The Online Schooling Revolution with Amy Jenkins of Outschool

leading edtech companies. In Jenkins, as the head of schools and distribution at outschool, one of the fastest growing companies in education technology, she was the chief operating officer for education elements, an associate partner and NewSchools Venture Fund, a co founder of an after school program that combines soccer and literacy and a teacher with Teach for America. Amy also holds an MBA from Harvard

Business School. In this conversation, Amy and I chat about outschool and how it became one of the fastest growing edtech companies during the pandemic, as well as how teachers are using their teaching skills to create side hustles or even full time jobs teaching online, and how outschool is beginning to work directly within the school system to expand learning opportunities. Amy Jenkins, Welcome to EdTech insiders. Thanks so much for having me today.

Amy, you have an extensive background in education technology, you spent years at education elements, add new school adventure, and now at outschool. You are also a classroom teacher, give us a short overview of your education experience. And tell us one thing you love about the EdTech field and one thing you hate or, you know, would like to see improved about the EdTech field? Absolutely, Alex Well, I actually started out in the classroom. And I am really glad that that was kind of where it

all began for me. You know, being a teacher in a classroom I think gave me empathy and understanding that has helped me in every role I've been in since I feel like I know what it's

like to be a teacher. I know what it's like to be a student again, and you know, picture things away happen through their eyes, I remember talking to parents, all of the things I did in those just few years as a teacher, and then even as an after school program provider really gave me a sense and helped me develop some intuition that has helped me moving forward in all of the roles I've

had since then. And then you know, after teaching and running an after school program, I had the opportunity to be investor and NewSchools Venture Fund. And that opened up a whole set of possibilities. To me, the classrooms that I taught in were not at all tech enabled. And to be honest, I wasn't in an innovative school, I was in a typical low performing Middle School in Oakland, California, where everybody was doing the absolute best that they could, but not with an abundance of

resources. And actually, it's not with many resources at all. So being at new schools, I started to see other possibilities, other ways to approach teaching and learning other ways that schools might operate other ways that technology might be used other ways to approach how do we think about leadership and coaching and support. And that was incredibly eye opening. For me.

I feel really lucky that the next role I had was eight years at education elements where I spent my time really splitting my time focusing on the internal operations and growing and scaling the company, and actually going out and being a consultant to school districts. I spent a lot of time working directly with superintendents, I ran some coaching programs for

district leaders. And through that I was able to develop both relationships that have lasted to this day, you know, a set of superintendents eyes, sometimes text to gut check a question or learn more about how they're thinking about something. But I also really grew my understanding, not just of the classroom, which I developed through being a teacher, but about the complexity of school systems. Yeah, and that's

helping me today. You know, hopefully we'll talk a little bit later about some of the work that we're doing at outschool with schools and districts, but so much of it is from those those early experiences. You asked me about edtech and what I love and hate, in terms of what I love about edtech I think it's the absolute potential and possibility to meet students needs in ways that are just simply not possible without technology. My largest class sizes 48 students I know that's

not typical. But I can tell you that even in my class size of 16, which was my smallest, it's really hard to be able to have enough touch points with every child and help them every day and technology has the capacity Do that it doesn't always do that. But I, when I think about what I love about edtech, its sheer potential and possibility to really impact students in a different way that one teacher can't possibly do. I don't want to say there's something I hate about at Tech, mega, super

strong word. But I think what I would say is, I think what I what I dislike about it is maybe how so many people can have kids best interests at heart and really be thinking about what is best for the students in the classroom. But there are so many barriers that can get in the way and one barrier, sometimes a misunderstanding of what the technology is supposed to do. And I think there's reasons for that. I think some of it is how we actually communicate. And I think there's initiative

fatigue. And I think there's a lot of reasons. But sometimes it's also paperwork and bureaucracy and outdated rules that prevent ed tech from being able to do something. And sometimes change just takes so long. And if the length of time it takes is what it takes rescue builds by and I think it is an investment of time, that's really worth it. But I think sometimes there's other reasons that just get in the way of us being able to create change. And I get super frustrated when that

