129: From Student to CEO- Transforming Education with Schoolconomy

Holly Owens (00:02):

Hello everyone and welcome to another amazing episode of Edup Ed Tech. My name is Holly Owens

DaNadia Johnson (00:10):

And my name is Nadia Johnson and we're your hosts And

Holly Owens (00:14):

We are super pumped today because we have a very special guest with us. We have Regnault Sanders, who is the founder and CEO of Schoolconomy. Welcome to the show.

Regnault Sanders (00:27):

Hey, thanks so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Holly Owens (00:32):

We are super pumped to talk about Schoolconomy and we are super pumped to hear your story and thank you so much for coming on.

Regnault Sanders (00:41):

Thank you for having me. I'm pumped. Let's do it.

Holly Owens (00:44):

Let's do it. Alright, well let's jump right into it. Tell us your story. How did you get into this EdTech space? How did you become a founder, a CEO of an EdTech company? Tell us all about it.

Regnault Sanders (00:54):

Well, primarily just from being in school and making it from elementary to middle school to high school and eventually making it to college and experiencing those things, I was really inspired by my different professors and teachers that helped guide me through my journey. So that was a big thing that brought me to this space. Just doing a multitude of things in sales after graduation really led me to deal with students on a regular basis in my position as general manager at LA Fitness. And I saw ways that we could benefit students in that athletic space. And over time, of course, grades come up when I'm speaking with young athletes. Right. I remember. Absolutely.

Holly Owens (01:44):

It's called student athlete. They always tell you you're a student first, right?

Regnault Sanders (01:47):

Absolutely. So I saw positioning there and opportunities there to help students and we just went for it.

Holly Owens (01:56):

I really love that and I love how you took on the health community and before we even started recording, you were telling me about some of the connections that you were making with people who attended the gym and those relationships that you developed. And just anywhere is a classroom, anywhere is a learning space. You can help others in any sort of environment. So I absolutely love that piece of your story.

DaNadia Johnson (02:22):

Same. So we are an ed tech podcast. And so how would you personally define educational technology? When you think of educational technology, what do you think of? I

Regnault Sanders (02:40):

Really feel that education technology determines how far we can go in the future. It really is a precursor to how far we can take it because our youth, regardless of what we think our youth is going to our trajectory as a community as a whole. So really giving the youth the tools that they need to be productive and to expand their minds through the entire journey. I think that's really important for our survival overall.

DaNadia Johnson (03:19):

Yeah, I think ed tech is a part of meeting students where they're at because we are in this digital age now where students are glued to a phone, kids high schoolers, I mean college, we all are if we're being honest, even adults. So I think Ed Tech is helping us to meet students where they are. I love that perspective. I'm

Regnault Sanders (03:42):

Glad that you brought that up. I was just speaking with Holly about that before we jumped on. It's an important thing to meet students where they are and help them grow from there. So that was one of our primary pillars when we started Schoolconomya year ago saying, Hey, we know students are on those social media outlets.

DaNadia Johnson (04:05):

They're

Regnault Sanders (04:05):

Glued to the phone. Let's give them something positive that they can embrace on a digital outlet.

Holly Owens (04:13):

That's definitely something like oxygen that they breathe as being out on those outlets and absorbing

DaNadia Johnson (04:19):

That

Holly Owens (04:20):

Content. For sure. And like Nadia is saying, EdTech is a huge part of that ecosystem and even just tech in general, we could take the ED out of it because tech very

DaNadia Johnson (04:31):

True

Holly Owens (04:31):

Is a way to learn and connect with others. So we want to know more about Schoolconomy. So tell us, I mean I was looking it up. I was like the first thing I saw pop up was like a Taco Bell situation.

DaNadia Johnson (04:45):

I Know

Holly Owens (04:46):

Immediately caught my interest.

DaNadia Johnson (04:49):

So

Holly Owens (04:49):

Tell us about this tool that you developed for students. What is it all about and how do you help serve educational institutions?

Regnault Sanders (04:58):

So what we do is we really create student success software from the student perspective. We understand that the administration is a part of student success on a day-to-day basis. But what we did to be a differentiating factor, we built our platform with the student as the core user, as our core priority. So we made sure that we surveyed students on what type of rewards do you want to see? How do you feel about school right now? A lot of those things are questions that we take on in our onboarding process for each student, so that way we know what makes them tick and we know how we can help them through their educational journey. One of the primary focuses when we started this was we want this to be through the longevity of the educational journey. So from first grade all the way through college, if you want to go to grad school, we can finish through with grad school with you too and keep students motivated and engaged in the classroom. Especially with the social media age going on right now, students are being jerked and tugged in different directions and it's like where am I going to spend my mind time?

