Toronto entrepreneurs create free app helping families and teachers navigate a new way of learning and engagement during Covid and beyond

At School Today® Founders — Left: Geoff Jordan, President and Right: David Campbell, CEO and Chairman

At School Today^® is a game changer for families and educators alike. The creation of two Toronto entrepreneurs, the app aims to facilitate communication around a student’s learning and development. By downloading the app to their iOS or Android device parents experience fast, timely and accurate information sharing with teachers who can automate their communication for their classroom. The At School Today^® app syncs easily with online calendars and instantly organizes everything needed to stay informed and up-to-date in a student’s life: a single platform in the palm of your hand.

No more hard to trace emails scattered throughout an inbox. No more waiting on a recorded phone message to update a child’s attendance or early departure. Auto-fill functions for permission forms allow them to be completed and returned with a few swipes of a finger.

Easy payment functions eliminate the search through the couch for change on pizza day or sending children with easy to lose bags of coins for book and bake sales. Keep up on homework and receive notifications about everything in a child’s schedule.

Teachers can reach parents in the modern mobile world and easily communicate school needs without having to collect and gather contact information, stacks of forms and cash payments - reducing paper use and contact during the coronavirus pandemic. They can send parents existing, approved PDF forms with a simple drag and drop feature and the system will auto-populate forms with parent profile information that has already been collected over time. By uploading resources and saving templates to the platform, they can green their processes and reduce repetitive administrative tasks.

Designed to save time and money with its simplicity and speed, At School Today^® is the communications tool parents, students, teachers and education administrators need in a modern world. From signing forms, to paying fees and communicating vital information, this app can do it all with a few simple taps and a swipe.

“It’s a game changer,” Jordan said.

Jordan is a media arts graduate from Ryerson University. When he left the 9 to 5 and began freelancing under his own company, he was asked to create an app for a private school — something that would allow for newsletters to be sent out to parents, the sharing of information and reminders.

“It really didn’t do that much,” Jordan said. “But I learned a lot from it.”

In developing that application, he began to see the need for a communication tool between parents and educators. Being a parent himself, only reinforced the idea.

“I thought, private schools aren’t the only place for this. And so, I started to think, what do I want out of this as a parent?”

His kids were involved in athletics, school group activities and extra curriculars. Every week he was inundated with permission forms, fees that needed to be paid, registrations and more.

Campbell was a successful financier. Educated at Western University and the Richard Ivey School of Business, he went to Bay Street, working as an analyst in the 90s.

“Coming home from work it was difficult to react to my kids’ needs,” Campbell said. “Some evenings, you arrive so late after a busy day and I didn’t know if homework was assigned, if there were field trips. This idea really spoke to me, especially when I would be coming home late at night and then trying to help my spouse with the kids.”

So, what about an app that put everything at the parent’s fingertips? With your information secure within the app, parents wouldn’t have the redundant task of filling out each permission form - they would be auto filled. Paying fees wouldn’t require remembering a cheque or the plastic bag full of coins. And by utilizing calendars and notifications, parents could stay up to date on all their child’s needs with a simple check of their smart phone.

Jordan and Campbell continued developing. On the other side of that coin, teachers don’t need to be bombarded by paperwork and monies from parents, they thought. They need to automate their entire school year. The pair imagined an outgoing broadcast system utilizing calendars, notifications and the ability to upload and share forms with a simple drag and drop. Teachers could communicate all their needs to parents and ensure forms and fees were in place without having to physically collect, retain and account for any of the material themselves.

“It is designed to save time and effort at every touchpoint. We are focused on simplicity and speed — therein lies its power,” Jordan said.

And the partners are now thinking big. School boards could take on the app to make it a system available to all their schools and parents, with the efficiencies making life easier for those involved, as well as the planet.

“The environmental benefits may be the most direct,” Campbell said. “While we teach our students and children to respect the environment and consider the planet in what they do, we continue to create massive paper trails for all of these simple tasks. The At School Today® app reduces that reliance on paper.”

It’s an administrative team packed into a smart phone, looking after all needs, for the parent and the educator.

“This is an opportunity for us to really make a difference at that intersection of business and society,” Campbell said. “We’re trying to achieve better scholastic outcomes for more children in the system, and we can create a more efficient education system at the same time.”