happens. But I think we all want to help kids. So why aren't we helping them? Yeah, there's so much to unpack in that answer. And it's so interesting to hear your perspective going from inside the classroom, to working with districts and the complexity of the system and starting to understand the, as you say, the paperwork and the initiative,

fatigue, close up. And then moving to outschool, which is sort of technically ad tech company outside of schools, but your role specifically is about, you know, bringing it into schools and bridging schools. You're right, hate is a strong word. But I think that makes a lot of sense. There's a lot of goodwill, sometimes it doesn't always meet the target. Exactly. So outschool is a really fascinating company. It's one of my favorite new edtech startups.

It's an education marketplace that allows teachers to teach small group or one on one classes online and to set their own fees. It's also been one of the most successful companies during the pandemic. I know it's grown immensely in 2020, and 2021, and is now considered an edtech unicorn, a company worth over a billion dollars valuation. Tell us about the outschool model from your perspective and how it has grown so quickly in these unprecedented times. Yeah, it's been a crazy ride.

And we actually announced our series D, maybe last week or the week before. So I suppose now valued at 3 billion, which is, you know, when I started at outschool, in March 2020, there were 25 FTEs. And now we're at around 175 people. So the growth has been absolutely explosive. And I think the reason is because there was a real need and outschool was already there and ready. Ready might be a little bit of a strong word. I mean, we had a lot of work to do to meet the huge increase in

demand. The first few weeks that schools were closed, classes were selling out immediately. So a teacher would come and post a class. And in under an hour, her entire class might be filled up. And then you'd have a set of parents thinking, but I really wanted my child to learn Taylor Swift through Spanish. And now that is not there. So I think we had teachers who were ready to teach remotely, they knew what

they were doing. They knew how to take this format of zoom and make it engaging and not make it about the screen. But really connect students and connect to students even online in a way that your typical classroom teacher didn't know how to do yet. So we had what parents were looking for what families what kids were looking for, which was how can I still make learning fun and exciting? How can I connect to other people and for kids that was connecting to peers connecting to other caring

adults. And it started off the history of our school is that we started off really catering to homeschool families, because those families had that need already. They were already taking on this tremendous burden. And for some of them a really wonderful joy also of how do I educate my kids on their own about this traditional system, but they still sometimes

needed resources. They needed other ways to teach the same content and they were looking for ways for their kids to connect with other teachers than just themselves and with other kids. So we were already doing that. But then when all the schools shut down, all parents started to have that need all parents are there, you know, staring at their kids and thinking, what am I going to do

with you next? You know, one parent told me that she kept getting all these like helpful tips on Facebook and blog posts about like activities to do with glitter And she was just sitting there thinking, I don't have time to do this activity. It sounds great what you just described, but I can't do that. And she found out school and was like, there's somebody else who can do this activity, like I can just give my kid the supplies and then another teacher and another set of kids can do that

together. So I just think we had what was needed, we built it up really quickly. And and it was a tremendous effort to do that. We launched out school.org immediately, also in March, because we realized that as this need was growing use going for everybody, and not just the parents who could pay. So we immediately launched a million dollar fund for students whose families were able to pay on their own. And then it kind of went from there out school, as you mentioned, is a marketplace.

So teachers come to our school, and they're teaching what they want to teach when they want to teach it to how many students they want, and they're setting the price and then out school takes a 30% cut from that. So we didn't only meet the needs of parents, we also were able to meet the needs of teachers as well. It's an incredible story. And I love the way you're framing it that sort of out school was originally designed with homeschooling in mind, but as the pandemic had, we sort of all

became homeschoolers. You know, every parent and every family sort of had to suddenly face some of the common problems we see in homeschooling, which is need for resources need for curricular need for engaging and interesting lessons. That makes

a lot of sense. And it was, I think it's an amazing, you know, serendipitous combination, that this company was in place, and just big enough to you know, you mentioned 25 people, but just big enough to sustain that kind of demand at this crazy inflection point. Yeah, it was definitely a crazy time, those first few months were insane. It's amazing. One of the things you mentioned, you know, learning Spanish