Holly Owens (06:28):

You really have to pick and choose through the clutter, right?

Regnault Sanders (06:31):

Absolutely, absolutely. So it was important for us to be an enriching space, a space where learning is fun, an environment where you can be yourself, and from there it is really spread and been great for students. Students have been able to embrace the platform. Right now we're at 15,000 students and growing.

Holly Owens (06:56):

And you just started a year ago. Yep.

Regnault Sanders (06:58):

That's awesome. January. Congrats On

Holly Owens (07:00):

That stat.

Regnault Sanders (07:01):

I appreciate it.

DaNadia Johnson (07:06):

So it looks like Schoolconomy. It is like PBI, it is like A-P-B-I-S solution. Can you tell us a little bit more about how that works with students? How does the reward impact their behavior? I mean, I was an educator and PBIS, I worked on the PBIS team. I was A-P-B-I-S coach for my grade level and absolutely love what PBIS did for our school and decreasing those behavior referrals and things like that. So I'm just interested to know a little bit more about how Schoolconomyworks with PBIS and those rewards that you were offering.

Regnault Sanders (07:51):

One of the big hurdles that we were able to overcome is just the facilitation of the rewards and having a reward that was enticing enough for a student to engage with. And across the board we just heard anything digital gift cards, that's what we want to see. From there, having that incentive be in place, that is valuable enough. From there we saw that students were engaging more in class, being in a situation where they're punctual to class, you didn't have to worry about as much of the lingering in the hallways. If you had the element of hey, everybody that's on class on time can get a thousand points on Schoolconomybecause now what you're doing is giving them a value that they can work towards. We've seen a decrease in behavioral referrals as well and just the overall school pride. So in our platform with each student being able to look at our leaderboard, they have a certain element of competition as well where they see who's leading the leaderboards out of their friends. And what we've created is a learning environment where the students police themselves in a way where they see value for each other and see value as a collective. Yeah,

Holly Owens (09:24):

I was going to say, I can't imagine the impact on the community and the connection that it has with the students and like you're saying, policing each other and just making the overall school environment better. I know there's so many distractions in the system and different barriers, and this sounds like it's something like the PBIS, like the positive behavioral intervention stuff. It really adds a positive spin on doing what a society expects you to do, preparing for future professional experiences. But on the other side of that, how does this impact the school environment? I'm thinking about the teachers, the administrators, the school, and how that all feels and how this brings people together.

Regnault Sanders (10:10):

Absolutely.

DaNadia Johnson (10:12):

Honestly, I think this is what impacts learning. I mean, if we're being honest from being in a classroom standpoint, if students aren't, we're constantly having to deal with, I know I was a first grade teacher with 29 first graders. I

Holly Owens (10:31):

Know how you did that.

DaNadia Johnson (10:32):

The type of behavior issues I dealt with on a daily basis and I was the only teacher in the classroom. We didn't have parapros, we didn't have teacher aids, we didn't have any of that. So you can imagine how behavior would impact the climate of the classroom, especially with large class sizes. So I love that idea of policing students, policing each other like, oh, you want your gift card, you better sit down or whatever. I love that because that is really the foundation of learning. If we can't get through the behavior issues, if we can't get through the classroom management part of it, we can't get to the learning. So I love that. I love this whole PBIS kind of solution and reward system for students. I'm

Regnault Sanders (11:21):

Glad that that resonates with you and I'm glad that you guys brought up community because that's a big part of how our platform has been successful. When a school onboards our software, we make sure that everyone knows about it from teachers in the classroom to administrators to front desk staff to custodians to everybody in between, because this is throughout the entire day. We make sure the parents know about it too. So once a teacher sends points to the student, the parent is also notified on their phone as well to say, Hey, your student did something positive today and they were rewarded some points for that. So the positive reinforcement that it gives to the student as well as a positive vibration that it gives to the parent as well. Yeah, I

DaNadia Johnson (12:29):

Love that.

Regnault Sanders (12:30):

And being able to show the parent, Hey, the only time you hear from us isn't just when grades are coming out. You can hear from That or something bad

Holly Owens (12:38):

Is happening

DaNadia Johnson (12:40):

Or something

Regnault Sanders (12:40):

Bad is happening, but hey, this was just a random Thursday in the semester and your student did something positive in the classroom. And it creates that community where all of the stakeholders and student success can be involved in making sure that that student is successful.

