AfterSchool HQ launched in its first iteration at a school just outside New Orleans, Louisiana. At the time, we didn’t know what to expect, not realizing we’d get enough users to crash the server. Now, it seems obvious, but at the time it wasn’t: parents want to give their children more opportunities to learn and less time at home alone after school.
We spent the entire night reworking the application and rebuilding the server. Once we got it back up, things took off. During that school year, we got over 600 students participating in after-school programs out of 1,000 students. That’s an amazing 60% participation rate.
As parents ourselves, the founders of AfterSchool HQ are all united by a desire to make a difference. We recognize that people have given us opportunities throughout our lives. The way we hope to give back is through this platform that gives students easy access to opportunities that help them grow and build aspirations.
The effect of after-school activities are tremendous, spanning from an increase in test scores and class participation to success with continuing education after high school. We want the impact of AfterSchool HQ to be long-term — kids have the opportunity to get involved in activities, they make friends, stay in school, get into STEM, and go to college.
The first step in our vision is allowing parents to find out about options available to their student. Oftentimes, parents only know about a specific program when one of their kids brings home a flyer. When a parent’s ability to learn about available activities is limited to what comes home in their student’s backpack, he or she will only hear about 5% of those options.
But, what if parents could find after-school activities as easily as they could if they were browsing Amazon for a household product? What if parents only had to enter their information once, instead of filling out forms at various times throughout the year? What if all payments could be done online instead of through checks and envelopes of cash?
We have a lot of ambitions for AfterSchool HQ because of the opportunities we were given. We hope to give your students the same range of opportunity so they can dream big. Most of the time, a student doesn’t know they have skills until they are given the chance to use them.
AfterSchool HQ is currently rolling out across the country. If you want after-school registration to be simpler than ever at your school, send us a message! We’d love to get your school started.