through Taylor Swift. And one of the things that I find very interesting about outschool, is that, as you said, teachers can teach anything they'd like so that it can include formal education topics, you know, math, English, science, test prep, everything that people learn in school calculus. But it also includes very informal interest based sort of engaging topics. Some of the classes I've seen on there are, you know, how to draw manga, or the science of

farts? Or to learn Spanish through Taylor Swift, and they're designed to appeal directly to kids and to families. From the inside. I'm curious what you see about what types of classes succeed on the platform, and how you see that sort of combination of formal and then informal interest based education playing out over time. Yeah, well, Alex, you hit one of them, I think the farts class is our most popular one. There's a

lot of interest in that. I mean, I think the magic is not a certain type of class, it's at all the classes are small group and highly interactive. And that's what we see. That's why people come back because they connect with the teacher as well as they connect with a topic. And they feel really included. One student said something about outschool. Like, I think the exact comment was, it's a place where I can go and find other people who are my kind of weird.

And that's right, because there's such a diversity of topics on the platform. And even when I think about my kids, you know, my older child has taken a lot of drawing and painting and art classes. But she also has taken classes learning how to do an aerial, which is like a cartwheel with no hands, which is saying I never imagined you could do over a computer screen. And it's a class on

multiplication facts. And she took a history class and then my younger daughter has learned an amazing number of dance routines, but also to tie her shoes and to tell time. And so I think that the types of classes that succeed really just depends on who the learner is. And the magic is that every learner is able to find something that helps them to either discover a new interest or to go deeper on a passion, or to help them with an area where they're

struggling. Multiplication was a great example of that it was hard to learn those multiplication facts. And we found a class that helps to make it easier. We do find we've been seeing an increased interest in one on one classes, especially as this school year has started and people are looking for additional support. They're concerned about what learning

did my child miss? And kids who are older and more self directed are also feeling that you know, I know I don't know everything that I want to know right now to be successful. And so how can I look out school to give me additional support? We find a lot of interest in ongoing classes on our platform and ongoing classes a class you can drop in any time so it doesn't have a start and stop date necessarily each class or what kind of scope and sequence across the curriculum. Each

class stands on its own. And so a lot of those look like clubs and discussion groups, but they They can also be topics in history, and you can join it for three weeks and take a break and then come back. And you haven't missed content because the teachers designed it. So each class is kind of a unit in and of itself that doesn't require prior knowledge. So we've seen

an increase in those. But, you know, we, as a company, watch, we watch together classes, once a week, the whole company gets together and looks at some class recordings. And we watched a bunch of live animal classes last week. And kids love those, I mean, these amazing experiences where kids are watching somebody teach them about, you know, these adorable little animals. And I don't know that there's a particular type

of class. But I think for different kids, there is always the class that they're going to really love. Yeah, so I'm hearing you say that the sort of ala carte interest based model allows teachers to meet the students and families, almost wherever they are, it can be one on one tutoring, it can be interest based ongoing classes club, like classes, you know, intensive classes to catch up after this, you know, year of Miss learning.

So the interactive and the marketplace, nature allows there to be a class for everybody. That's the sort of promise. Yes. And I think what's cool is, it's the same thing for teachers, teachers are getting to choose something they're really passionate about, which I think also makes a difference.

And you, you see it like you hear it in their voices, you see it the way they're teaching is they're all not only are kids finding a class that they would love to take, teachers are teaching a class that they would love to teach. Yeah, it's so interesting. It's sort of people use the word

unbundling a lot in edtech. And I feel like, it's a really good example of sort of unbundling some aspects of schooling and curriculum and classrooms all at the same time, you can have a teacher choose their favorite science lesson, the one that they love that they feel very passionate about, and teach it over and over again, students every time it's very different model of what teaching looks

like. That's right. Well, so education elements, you worked with hundreds of school districts across the country, as you mentioned, and your roll it out, school is really interesting. You're the head of schools and distribution. So my interpretation of that is it sounds like it's about offering out school classes to schools, rather than to homeschoolers or informal settings or after school environments. Am I right? In interpreting that way? It's a