DaNadia Johnson (13:01):

And that's so important because it is a village. It is more than just the teacher. It is more than just the parent. It is more than just the school. It is collectively the community. So I love that. Absolutely.

Regnault Sanders (13:17):

Me

Holly Owens (13:17):

Too. So you're already doing a lot of stuff in this space and in the past year you've accomplished so much it sounds like. And we want to know without violating any NDAs or giving away too many secrets, but we want to know what's on the roadmap, what do you have coming up for Schoolconomy, things that you can share with us, talk about some of the things that you're working on because we definitely like to do follow-up episodes to see where things stand. So give us a little insight about things that you have coming up. I

Regnault Sanders (13:48):

Love that this can be a long-term relationship. Yes, it's going to be.

Holly Owens (13:53):

So I'll

Regnault Sanders (13:54):

Tell you a little mix of both. I'll give you our next few moves and then I'll kind of give you the vision of what I'm planning on over the next five years or so. So our next immediate moves, we are rolling out our Virgin 3.0 sometime soon, and we are going to have it available on web app. So that's been requested from our schools that we're onboarding currently for next year that we need to have it as a web app. So we're rolling that out. And we just got a partnership with the Texas Legends NBAG League team, the brother team to the Dallas Mavericks. Now we're partnering with them and just really building up the community out in Frisco, Texas, in Dallas, Texas. So that's exciting. And then for the long term, what we're planning on doing is really just enriching each student's education journey, just overall finding ways to help guide them through their processes of college application, knowing what major may suit them, considering the different subjects that they were proficient in previous grade levels like middle school and high school, and being able to give them some guidance going towards college in that way. I

Holly Owens (15:34):

Like all these things that are happening.

Regnault Sanders (15:37):

Absolutely.

Holly Owens (15:39):

That sounds great. And I like how you're focused on individual communities as well. We did an interview fairly recently with Kenny Thomas who used to play in the NBA and he was doing some mental health stuff in the community, and you wouldn't believe how quick this stuff spreads in a good way with that community. It's an awesome place to be for sure. And we look forward to following up with you to hear more about that.

DaNadia Johnson (16:08):

I'm so excited. Yeah.

Regnault Sanders (16:10):

Now I have something I need to swing for.

Holly Owens (16:15):

Yeah, I mean I say right now from where we're sitting, you're doing a pretty great job of getting the traction and everything for the support for this tool. So I

Regnault Sanders (16:26):

Appreciate that.

DaNadia Johnson (16:28):

Well, we are coming up on the end of the episode, so we have two questions that we want you to kind of just quickly give your take on. The first one is, what did we miss? Is there anything else that you'd like to share about Schoolconomy? What's going on? Anything that we missed? And then the last one is what do you think the future of tech looks like? I know we kind of touched a little bit on it earlier, but kind of thinking into the future, how do you think ed tech could further shape education?

Regnault Sanders (17:02):

Okay, I don't feel like we missed anything. I do want to throw in having the companies and corporations take part in student success will really make the biggest difference across the board. These students are requesting you guys, they want to hear from you guys. So I think that's a big thing for the corporations. Outside of that, the future of ed tech, I feel that it's student centric. If we focus on student centric solutions, ed tech, we'll be all right. Absolutely.

Holly Owens (17:46):

So simple yet so profound,

(17:48):

Can focus on the learners, things will change and things will be awesome. A lot of the time on the show, and it's not a bad answer, we get the AI situation, but I feel like the more that we tune into what their needs and wants are, the better off we'll be. And we will be able to start to change this very broken system that we still have in education, not just in K to 12 and in other spaces too. Well, we can't thank you enough for coming on the show. We're not, and talking about Schoolconomy. We were so excited to see you on the schedule and we can't wait to follow up and chat with you. So thanks for coming on and sharing your story and all things about EdTech.

DaNadia Johnson (18:32):

Yeah, thanks for joining us.

Regnault Sanders (18:34):

Thanks for having me for this episode. I'm so looking forward to staying in touch with you guys over time. And don't worry,

Holly Owens (18:42):

You'll get notifications. We have instant notifications set up, so in about 180 days, about six months from now, you're going to get a, let's do a, where are they now episode. So we're definitely going to be keeping in touch for sure.

Regnault Sanders (18:55):

Okay, that's perfect. I love to hear it.