Hello, everyone!
I wanted to take a moment to talk through a few specific aspects of Prenda’s acquisition of Yup. This past week was one of significant change at Yup. In the excitement of the many moving parts, we recognize that our communication led to unnecessary confusion. The breakdown in communication occurred in three significant ways:
- You received new contracts prior to the announcement of the acquisition, and therefore had no context to understand why you were receiving them
- You received payment request information and U.S. tax forms when we had stated you would only need to sign a new contract
- For many, the US tax forms received were novel and came without any context as to their purpose
Before I go any further, I want to apologize on behalf of myself and the Prenda team. We dropped the ball. We should have announced the acquisition and provided context prior to you receiving any documentation. We also should have been clear about what would be expected of you in the short term. While we were able to answer some of your thoughtful questions through the Frequently Asked Questions newsfeed post, the unintended impact of our poor communication was a lack of confidence and excitement about what we believe is an excellent opportunity to maximize the impact of the Yup platform. Our sincere apologies.
Despite being bummed that our communication plan caused undue strife and confusion, I want to take this opportunity to share my thoughts on why I am excited at having joined Prenda, and some of the ways that it will increase our capacity to empower students to learn. The first is that Prenda is a larger company with a more robust infrastructure which will allow me to support you in the work that you do even more thoroughly. In particular, Prenda has a trove of data on student growth and mastery and they are experts in developing training and support for adults working alongside students. Prenda students using Yup will also give us greater context into where each student is on their journey towards conceptual mastery and the curriculum they are using to get there. We will have access to content and curriculum information for each student in the various microschools as well as up-to-date statistics on content gaps and areas of struggle. We may even be able to gather deeper insights into specific children from their Guides. All of this will help us meet the students where they are most effectively in our math tutor sessions on the Yup platform. While we will be maintaining our relationships with our current partner schools, this closer relationship with microschools, Guides, and students will allow us to offer all tutors more targeted professional development and training.
Please take a moment to watch the videos below to learn more about Prenda and its innovative model to increase student autonomy through the infusion of creativity, and wonder, and allowing the student to take ownership of their learning.
We will continue to share information about who and what Prenda is over the coming weeks but I hope that your excitement builds as we join this group that, like all of us, is dedicated to the growth, development, and empowerment of young learners!
We really care about your experience, so please take a moment to complete the survey at the bottom of this post. The more information we have, the better we can address concerns and/or double down on what works. Thank you in advance for your thoughtful and candid responses!
Thank you for all that you do to help students delight in learning!
Best,
Haddie