The 5 Hour Difference: What Early Research Reveals About AI Quality in Schools

A recent study from Panorama’s Data Science & Applied Research team found that teachers expect to save an average of five hours per month using Panorama Solara for lesson planning. That time comes from outputs that are clear and aligned to instruction, and it’s being reinvested in stronger lessons and more direct support for students.

There’s no shortage of AI tools that claim to help with lesson planning. What’s harder to find is real evidence of what actually works in practice, especially once those tools are used in real classrooms over time.

To better understand how Solara, Panorama’s AI platform for educators, supports lesson planning, Panorama’s Data Science & Applied Research team partnered with Pecos-Barstow-Toyah ISD in West Texas to study its use in the district. The analysis focused on Solara’s first year, examining how teachers used the platform over time and how they experienced the quality of its outputs.

Based on responses from 115 teachers across grade levels and subjects, along with follow-up conversations with educators and staff, the findings offer an early look at how Solara is showing up in real instructional workflows, and what teachers are beginning to see from it.

Teachers aren't just trying Solara—they're coming back to it

In its first year of use in Pecos-Barstow-Toyah ISD, Solara is already showing signs of consistent adoption. More than half of surveyed teachers (55%) reported using the platform for lesson planning. Among those users, over half (54%) said they had used it nine or more times during the school year.

Figure 1 (2) That pattern matters. Early use can often reflect curiosity or experimentation, but repeated use suggests something else, indicating that teachers are finding enough value to incorporate Solara into their ongoing planning process, rather than treating it as a one-time tool.

In conversations with educators, that value often showed up in very practical ways. Teachers described using Solara to build out full lesson sequences aligned to their curriculum, generate differentiated materials across multiple levels, and quickly create assignments, rubrics, and pacing tools that would have otherwise taken hours to assemble.

And that raises a more important question: what’s making it stick?

"Once someone uses it, they share it"

Solara’s early adoption in PBTISD didn’t happen in isolation. Educators described a rollout supported by collaboration, shared learning, and space to experiment with the tool in real workflows. Professional learning communities and team time created opportunities for teachers to exchange ideas, refine how they were using Solara, and build confidence over time.

In conversations, participants described a culture of sharing and peer learning, often happening through PLC time. As Cynthia Smith, Secondary Curriculum Coordinator, explained, “Among the teachers, once someone uses it, they share it in their PLC time. And so it becomes a learning session. And so they do spread the knowledge.”

These conditions helped move Solara from a new tool to something embedded in daily practice, accelerating both adoption and the quality of use.

Outputs teachers can actually use

For teachers, sustained use depends on whether the output consistently supports real planning. In PBTISD, teachers reported that Solara’s outputs meet that bar. A strong majority described the content it generates as clear and useful, with:

79% rating outputs as “quite” or “very” clear
84% rating them as “quite” or “very” useful

Just as important, teachers indicated that those outputs align with their instructional goals. Nearly three-quarters (73%) said Solara’s outputs align “quite well” or “very well” with what they’re trying to teach, with almost all respondents reporting at least some level of alignment.

Teachers also pointed to specific strengths in how Solara supports planning. Many highlighted its ability to quickly generate ideas, draft materials, and support differentiation and personalization. In practice, that looked like creating reading passages at multiple levels from a single prompt, scaffolding lessons for different groups of students, or building aligned materials tied to specific standards and objectives.

Taken together, these results suggest that teachers aren’t just generating content. They’re generating content that is usable and aligned to their goals, and that usability is likely a key reason Solara is becoming part of their regular planning process.

Time saved is going back into instruction

Teachers also report that using Solara is giving them time back in their planning process. Eighty-three percent of users said Solara makes planning faster, and nearly all respondents (97%) indicated they expect to save time, estimating an average of just over five hours saved per month.

Figure 2 (3)

But what matters more is how that time is used. Teachers reported reinvesting that time into core instructional work, most often:

Creating materials (59%)
Refining lesson plans (56%)
Personalizing learning (48%)

In addition, some teachers pointed to collaboration (30%) and working more directly with students (26%) as ways they’re using that time.

In conversations, teachers described that shift more concretely. One participant noted that tasks that were once “very tedious” are now “a lot easier,” highlighting how quickly planning work can now be completed.

Others pointed to specific examples of that time savings in practice. As Joseph Ibarra, Curriculum Coordinator, shared, “I would have spent tons and tons and tons of time creating this calendar, but just upload it in Solara and it gave me exactly what I needed.”

That impact shows up not only in how teachers use their time, but in how they describe their experience with Solara more broadly. Ibarra continued, “I strongly suggest that any teacher, whether you are a brand new teacher or a teacher who has been teaching for 35 years, use it. If you're a brand new teacher, it makes your life easier. It helps you get started. If you are an experienced teacher and a highly effective teacher, it makes life even better.”

Raising the bar for AI in education

As AI becomes more common in schools, what matters more than rate of adoption is whether tools actually help educators move their work forward, and whether districts can see and measure that impact across their system.

Solara’s early results in PBTISD show what that can look like in practice. And the impact is showing up not only in lesson planning, but in how educators experience the tool as part of their broader workflow. As Harley Machuca, Social Studies Teacher at Pecos High School, put it, “I really like how fast it is and how it’s integrated with our Panorama data.”

Teachers are getting outputs they can actually use in the form of content that’s aligned, clear, and ready to build from. They’re applying it across real parts of their workflow, from lesson planning to differentiation to collaboration. And importantly, that impact is measurable, showing up in time saved and in how that time is being used.

AI isn’t valuable by default because it can generate content for educators. It becomes valuable when that content holds up, when teachers use it in their planning and return to it over time. In PBTISD, consistency shows up in how teachers are building Solara into their workflow, using it to plan lessons, generate materials, and refine what they teach. That’s what gives districts a clear understanding of what’s actually working, and a foundation they can improve and scale.