fascinating idea. Does this mean that a student in one school might have choice and access to teachers and classes from any school while they're in school? Yeah, you nailed it. This is new for outschool. We've been doing this for just around a year. So it was something that we'd always been thinking about as a company has always part of a longer term strategy. And it was accelerated as many things were, by the pandemic, and by the

needs that we saw out there. So during the first few months of the pandemic, we started providing free professional development to teachers. And it was how to create engaging online classrooms how to teach remotely. So we just hosted lots of webinars and reached out and created a space where teachers to come and learn how to teach

remotely. And as we were doing that, we started to also see that there is a way that not only could we support the classroom teachers, but we could also support the actual schools and the systems. So the way that this works right now is we have a few different ways of working with schools. And one is exactly

what you just said. So students can be during the school day participating in an out school class, and connecting with a teacher who isn't in their building and with peers who not only are not in their building, but you know, could be actually in a different state or a different country. So we're

opening up that experience. And what that means is when it's no longer place based, it's okay that the school cannot have an architecture teacher, or a teacher who's really great at thinking about how to teach math concepts through Pokeyman. You don't need to have that in your building, because you have another way where you're able to

access that. The other thing that some schools are doing is they're actually saying, you know, what, I can have students pick, which is really personalizing instruction for them, personalized learning for them, or I can actually have my teachers pick so my teacher can actually say, you know, Alex could use a little bit of extra help. And I know that he loves Pokemon, so let's put him in that class. And Amy needs something else. So sometimes, students are making those

choices. And sometimes teachers are making those choices and they can make them at that individual level. Let's put Alex here and let's put Amy here or they can make them at the class level. So they can say, you know, we're doing it's a science class and we're talking about the ocean. Let's do it. An out school class that has a field trip to an aquarium. And we can just have that be a private section, our team will help work

with the teacher set that up. So then they're able to have that happen either at that for an entire class if they choose. We have several schools now who are using out school as a way to even solve a little bit of that teacher shortage, or to solve the fact that offering World Languages is a big stretch. Most schools are only able to offer one or two, you kind of see Spanish and French showing up everywhere. But what about the kid who wants to learn Mandarin

or German or Japanese? And so we're having schools, which are actually coming to us and saying, Can we use an old school teacher for this small group of students that wants to learn a language which we can't offer on our own, but we don't want to close off that opportunity for

students. And for us, I would say, you know, as we think about the next few years of our school, we want to move towards a model where probably we're 50% of learners are taking classes that aren't paid for by their parents, we want to have schools and governments and philanthropies and employers all paying for these classes, because then it means that we can become so much more

accessible to all learners. And that's really part of our goal, we want to make sure that every child is able to take classes that are interest base that they're excited about taking so we can really help them develop a love of learning.

It's an incredible vision. And I think it's really amazing to sort of envision a future in which a student in school on the government dime can take you know, any world language or advanced classes or interest based classes, and, you know, not be even remotely limited by the resources of the school itself, but still have the guidance and the support and the instructional, you know, were with all of the teachers in the school, so it doesn't feel

totally unguided. It's really a thing to think about. Yeah. And Alex, we're finding it a lot, especially in a rural schools, that that makes a huge difference. Do you think about the capacity constraints, we're working with a few districts up in Alaska, and in some of those cases, you have to take a boat are a small plane to get to those schools, so they're so limited by the teachers in their

community. And this just opens up a world of possibility for each of those students to be able to take the classes and and I think and because I actually don't know if either your I mentioned this before, the fact that the classes are live, and synchronous makes a really big difference. So there are other platforms, there are other ways that students are able to go and learn asynchronously, they can watch something on YouTube, there's other options that are

out there. But the idea that they're able to access this different content, whether it's the world's language or, or the gymnastics class, or or anything else, but they're actually also doing it live really does have an impact, because so often, the next best thing to somebody in the classroom is a video. And we don't think that to be the next

best thing. We think we can still make those connections with teachers and peers, and do it live and live, even when those teachers and peers aren't in the same room. Yes, I'm really glad you brought that up. The live synchronous nature of the classes out school is incredibly different than some of the other marketplaces that have been out there. You know, we're recording this podcast on the day that you'd be just announced, its, you know,

