More than a quarter million New York City students miss a month of school every year. In fact, 40% of NYC Department of Education high school students do not graduate. These sobering statistics only capture one small portion of students worldwide, but present an escalating social problem. Students who do not attend school or who consequently do not graduate, are put at an immediate disadvantage in attaining full academic potential. Kinvolved, a socially viable, education technology-based company, has been developed to solve this problem. Kinvolved empowers families to demand education reform to increase student achievement. This socially-minded organization develops simple, globally adaptable, low-cost technological tools to elevate parental engagement and facilitate virtual community development. 

The first Kinvolved product is an iPhone/iPad app program that will log, track and provide data analysis on student and class attendance. Teachers will enter attendance records at the beginning of each class period. Dependent upon student attendance, tardiness or absence, an SMS, email and/or automated voice message will immediately be sent to parents and family members reporting tardiness or absence. Instant communication is vital to promote information sharing and awareness between key stakeholders. Teachers will benefit from this app as it will promote time efficiency and organization. Teachers will be able to log attendance records of 25 students in one minute. Attendance can also be tracked on a daily, weekly and monthly basis to track trends. This app will create graphs displaying attendance analytics in easy-to-understand visual formats. All student and family contact information will be at the teacher’s finger tips for convenience if personal communication must be made in emergency circumstances. Just as teachers will benefit from using this product, families will now have immediate knowledge of their child’s whereabouts when attendance is logged as tardy or absent.

With one in four NYC public school students failing to graduate, this product is on the forefront of enhancing academic achievement at the most basic level. It will ensure that students, the main beneficiaries, are in the classroom. This app is the first step in bridging the gap between attendance and achievement to promote long term success.