KickUp, a Philadelphia edtech startup, helps educators become better connected with professional development and training in conjunction with their teaching needs, writes Holly Quinn for Technical.ly.

Founded in 2014 by Jeremy Rogoff and Victoria Kinzig, the startup was conceived when Rogoff was an early-career high school teacher.

Upon being sent to a professional development session, he came to the realization that school districts spent billions annually on professional development that is often disconnected from what actually goes on in classrooms.

“We started KickUp to give the people who run schools the data to address that problem,” said Rogoff.

Over a decade later, the company works with nearly 200 school systems and 300,000 educators across 30 states, including Philadelphia.

While most school districts have to address professional development management and performance management software across separate systems, KickUp combines them.

The platform is built for teachers to find and register for professional learning opportunities, track credentials and set goals; principals to document classroom observations; and district leaders to better understand if and how professional learning is correlating with changes in practce.

However, Rogoff said KickUp’s model is the school principal

Read more about how KickUp is bridging the gap between professional development and teaching needs at Technical.ly.

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