As Jessica gets a feel for her students, the first challenge of the year becomes clear:  Her class has grown from fifteen to twenty-one students.  

“(The start of the school year has been) pretty good. I have a bigger class than I had last year, so just getting used to having a bigger class again is a little bit challenging.”

Jessica is mindful of the increase, but she’s optimistic.  She has over a decade of teaching experience and after two years with Vimme, she has already begun to notice a difference in how students are remembering material from the year before.

“I really noticed a huge difference when we started year two (working with Vimme). When my next group of kids came in, they weren’t as low.  They still remembered things from their previous year.”

That was when she started recognizing the “Vimme kids”. 

“I’m like, okay, they’re Vimme kids. They get it. I don’t have to go so far back just to get them caught up.  I can actually move forward.  And it was fantastic.”

Before Vimme:  Great Lessons, Weak Retention

Jessica’s teaching philosophy thrives on clarity and active practice.  Whiteboards in hand, students working problems, skills broken down and built back up in front of them. 

“I’m very much the teacher who is like, tell me what skill I’m teaching and let’s go. I’ve got this.  Let’s do the whiteboards.  Let’s do all the practice.” 

For years, Grandview relied on other math programs. But Jessica could plainly see that the material didn’t consistently support the kind of hands-on, skill-focused instruction she believed her students needed, nor did it give them the opportunities to revisit material they’d previously learned. 

Before Vimme, Jessica’s students would often do well in the moment.  They could handle maybe a week’s worth of new material, but would struggle when asked to recall what they learned when asked weeks later.  

“Before Vimme, the problem was retaining the new information. They would do awesome during the initial lessons and get it for a week, but we wouldn’t spiral back to it… Our old program didn’t have that spiral back consistently, and that’s where they struggled”

By the time ILEARN testing came around, too many of those lessons had faded. 

“When it was time for ILEARN, they didn’t remember.  They just couldn’t do what they needed to do.” 

Jessica wasn’t seeing a lack of effort from her students, but a gap in the structure of the curriculum.

A Sudden Shift:  Enter Vimme Learning

Vimme Learning arrived suddenly upon the new school year at Grandview Elementary.  

“We just came into a new school year, and my boss was like, “Hey, by the way, we have a new math program that we’re going to use.’ And I was like, ’oh, ok, all right, let’s do this.’” 

Jessica wasn’t immediately sold. She had been through another math program she disliked, and she wasn’t sure what to expect from Vimme.   But a few features helped her buy in quickly.  She connected well with the interactive notebooks and clear lesson structure that let her revisit skills as needed.  

“When Vimme came around, I absolutely loved the interactive notebooks.  I loved that we could work on those for a day or two and have the types of practice that I wanted… if we needed to go back, we could go back.” 

Vimme Learning is a spiraling curriculum, which means students will see concepts from previous lessons appear week after week.  This gives them the opportunity to practice and master skills over time.  

“Now with Vimme, there’s so much spiraling back that I think that’s what’s contributed to our raised test scores.”

Instead of focusing on skills for a single week or for a limited period to prepare for a test, a spiraling review of skills continuously pushes students to understand core concepts and prevents skills from falling through the cracks.  With this strategy and the tools and content provided by Vimme Learning, schools like Grandview Elementary are seeing results fast.  In 2025, the Connorsville school saw a 16%-22% ILEARN score improvement amongst third through sixth grade students when compared to scores from 2024. 

Life Happens:  Vimme and a Three-Month Leave

During the early days at Grandview Elementary the Vimme program had taken hold, Jessica suddenly found herself having to take time away from the classroom for one of the most important reasons imaginable:  Maternity leave. She would be gone for three months and would have to create a plan for her time away.  

For Jessica, the clarity of Vimme’s structure and clear lesson plan made the transition smooth while she handed the reins over to her substitute. 

“I told her, just look at what there is for the week and you just break it up into basically three days of straight teaching, you know, have a day of review, and then you’re going to have a test the next day.”

The substitute was fresh into her young career but the structure was easy enough for her to pick up allowing the class to not fall behind during the extensive leave. 

“She was able to pick it up and she did wonderful with it… in fact, she actually works for us now!”

By Teachers For Teachers

 As Jessica became more familiar with Vimme Learning in her own classroom, an opportunity surfaced that would deepen the connection even more. 

“Vimme contacted our principal and wanted to know if there was a fourth- or fifth-grade teacher that might be interested or able to create those daily lessons.  My boss, suggested me.”

She began meeting with the Vimme team, collaborating to create the slide decks that could guide both teachers and students through different lessons. 

“Going through every single day for all of those lessons, I’m just really excited to be able to use those this year.”

For nearly a year, Jessica worked through the lessons day by day, helping build the slide decks that would guide instruction. It was a substantial commitment, one she says takes considerable time, but she’s excited to finally put the finished lessons to use in her own classroom. 

“Give it a Chance”

As Jessica becomes more anchored within the Vimme ecosystem, she is aware that not everyone shares her enthusiasm when incorporating a new curriculum. Across the school and district a familiar pattern whenever a new program is introduced that induces hesitation and skepticism and the very natural resistance to more change.  

“Its always been like that.  It’s just really hard to kind of switch gears.”

She doesn’t dismiss those feelings.  In her eleventh year she can look back and remember more than one new program being introduced that didn’t quite fit well with her teaching style and others that featured convoluted and unnecessary material and plans. 

“I just want teachers who haven’t tried Vimme… I want them to give it a chance.  I wish a lot of my colleagues would understand that it’s not something you might see in year one. … just give it a chance.” 

Jessica has seen what happens when that chance is given. She’s watched students arrive in her classroom remembering more from the previous year. She’s been able to spend less time going backward and more time moving forward. And she’s seen Vimme provide enough structure to support not only her own classroom, but a substitute stepping into it for three months. 

“This is just one program that we’ve adopted, that I’m like, yeah, let’s do it. Like I’m 100% using everything in this program.”