IPO valuation. And one of the things that, you know, I think we all of us in edtech, have learned over time from Udemy is that any marketplace or platform model, as it grows, one of the big challenges is to maintain quality control. Because when you make a truly open platform, everybody can come in, you're going to have the most amazing

teachers in the world. And you're going to have some teachers who may not be the most engaging or may not know how to use Zoom yet, or have, you know, all sorts of everything in between. I'm curious how outschool has learned from platforms like Udemy? And what is does to ensure that the teachers and the classes on the platform are high quality and are really working for the students and families that they reach? Yep. Alex, that's a great question. And it's something we

think about obsessively. I mean, this is it is core to our success is that there are wonderful teachers on the platform for students to learn from. So there's a few things. One, every teacher goes through an application process as well as background checks. So the first thing we're looking for is does the teacher have expertise in what they're going to teach? Do they have the experiences they need to be successful? Do they know how to do what they're about to go into, and then are

they safe. So we're looking at all those from the start. But once a teacher gets approved, that's a big sigh of relief for that teacher, they are now able to teach on the platform. But every single time they want to teach a class, that class gets approved also. So if it is your first class, you're teaching on out school, or your 1000, and they're definitely teachers who've taught more than 1000 classes at this point, they're still going through a class

approval process. And all of that is real humans, it's not automated, it is a group of people who know what to look for in a class and who are going to be checking for those indicators that this class is going to be high quality. So we try to do all of that before a class is even open and available to a learner. Once those classes are, are live, those classes are actually happening, there's a few additional things. So we are looking at class reviews, we really encourage families to

fill those out. So we're looking at reviews, and we're looking for the outliers. We're looking for who is doing great, and what can we learn from them. And then we're looking for what teachers actually are not doing as well. And how do we address that. And then we can see a lot of that from reviews. The other thing we do is we record every single class. And we do that for safety reasons. If anything happens in a classroom, we want to know

about it. So we have different tools that we can use to look for flags to look for language to look for anything that shouldn't be happening in the classroom, we have ways that we

can do that if we need to. And then we also have a team of people who goes back and looks at recordings, they don't look at every recording, there's 10s of 1000s every week, but they are looking when when they notice it, a set of negative reviews are going to go in, they're going to look at that when they get a complaint they're going to go and they're

going to look at that. And when we get really great classes, which everybody is taking and five star reviews all the time, we're going to look at those to you. I mentioned we do this as a company also. So once a week, we look at a set of classes, and we

talk about those classes. What was going great in this class, what did this teacher do that was wonderful, why didn't this teacher call in a certain student, we have all of those discussions so that we keep as a company getting better and better at what good looks like. So we also get better and better at identifying that before a class is even live. And then we have this really amazing Trust

and Safety Team. And they are always thinking about for the quality of classes and for any decisions that we make on our platform. How are we always keeping kids safe, one of our core values at our school, and we've got four of them, one of them is stand for learners. And we really believe that by getting the best teachers, and by providing them with support, and by really obsessively making sure that every class that goes up, there is a great class, and that helps us stand for

learners. And when things slip through the cracks when the teacher isn't great, you know, it's you're right, it's going to happen. And we work really hard to have that happen with the least frequency possible. And when we know that it has to address it as quickly as we can. It's fascinating. So it sounds like there's many different layers of quality control, both before class goes live during the class after the class. And then you have recordings of archives of everything as well.

That makes a lot of sense. And I think that's one of the core value adds of a platform like outschool is that it can not only provide a huge variety of different types of learning and access to different teachers, but it can ensure that every experience is is high quality and that you can know what to expect tonight, I agree that the quality of the teaching is really the core to what makes the platform work. Yeah, that's right. And it's something we will always be

working on. That's a job that will never be done and it shouldn't ever stop. Yeah, one follow up question on that. You mentioned earlier that, you know, when the pandemic started out school, put out some professional development materials about how to do engaging classes online. And it strikes me when I listen to you talk about how our school has 10s of 1000s of classes every week, and they're watching and recording and seeing what works and watching the ratings.

