Brett Roer: [00:00:00] Welcome everyone to the AmpED to 11 podcast. I am honored to be joined by a very special guest, Dr. Chad Stevens, head of Growth and Partnerships at ClassDojo. How are you doing today, Chad?
Chad Stevens: Great to be here, Brett.
Brett Roer: Chad, I know that we know this, but for our educators out there, if you are in a classroom, chances are you’re probably using, ClassDojo to communicate with your parents or students. If you’re a parent of an elementary or middle schooler, chances are you’re receiving messages from ClassDojo.
It’s one of the most, widely used. And most satisfying products out there. I love to see that. But Chad, if you could let everyone know a little bit more about the work you’re doing at ClassDojo, the mission, and, anything else our audience should know about the amazing work you’re leading there.
Chad Stevens: The mission of ClassDojo of the company is to give every child on earth an education they love. And so what we’re doing is continue to build in that direction. ClassDojo for districts, unifies communication, unifies engagement. Gives you data [00:01:00] insights across schools, and gives you a really trusted, scalable platform to strengthen connections between educators, families, and really the community.
Nine outta 10 schools in the US have somebody in there using ClassDojo, 45 million families in 180 countries. And so as we build out ClassDojo for districts. School leaders can take something that’s already widely adopted and, you know, you don’t have to go through that part of adopting a new technology.
It’s already there. We’re just enhancing it to enhance our mission and we’re super excited about it.
Yeah, and just to provide some context, one of my favorite things is I work closely with principals across the country, but especially here in New York City. And there’s a member of your team who’s doing fantastic work here named Michael Bell.
And one thing I love seeing is he’ll just stand up in front of leaders and say, raise your hand if your staff loves ClassDojo and he goes, raise your hand if your families love it. Great. And so if you could share a little bit more about this amazing transition you’re taking, from not just putting the power in the teachers and the family’s hands, [00:02:00] but now giving it to districts.
And also if you could highlight, ’cause Michael does a great job of this, how much does this cost districts, families, students?
We were very committed to keeping ClassDojo for districts free.
Like ClassDojo has always been for teachers. You know, we’re able to do that ’cause we have a very successful, you know, consumer business with awesome products like Dojo, tutor Dojo, sparks, which also. Fulfill our mission, which is to give every child on earth the education they love, and to help parents, give that education to their kids.
So, you know, with class, we, for districts, it’s probably a lot of the things, that you’re kind of familiar with in these larger family engagement tools. you know, district wide announcements, SMS alerts, you mentioned elementary and middle school, but I really wanna highlight the fact that.
We do have a high school mode. we’re putting a lot of energy into, age appropriate experiences at the middle and high school level. we believe that we have a great opportunity to change the game when it comes to high school communication [00:03:00] and then coming next year. teachers to student messaging, attendance based alerts, with SIS integration, automated voice calls, and lots of social media integration.
And so, that’s really just the surface. We’re investing heavily. we are listening to customers and essentially asking what we need to build. And the key to keeping it free is to have lots of teachers that use it and districts adopt. And when we do that, we can scale that way.
And so we’re super pumped about it.
Brett Roer: Yeah. And two things I wanna make sure, like, you know, sometimes you hear people say things, but I want to validate these ’cause I’m watching a lot of these meetings. And I’ve been in community with you and other people. You’re asking leaders what do they need to help better empower their community?
Because it’s so rare that you have a tool that everyone wants to use, and then you have an organization saying, we want to expand this free tool and listen to you and build it so that it makes leaders feel like they’re also part of a solution and they can actually, provide time for professional development [00:04:00] or other ways to make sure all their teachers feel good about it.
And I just wanna, again, thank you for keeping the educator, the family, the student, voice at the forefront of what you’re doing. So Chad, I just wanna say thank you again for all the amazing work you’re leading at ClassDojo.
If people wanna find more about ClassDojo, where they might wanna check.
Chad Stevens: You can go to class.com for, slash districts. I’m sure you’re gonna add that into your show notes. But yeah, we’re really excited. And I do want to emphasize what you said where, you know, we do have a customer advisory board.
You know, we just took them through two series of product roadmap. One showing ’em the roadmap, and then two, literally just asking what you need and virtually everything that those, communication leaders. Academic leaders and technology leaders, wanted is on the roadmap and so heavy investment, really excited about it.
And, you know, it’s all about impact. I’m a former principal teacher, myself and chief technology officer, and I’m, I’m really excited to. scale this so [00:05:00] that you know, the idea is that everybody in the world has awesome family engagement because we know that helps kids. So thanks for what you do Brett, and thanks for sharing this with your audience.
and thanks for your partnership.
Brett Roer: I think Chad also just gave a roadmap to all the innovative solutions out there. Listen, build community and take their feedback when you build out your own roadmap for your product and for educators out there.
Chad just gave you a roadmap. Make sure you ask these education solutions. Do you have an advisory board? How are you getting feedback from different demographics such as students, parents, families, and educators? Because if they’re not part of that initial planning, the chances are it’s not gonna land the way things like ClassDojo do.
So thanks Chad, for just giving people that insight as well as how you’re making sure this, product aligns with the needs of different communities around the country.
Chad Stevens: Thanks man. Super important.
Thanks everybody for listening. Have a great day.
