Tech My School

Tech My School aims to modernize educational instruction and learning in schools. We are based in Puerto Rico, an area in dire need of educational reform and guidance. Puerto Rico is the United States third largest school district, and yet the education here is far behind even the lowest schools on the mainland. The average 8th grade student in Puerto Rico scores below the average fourth grade student in the US. Though money from the US government is given to the Puerto Rican government, it clearly is not trickling down from the top. Corruption is common place here, you can do your own research on this subject. Schools facilities are horrible, teacher pay is well below the poverty line, and students are being taught in a very antiquated fashion. Tech My School wants to help change this. We can't wait for the local government to do the right thing. We are partnering with local schools to change lives through a 21st century education using technology tools. We are tech centered but learning driven. For our first year, 2022, our goal is to raise a minimum of 50k dollars in order to transform schools in Puerto Rico. We will do this through the improvement of educational systems, building the capacity of staff, and empowering students with 21st century learning skills. Tech My School offers a variety of services to schools that include: teacher training, administrative collaboration, parent community outreach, student empowerment, facility consultation, device management, marketing support, and curriculum development.

For every school that we partner with, we create an individualized technology plan based on a needs assessment and data collected at the school. Once completed, in partnership with the school, we create a set of expectations and guarantees for the school year. We then deliver these guarantees and track our progress. At the end of the school year, we deliver the data back to the school in the form of an annual report. Donors will also have access to certain key elements to this report so they can see exactly where their money went and what success it delivered.

Ultimately, we would like to form long lasting partnerships with schools and donors. We want to partner with schools to provide continual, ongoing training and support. We hope our donors will see the success they have helped bring to life and continue to contribute towards a cause that will better the future for Puerto Rican children.

Tech My School is an organically driven project based on a glaring need and a mutual call to action by the stakeholders. We seek partner schools who are in need of our support and who believe in our mission. We find volunteers who have a shared passion for empowering the next generation with a world-class education. The eye test in Puerto Rico is very apparent. Schools here are in terrible shape, and the practice is equally as antiquated. Students are being prepared for a world that no longer exists and their futures are being unnecessarily ruined. We can't let any child, let alone 600k+ American students, to be left completely behind. The students themselves can feel it when we walk on campus and teach their classes. They know they need these skills as well, as the world is online, yet the instructional practice does not match this. In terms of implementation, we have a solid system based on years of experience of working within schools. We have a very dedicated team behind us who have a wealth of knowledge and expertise.

Our basic Tech My School formula is:

- Seek new partnerships with schools
- Learn about the culture of the school and do a needs assessment on what they need
- Develop an agreed upon ITP (Individualized Technology Plan) for the school
- Create a list of timelines and guarantees, etc.
- Implement the plan and raise capital to fund the needs
- Collect data along the way as we implement and let the data drive our instruction and pathways
- At the end of the cycle, report findings, data, and summarize the year. Then repeat the cycle with the partner school as our connection will last years. Effective lasting change happens over years, not days, or weeks.
- Find new schools and grow as a company

The process for success starts when we partner with schools who share a similar vision of empowering students with technology and who are willing to learn with an open mind. We know what is needed for successful change to happen in schools.

Some key ingredients are:

- A powerful, meaningful, and clear mission and vision that is accepted by the community.
- Administrative buy-in
- A curriculum that supports the vision
- Financial tools that afford the program
- Time for training and professional development
- Effective training for staff
- Stakeholder delivery

Once the partnership has been formed, we will then learn about the school that we have partnered with and complete a technology audit. We have a 140 point scale in which we look for various contributors within a school to its success. Using the audit as a tool we then devise a report and in partnership of the school create an ITP (Individualized tech plan) in which we highlight the things we want to improve for the school year, what commitments will be needed of each party, and a timeline of success. Based on the ITP we then get to work implementing the plan, raising money for the school, and collecting data along the way. At the end of the year we then crea

Our goal of wanting to empower every student on the island and beyond can be met by building a very strong evidence in our proof of concept model and then scaling it organically. Success breeds more success and we want our product to be first-in-class. The success from our first school year has already doubled our partnerships, and we believe we will continue to grow and scale in a way that best fits our clients. A 50k donation goal is very manageable. Really, it would be great to shoot for 1M in our first year. However, we want to under promise, over deliver. If we have a goal for 50k, really we are hoping to raise much more than that. However, there are certain scenarios where 50k might become a tall task. At this point it's hard for us to gauge what is truly possible in terms of fund raising as we are still new to the market. Currently we have 12 volunteers, 4 of whom are focused on specifically on fund raising. So we will see where this year takes us. In terms of our product, we are very confident in the change we bring to schools and the professional development we give our teachers. This is something we have done for many many years and have found great success when we were working in schools as trainers and teachers. The feedback has been very positive and we can see the change that is happening in schools that we are partnered with already.

Thus far we have formed our non profit and have gone through the process of getting the company into good standing. We have assembled an excellent team of educators, advocates, and allies to establish the core founders for the company. As of May 2022, we are at 12 highly qualified and skilled members. To build the brand we have created our website (www.techmyschool.org), created socials; twitter, instagram, Facebook, etc. We also have some merchandise as well. We have worked in partnership with two different schools, one is a K-12 campus, and the other is a PreK-6 school. Since inception we have done consistent, monthly, whole staff trainings. We have co-taught 21st century skills to students, built a website for a school (www.robertsonprivateschool.org), purchased multiple softwares for the schools, established the backends of these systems and continue to manage them, provided on-demand 1:1 coaching, and help the school build a digital yearbook among many other things. We have donated 7 months and well over 1000 hours of our time to this project with zero compensation by any member.

Moving forward in 2022, we would like to double are partnerships with local schools. We want to expand organically and ensure we are accountable to our guarantees to our partner schools. We have sister school partnerships in the works, we will bring in students from the US mainland and have them work and partner with local school students. We will then provide a complete service learning trip for the week that they visit. Our goal is to build a bridge between the Americans who receive a good education with other Americans who are being completely left behind by the local system. The worst inner cities schools in America are dramatically better funded than schools in Puerto Rico in terms of facilities, teacher pay, and access to 21st century education. In terms of volunteers, we will take on as many as we feel necessary to accomplish our goals.