Seeing you know, parents post, you know, work from their students afterwards, you are probably building one of the biggest and best libraries of professional development for online teaching that exists. You know, something that I always think about it from my standpoint is how some other countries, especially, you know, Japan and in Scandinavia, have

done this for years. They record classes, they have lesson plan libraries, and they they do a lot to sort of archive what works in education and this isn't something we tend to do much in the US but at schools seems like they're doing it. I'm curious if there are some thoughts about what could be done with you know, 10s of 1000s of hours of high quality online education. It's such a good question, Alex, that you're gonna really hate my

answer. The answer is kind of nothing because a student privacy, so we don't ever share those recordings outside of our school, you can see students faces and we want to protect the students. So I think there are things that we can learn and that we can use to help make teachers who are working without school better. But those recordings themselves never get

shared. So a parent whose child is taking the class can access that video and watch it, but they can't download it, nobody can get it off of our platform. And if you weren't in the classroom, you don't have access to it. And that is because of our total commitment to student safety. So you're right, there is this treasure trove there. And there are so many ways in which I think we could use it to help people see what good looks

like. And yet the majority of it, we really count and we don't, right, because we are trying to protect students, and we collected the minimal amount of data possible around students in service of keeping them safe. That makes a lot of sense. I probably should have thought of that as well. I wonder if maybe within an educational context, someday, like a teacher's college may be able to anonymize that. But let's leave that behind. Because it's I think, your science

fiction at this point. But it's exciting to think about, you know, I had a question about the pandemic. One of the things that is extremely interesting about this moment in time, is that the pandemic is also leading to a real shortage of teachers in the US there are a lot of teachers are leaving their jobs, a lot of teachers are switching careers.

And it's just a really tricky time and outschool, along with some other companies, like teachers, pay teachers or school house or online tutoring, and teaching platforms are starting to offer classroom teachers alternative ways to make a living, sort of in an entrepreneurial way from their educational skills and experience. I would imagine that some of the teachers on out school, if they're teaching 1000 classes on out school, they may not be teaching in the classroom

anymore. I'm curious how you think teachers in the future will balance traditional classroom roles with these new entrepreneurial options where they can go directly to students and families. Yeah, I like this moment in time that we're at and that you just described, it makes me so happy for teachers, and it crushes me a little bit. I mean, having other alternatives for teaching, which is so hard and often undervalued, and basically

always underpaid. When we think about teaching in a traditional school building in a private school in a public school, you know, it's been so hard that having these other options out there for teachers is really wonderful. And some of these options are able to help them teach even more kids and reach even more than they might be able to do in their building. But, you know, it also makes me sad, because the last thing any of us want is to be pulling wonderful teachers outside of

the classroom. Right? It is still true that in the US, the majority of students are public school students. And so keeping really great teachers in this system feels really important. But it also feels like giving them a choice, and especially a choice that allows them to still stay in education and reach kids feels like the next best spot to be in, I think I would say, No, a lot of our school teachers use it as a side hustle, it's an additional way to make some

extra money. And you know, the ones who are teaching 1000s, you're right, this has become their full time job. Some of them started out as public school teachers or private school teachers. Some of them weren't teachers at all, you know, some of them are amazing bakers, or some of them had another skill and they don't hold a teaching credential. But they are passionate, and they are experts at what they do. And they are great at online

teaching. So we have had teachers, I think the top paid out school educators last year made over $200,000. And you can see why some of them might not want to go back to the classroom, if they were able to teach what they wanted to teach, to have it be a flexible schedule, and to be making more money than they could have imagined in their last role. There's it's a lot of things. It's not just the money. It's all of those things combined.

