Kinvolved

Kinvolved operates as a specialized communication and data analytics provider for the K-12 education market, with a core mission to mitigate chronic student absenteeism. The company was established in 2012 by Miriam Altman and Alexandra Meis, who met as graduate students at New York University's Wagner School of Public Service. Their shared experiences—Altman as a former public high school teacher and Meis as a parent advocate in the Bronx—fueled their focus on improving family engagement to boost student attendance.

The firm's primary offering is KiNVO, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that facilitates communication between schools and families. Kinvolved's business model is centered on selling subscriptions to this platform to K-12 school districts. The platform integrates with existing Student Information Systems (SIS) to enable automated, two-way communications via text message, email, and voice calls. A key feature is its ability to translate these messages into more than 80 languages, ensuring accessibility for non-English speaking families. The service is designed not only to alert guardians to absences and tardiness but also to share positive updates, fostering a more collaborative relationship between home and school.

Kinvolved's services extend beyond the software, offering professional development and consulting for educators on how to use the data and communication tools effectively and empathetically. The company's approach is data-driven, providing administrators with analytics on attendance trends to inform targeted interventions. The platform was developed to address the direct correlation between family engagement, student attendance, and academic success. Significant milestones include winning multiple startup competitions, which provided initial funding, and a seed round of $1.54 million in 2018. In January 2022, Kinvolved was acquired by PowerSchool, a major provider of cloud-based education software, a move designed to integrate Kinvolved's communication engine into PowerSchool's broader suite of services and expand its market reach.

Keywords: education technology, EdTech, student attendance, family engagement, K-12 education, chronic absenteeism, school communication, parent engagement platform, KiNVO, PowerSchool, Miriam Altman, Alexandra Meis, student information system integration, multilingual communication, attendance data analytics, school-home relationships, dropout prevention, education software, student engagement, school district solutions