Breakout session: You Can’t Hide From This Report Card!

By Ethan Annis

A cozy breakout session involving Anupama Vaid from Parent Square, moderated by David Engle from SNS Project Inkwell, explained how Parent Square is changing the way that schools and teachers interact with students and parents. The data provided by this system gives administrators the ability to make adjustments in order to better reach their unique demographic to help increase the learning that happens in their schools.

The discussion started out with a brief history of the education system and Engle described the very slow moving industry that needs the barnacles removed in order to make improvements. He mentioned the system has been the same for many years and requires patience to implement changes.

The discussion continued to go over a few of the problems and obstacles that tend to present themselves to the education industry. How do you account for schools where there is too much interaction with parents? How do you get your system to stick when schools typically swap our curriculums and programs as often as they swap out administration?

Parent Square provides the answers through a very friendly user interface, as well as a highly customizable system. If the parents are too involved, the schools can pare things back. If schools are quick to turn over their programs, the loyal parents call for the system again.

The benefits of Parent Square were also discussed, including the digital literacy growth that will come to low income families from having a reason to use the computer. When parents have a reason to interact with technology, their understanding grows. It was mentioned that this helps provide valuable education to parents in low income families as well.

Vaid finished by commenting on the bright future of her company.

“It’s exciting times for us and as we’re growing, it’s like the possibilities are endless,” she said.

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