But we also have such a large number of out school educators who are teaching during the day. And then to your point earlier, they're taking like that favorite science lesson. And they're teaching that a few days a week or week. I know some teachers, especially on the East Coast, who teach at nine or 10pm and they're teaching kids in Australia and in Asia, and it's a way for them to leverage what they're already doing and to get to do more of it and to make

some extra money. I don't know how this is all going to shake out. I think the teacher shortage is Something that we as a country really need to put our heads together and figure out, how do we make teaching more attractive? How do we get more people into the field? And how do we help them stay? In the meantime, we need to also figure out what are the alternatives?

And so when you do have a teacher shortage, how are you going to address it so that it doesn't tremendously negatively impact student learning? Absolutely. That makes a lot of sense. And I think that's a great note, to end our conversation on. I think we could probably talk for hours about this at school is just such a fascinating model. But as we wrap up, I'd love to ask you, are there any notable news items that have caught your eye that people should pay attention to in the tech field?

Yeah, the one that I've been tracking and following most recently, is that students who are unable to go to school right now, especially the medically fragile population, but who the schools aren't serving. So there have been a few stories recently, there are some about some students in New York, and I've read about them in different states, and in different districts, where the promise of a virtual school has not been one that districts have

been able to meet. So we have kids who are, you know, during the pandemic, we had large, large numbers of students who were not able to access learning because of technology, because of time because of other barriers. And now we have some students who are there ready, they are in their homes, they have the technology, they have the internet, they have all the things, but the schools aren't able to provide the teachers to

teach them remotely. And I've just been watching what's happening and you see these families, they, you are heartbroken, they're now being forced to make this choice of if I send my child to school, that will be an unsafe decision for my family. And for somebody whose health whether it's for the child or somebody else in

the house. But if I don't send my child to school, what am I doing to their education, and when there's an alternative, when there's a great virtual option, it makes the choice less hard, I think it's still a challenging choice, but you feel like you have a real alternative. But for some families, we're not giving them

much of an alternative. And I'm interested to see how we are able to step up and provide real opportunities for all of those kids, because I think we owe it to children who can show up at school and children who can't to give them all a really great education. Yeah, I think the pandemic has really revealed how many different services are required to educate students, and how many different things the schools are actually providing, when you don't know what you've

got till it's gone. And I think we're all learning a lot about the education system. Yeah, it brought so many things to light that were hidden underneath the surface, and in such small pockets that we weren't talking about it or noticing. And now we see so many more things 100%. We also love to leave our listeners with resources to follow up and learn more about the tech field. So what is one book or blog that you would recommend for somebody just breaking into edtech?

Well, I have a few answers for you here. I mean, one thing I would say is I spend a lot of time on Twitter looking at what other district leaders are talking about. So I think it's not a blog, but just looking at what leaders are talking about reading the articles that

they're linking to. It gives me really good insight into the people who are doing the work, what is on their minds, what are the challenges, what are the triumphs and I find it to be really helpful to just watch those conversations and participate in them and be helpful in them when I can be. So I would say that that's one thing, I think is a great starting point. There's also a lot of different kind of

aggregators of news. So one that I've recently started making sure to open each week, and my email is called, I think it's called Feedspot, weekly. And it aggregates from things like edge search and EdWeek. And a bunch of well known ones, and it just pulls a bunch of articles, I find it to be a really great skim as a starting point and then pick some articles, I do the same things that the New York Times every day to kind of see things that are timely and

focused. And that's where you read about things like the school in New York, which wouldn't have come across my radar. Otherwise, in terms of a book, I don't have an education book for you. But I think that ed tech leaders and that people who are trying to create transformational change in school systems, I mean, I think this is actually true in any system should read Simon Sinek

start with the why? Because I think we don't know why we're doing something and if we can't communicate why we're doing something, the chances of it being successful, go down significantly. His perspective on that is really helpful. And I would say if you're somebody He wants to go out and make change. That book could be really foundational in your thinking of what to do and how to do it. Thank you so much. And we will put those resources in the show

notes. Thank you so much, Amy Jenkins, head of schools and distribution at outschool. It's been a terrific conversation. Thanks, Alex. This was a lot of fun. Thanks for listening to this episode of the EdTech insiders podcast. If you liked the episode, remember to subscribe on Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're listening on Apple, please leave a rating and review so others can find the podcast.

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