There are many ways in which I can relate to Heejae Lim. I, too, am the daughter of immigrants as were many of my classmates in the public schools I attended through eighth grade. Like Heejae, I benefited from having parents who spoke English and could advocate on my behalf (and on behalf of my classmates) with teachers and administrators. But Heejae took that experience and used it to create TalkingPoints, a multilingual platform that helps teachers communicate with immigrant parents in multiple languages. She understood that parent engagement was critical to education, even if she had no way of predicting just how important it would be during a pandemic that caused schools to shut down in-person learning. Below is my interview with Heejae, who earned recognition as one of Forbes’ “30 Under 30” leaders and entrepreneurs in 2016.
What motivated you to start TalkingPoints?
I didn’t know how to speak English when I first started school in the UK, but my mother did, and she was a wonderful advocate. It made a tremendous difference in my life’s trajectory compared to the children of immigrants whose parents didn’t speak the language.
All parents want the very best for their kids. But when there are language and cultural barriers, it can be very difficult for them to engage with their children’s teachers and schools. I founded TalkingPoints to remove those barriers.
What is TalkingPoints’ mission?
Our mission is to drive student success by using accessible technology to unlock the potential of family engagement in children’s education.
Why is family engagement important?
Research has shown that family engagement is a better predictor of student success than any other factor, including socioeconomics. And that was before pandemic-related school closures and distance learning forced parents and caregivers to take a more active role in their children’s learning!
We know that TalkingPoints makes a big difference because we do a lot of research to understand the impact of our work. Thanks to TalkingPoints, 98% of teachers said they were able to reach families they had never been able to reach before and 88% saw positive changes in student behavior, performance, attendance, or engagement. Most parents (87% of all parents and 100% of those who don’t speak English) reported having more conversations about school with their children and being more involved in their education. This research was conducted before the pandemic and distance learning.
What kinds of schools and families does TalkingPoints serve?
Most of the schools we work with are Title 1 eligible schools that serve low-income, multilingual communities. At the typical TalkingPoints school, most of the kids (~70%) qualify for a free or reduced price lunch and a similar percentage are students of color. Many of the students come from immigrant and refugee families that speak a language other than English at home.
How did the coronavirus pandemic affect your organization?
To start with, the coronavirus pandemic turned family engagement from a “nice to have” to a “must have” since most schools closed and parents had to take a more active role in their children’s learning. It also created a sense of urgency for school districts to adopt our multilingual platform. Many of their families depended on their schools for subsidized meals and information about social services. School districts needed to be able to communicate with families in multiple languages or some of the families might go hungry.
TalkingPoints had to grow quickly to meet this growing demand. You can read more about how we went about scaling here. Before the pandemic, TalkingPoints reached approximately 500,000 families. Now we reach more than two million.
Parents and teachers are finding TalkingPoints especially useful during the pandemic. In a recent survey, 98% of teachers and 94% of families told us they found TalkingPoints helpful during pandemic-related school closures.
What was your career like before you started TalkingPoints? What did you do? Did you like it?
Earlier in my career I worked at McKinsey. It was a great place to learn because I was surrounded by intelligent and ambitious people who were dedicated to helping their clients’ businesses and organizations thrive. Later, I attended Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. That’s where I realized I wanted to apply everything I had learned so far about business to help achieve a higher purpose. I started TalkingPoints while I was still pursuing my MBA.
Think back to when you were my age. What did you want to be as a grown up?
I wanted to do something in education but didn’t know exactly what. I think at the time I wanted to be running schools or setting up education systems in parts of the developing world. Education for me was my way of giving back to society and one that I thought had incredible potential to make a difference for every child in the world. I had grown up with scholarships to go through my education, my parents have been in the education field all my life so I was close to it as a field too
What advice would you give to your 16-year old self if you could travel back in time? Is that the same advice you would give me today?
Experience a wide variety of things even though you might not necessarily see the why -- take time to broaden your horizons, and yes I would!
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