Dear Daycares,

I know you’re teaching my child to be great, but you’re totally leaving the parents in the dark

A couple months ago I was listening to a podcast that is gonna sound really nerdy. It was a webinar from a cognitive scientist, Eric Jensen, speaking about how a child’s brain works and develops from the classroom perspective. There was 1 thing he said that just punched me in the face:

You create more cognitive tissue in your brain from age 0-3 years old, than you do the entire rest of your life COMBINED.

This blew my mind. My daughter, Era, is 2 years old so my first thought was “I only have a few more months to shove as much into that brain as possible”. I know that sounds completely stupid, but I’m just being honest. So I thought about this some more, and I started asking myself what could I do to make sure my daughter is really getting the most out of these important early years.

I know she’s learning things at daycare because she shows me things every night when she comes home, but I have no clue what she’s not doing well at in school.

So like most parents, I went to go find out. I asked the daycare manager, if there was some reporting they could give me so that I can see how she’s doing, and work with her more at home. She told me no problem, I’ll start making sure the teachers give you a full report. “SWEET” I’m about to make my daughter a genius. Well to my surprise, this is what I received:

So my daughter ate some cereal, she peed a ton today, she napped, and I have no clue what BM means. AWESOME! (that’s sarcasm just in case that wasn’t clear) As important as that is to make sure she’s healthy, and doesn’t get diaper rash, I want to know what you guys learned today. Did you sing the alphabet song, did you paint and learn about colors, did you do flash cards with animals, and things along those lines.

My first thought was…crap…maybe my daycare just sucks and I need to take her somewhere else.

Before making any crazy moves, I started calling all of my friends who were parents. I called my engineer friend in Houston, and asked him what type of reporting his kid gets. He replied and showed me an identical form as the above that was pointless. So I took it a step up and called one of my oldest friends in New York who’s son goes to Montessori school. I asked her what type of reporting her son gets. She told me that they get a comprehensive packet every 6 weeks that a teacher sits down and breaks down all of her son’s positives and negatives. She showed me a sample, and it was a full on book. Paragraphs and paragraphs of analysis on her son. That’s pretty amazing, but there was something about receiving a report every few weeks versus everyday that bugged me.

Since the Montessori school was definitely closer to what I was after I continued to ask more questions.

What does your school do if your son isn’t doing well in a particular subject?

“The teacher will call me in for a meeting…we will sit down and have a brainstorming session on all of the things that we could do with him at home that will help his progression”

BOOM THAT’S WHAT I WAS AFTER. Instantly I knew what I needed to do. I opened up the sketch book, and started my ideation phase of a new product.

What if I could create a piece of software that would solve 3 major problems in the early education / daycare realm

1. A reporting tool where teachers give baseline ideas to parents on how well their children are doing in a particular subject. (ie: colors, alphabet, writing letters, sequencing, attention, sharing, etc)
2. A way for parents and teachers to quickly communicate with each other, so that they can work together to ensure learning in a child.
3. A suggestion engine that will help parents become educators. We like to think we know what we’re doing, but we all need help knowing what apps, books, and toys would be beneficial for our children.

I could create something that will bring an expensive private charter school experience to all early education centers. And at the same time create a way for parents & teachers to work together to educate todays children.

So that’s what I spend my days doing right now. I’m designing and developing, WePort Card. Here’s how it works:

Teacher or Parent sets a baseline grade

Parent receives a WePort Card to review

By tapping the graph our suggestion engine will share apps, books, toys, articles, and games that will help your child in each specific area

You might be wondering what the point of this is? It’s not to just get another report card for your kid.

Parents should always have an active role in their child’s education. And that means bringing education into the home. But not every parent knows how to educate. The goal of WePort Card is to give parents an understanding of where their child needs improvement & to teach them how to educate their child at home.

But I need some help from parents…

If this sounds like something you would use, please signup on our website and let us know what daycare you’re child goes to. Ask your daycare provider if they have heard of us, and if they would be willing to add this type of software to their facility.

Also, let me know what you think of the idea. I know I’m 1 parent, but I want to make sure I’m building something that we will all be happy with. Email me at Ray@WePortCard.com if you have ideas, questions, concerns, or just want to chat. Would love to hear from you.

We all know that the education system is broken in this country. The only way that we’re gonna make any change, is if we stand together as parents and build something special for our children.