Kevin Roden for Denton City Council

Goodbye TAMS and UNT. Hello Startup.

July 2nd, 2014Uncategorized3 comments

After 15 great years of working with some of the brightest teenagers in the nation, I’ll be leaving my post with the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science at UNT on August 1. These students are a tremendous asset for the university and the community. Each year, they collectively serve over 10,000 hours of community service and a big chunk of that is spent directly helping kids in Denton schools. Having this sort of concentration of innovative, creative young minds who consistently bring national and international attention to the university and city is every community’s dream. I expect to continue partnering with TAMS as we build our local tech/innovation/startup economy and as we continue to grow our community educational initiatives.

The educational tech startup my wife founded, Pascal Learning, is bringing me on to further their mission of helping schools and cities unlock the potential of their most at-risk kids by unlocking the potential of their parents, mentors, and caregivers. With 45% of our nation’s kids at-risk of failing, dropping out, or falling behind, we seek to help communities equip and inspire their very first teachers – parents.

ReadyRosie is Pascal Learning’s first creation and is helping parents of 0-5 year olds get their kids ready for school in dozens of communities in 10 different states – and growing every day. This Fall we’ll launch our latest venture, Bringing Up, an innovative parent engagement tool which schools will use to inspire the parents and mentors of their Kindergarten through 3rd grade kids.

I look forward to continuing my vocation as an educator by helping parents, mentors, and communities across the country reach their most at-risk families. And at the same time, I love that I’ll be a part of Denton’s emerging tech startup scene.

You can find out more about Pascal Learning and ReadyRosie from these stories in the Dallas Morning News and KERA.