Solutionwhere vs MyLearningPlan: Platform Comparison for District PD Tracking

What happened to MyLearningPlan

MyLearningPlan was acquired by Frontline Education in May 2015 and rebranded as Frontline Professional Growth. Existing contracts transitioned to Frontline maintenance agreements. Districts searching for MyLearningPlan are now comparing Solutionwhere to Frontline Professional Growth.

Frontline sells Professional Growth as part of a broader human capital management suite that includes absence, hiring, and evaluation modules. The product retains some of the original MyLearningPlan feature set but is positioned as a cross-module platform, not a dedicated professional development tracker. Districts are purchasing from a multi-product vendor, not the original MyLearningPlan team.

Vendor structure and contract terms

Frontline Education is a private-equity-backed consolidator of school administration software. Frontline typically bundles Professional Growth with other modules, increasing total cost even when a district only needs PD tracking. Solutionwhere sells standalone PD tracking software without bundled products or cross-module dependencies.

Frontline pricing is based on district enrollment and includes annual escalators tied to total users, not just active staff. Solutionwhere pricing is per-staff-member or per-event, with no escalators for modules the district does not use. Frontline contracts often include multi-year terms with auto-renewal clauses. Solutionwhere contracts are annual with 60-day termination windows.

Districts comparing the two platforms need to request a line-item quote that separates Professional Growth licensing from absence management, applicant tracking, and evaluation modules. Bundled pricing obscures the cost of the PD tracking function alone. Districts that already use a separate absence system or evaluation platform may pay for duplicate functionality.

Catalog control and provider approval workflows

Frontline Professional Growth hosts a shared catalog of professional development providers that spans all customer districts. Districts cannot remove or hide providers from the shared catalog, even when those providers are not approved in the district's state or region. Solutionwhere lets each district or ISD build its own catalog and approve only the providers that meet local or state standards.

Frontline requires manual administrator approval for each staff member's external course submission. There is no bulk approval by provider. Solutionwhere supports bulk approval workflows where an administrator pre-approves a provider, and all courses from that provider auto-approve for staff. Regional service agencies using Frontline cannot share a unified catalog across member districts; each district maintains a separate instance. Solutionwhere ISDs and BOCES run a single catalog that all member districts inherit, reducing duplicate provider vetting.

The difference matters when a district in Ohio needs to confirm that every external provider holds a valid LPDC approval number, or when a Pennsylvania district must verify Act 48 provider codes. A shared catalog that includes providers from other states introduces entries the district cannot use for license renewal. Administrators spend time hiding irrelevant providers or instructing staff to ignore catalog entries that do not meet state requirements. A district-controlled catalog eliminates that overhead.

Reporting and state compliance exports

Frontline Professional Growth exports standard reports for contact hours, completion dates, and staff rosters, but does not generate state-specific LPDC or audit reports. Districts using Frontline in Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Michigan must manually reformat exported data to meet LPDC or intermediate unit submission formats. Solutionwhere generates state-specific reports for Ohio LPDC submissions, Pennsylvania Act 48 summaries, and Michigan SCECH transcripts without reformatting.

Frontline does not track approved provider numbers (SCECH IDs, Act 48 provider codes) at the course level. Districts enter them in free-text fields. Solutionwhere course records include structured fields for state provider IDs and automatically validate against state-maintained provider lists. Frontline rollup reports aggregate district-wide hours but do not break out hours by license type or endorsement area. Solutionwhere reports filter hours by license type, so districts can confirm that elementary teachers earned elementary-eligible hours for their renewal cycle.

The reporting gap creates audit risk. A district may track 120 contact hours for a teacher in Frontline, but when the state audits the renewal application, 30 of those hours come from a provider without a valid approval number. The district cannot identify the problem until the teacher submits paperwork to the state. A platform that tracks provider approval numbers at the course level flags the issue before the teacher logs hours toward renewal.

Where districts get this wrong

Districts assume that a platform with a large catalog means all catalog entries are approved for their state's renewal requirements. They are not. Administrators approve individual course submissions without checking whether the provider holds a valid state approval number, creating audit risk. Districts track contact hours in the platform but do not export and cross-check totals against state-required transcripts before renewal deadlines.

Staff members upload certificates from the same provider under different spellings or abbreviations, fragmenting the approval record. One teacher enters "RESA 7" and another enters "Regional Ed Service Agency 7," and the system treats them as separate providers. The administrator cannot run a report showing all hours earned through RESA 7 because the entries do not share a common provider ID.

Administrators do not configure expiration alerts six months before license renewal, leaving staff scrambling to complete hours in the final semester. The teacher receives no notification that the license expires in 90 days, discovers the lapse when the HR office flags it, and then requests emergency approval for courses completed outside the compliance window. A platform that sends alerts to the teacher and the principal 180 days before expiration eliminates that scenario.

Why agencies use Solutionwhere for PD tracking

Regional service agencies need a single catalog that all member districts pull from, avoiding duplicate provider approvals across 20 or 50 districts. State agencies need enrollment and attendance data in real time for grant reporting. Solutionwhere exports attendance rosters by funder and program code.

Districts need expiration tracking that sends alerts to staff and their principal 180 days before license lapse, reducing HR intervention. Solutionwhere supports state-specific transcript formats so districts submit LPDC paperwork or SCECH logs without reformatting spreadsheets. The platform tracks CEUs, contact hours, graduate credits, and clock hours in the same record, so districts do not maintain parallel spreadsheets for different license types.

Solutionwhere does not bundle PD tracking with hiring, evaluation, or payroll modules, so districts pay only for the compliance function they need. A district that already uses Frontline Absence Management and wants to replace only the PD tracking module can adopt Solutionwhere without switching absence systems. A regional service agency that provides PD to member districts but does not handle hiring or evaluation for those districts can license Solutionwhere without paying for unused modules.

The platform stores course completion records for the length of a teacher's career, so when a teacher moves from one member district to another within the same ISD, the transcript follows without re-entering data. A BOCES in New York or an ESC in Texas runs a unified transcript for all staff across member districts, and each district pulls only the records for its own employees.

Running this at the district level

Districts evaluating Frontline Professional Growth and Solutionwhere need to separate catalog size from catalog relevance. A large catalog is useful only if the providers in it meet state approval requirements. A district-controlled catalog with 50 vetted providers is more valuable than a shared catalog with 500 providers, 400 of which are not approved in the district's state.

Districts should request a demonstration of the state-specific reporting workflow, not just a generic contact-hour export. The vendor should show how the platform generates an Ohio LPDC summary, a Pennsylvania Act 48 report, or a Michigan SCECH transcript without manual reformatting. If the demonstration requires the administrator to export a CSV and reformat columns in Excel, the platform does not support state compliance reporting.

Responsible for tracking this across your staff? See how districts manage it in Solutionwhere.