Scout Community

Raised to Pay It Forward

I grew up with the opportunities that many parents dream of for their children -- a top tier school district with the means to provide everything from voice lessons to club soccer to summer adventures in the wilderness. They worked long hours to afford this life for my brother and me, but we were an immensely fortunate family in every way and my parents made sure we knew it.

The childhood I was given has become increasingly difficult for families to achieve, yet still...

Parents want what they always have -- what’s best for their children. 

A Growing Problem

The current COVID-19 pandemic and civil unrest has only emphasized the inequity within our communities, but the moment we are in places a spotlight on the immense opportunity to reach into them to solve problems together. Unequal access to quality child care, education, and enrichment has never been showcased more profoundly than with the onset of comprehensive distance learning and the creation of in-home learning pods. 

Regardless of income level, parents are struggling with this dramatic and enduring shift in educational delivery, and they need help. Meanwhile, there are 7.7 million unemployed workers in communities across the United States, many of whom are highly skilled in education & child care. There is simply a missing link in making this connection, so in July 2020, Scout’s MVP became clear.

We connect educators & skilled providers with parents to lead in-home education.

While other companies have popped up to offer learning pod services, our focus differs from theirs because our primary customer is our providers, not parents. We know that teachers and other child care professionals excel in the highly skilled work of educating and enriching children’s lives, so we want them to focus on that while we make it easier for them to do so. 

First, Scout provides end-to-end business administration support by providing background checks and guidance on liability insurance plans, contract templates for their agreements with families, a streamlined payment portal for recurring payments, and, of course, the needed guidance on how to comply with local, state, and federal regulations affecting remote learning. 

Scout also helps our providers continue to be the best at what they do by providing ongoing best practice support through weekly newsletters, webinars, and a Slack Community where they can share resources and questions with each other. We know that remote learning will only continue to evolve and present new, unanticipated challenges to our providers and their students. Through ongoing research and community partnerships, Scout will be a pillar in sharing the information needed to provide a high quality education for all students regardless of what the future holds.

Though we are focusing on supporting our teachers first, we also want to make this experience as clear and simple for parents as possible. With that in mind, our website will allow parents to filter by educational needs, COVID-19 related concerns, location, and price range to find the perfect educator for their pod and their budget. By empowering them to search all their criteria within one directory, Scout promotes a competitive marketplace with a wide variety of skill levels, credentials, and prices. Through our commission based revenue model, we are also able to keep the service free to parents, which helps make it more affordable across income levels. With this streamlined process, we’ve also made it easier for any families that realize they need help after the school year has already started or if their school reverts to more comprehensive distance learning later on.

Scout will be here to help families whenever they need us.

Tapping the Village for a Mission Based Marketplace

Even while using technology to solve the challenges facing remote learning, Scout is still founded in the old adage...

It takes a village to raise a child.

So I’ve spent the last four months rallying with the village in Oregon. As a member of two locally well-connected incubator programs (Oregon State University Innovation Co-Lab and Opportunity Knocks), Scout has joined the large network rapidly working to support families & children through remote learning, including local non-profits, Chambers of Commerce, and Central Oregon school districts. We are currently developing a partnership that would promote Scout to an existing list of licensed & pre-vetted teachers and have been using a Facebook group since the beginning of August to build awareness and register providers using a Google Form.

The website landing page and registration went live on September 1st, so we will now start heavy promotion the week of September 7th via targeted Facebook ads to parents and educators in Central Oregon, as well as recent college graduates to help diversify the skill levels of our provider pool. We are also finalizing some local university and post-secondary partnerships to access the large collegiate student worker pool for families with tighter budgets or simpler educational needs. In short, we’re building as many local partnerships and relationships as possible to reach the families who need us and the educators who can help because…

Our mission is to provide a high quality education to all children, pandemic or not.

Beyond the marketplace and pod setup guidance, we’ll ensure the quality of in-home education by sharing best practices via a weekly newsletter for a subscription fee of $5 per month or $50 per year. This ensures that both parents and providers have up to date information on evolving COVID-19 regulations and their school districts’ plans. It also plays a vital role in communicating and reinforcing best practices with our providers so that Scout stands with schools in providing only the highest quality education, no matter the location it’s delivered. Our local and regional partners have already been vital in preparing accurate, concise content that our users need, and this will make sure that by centralizing all the information in one communication...

Scout provides clarity during a time of confusion.

Now put me in, Coach!

With school starting in just under four weeks, we urgently need to overcome our biggest obstacle to success: sufficient capital. Your investment will allow us to finish initial legal work with our attorneys, secure the professional liability insurance we need to operate, and make improvements to our website.

Like some of our customers, money is getting in the way of our bright future. We appreciate not just your belief in us but also your financial investment. 

Thank you for your support!