2024 in Review: Making Education Access Easier for All Families
By Cathy Huang, Avela Product Lead
Every day, families across the country take on one of their most important challenges: finding the right school for their child. It might be a single mom juggling two jobs while researching schools on her lunch break, or newly arrived parents navigating an unfamiliar education system in their second language.
In 2024, we've focused on making this journey clearer and more accessible for every family. I’m really proud of the progress that we’ve made.
We broke down barriers between discovery and action with our Explore and Apply integration. When a parent saves schools they're interested in while exploring options, those choices are now right there waiting when they're ready to apply. Avela automatically ports over the school options and removes choices if no longer eligible. It's an improvement that makes a big difference for busy families juggling multiple responsibilities.
We're also making sure no one gets locked out of opportunities. Whether you're using a borrowed computer, switching between devices, or forgetting which account you used months ago, we've made it easier to recover lost accounts. While we made it easy with our phone - passwordless login originally, we realize that families often forget the emails or phone numbers they’ve created their account with. Account lookup matches parent names and addresses and then safely shares redacted accounts.
We're protecting what matters most. Achieving SOC2 compliance and strengthening our infrastructure isn't just about security – it's about ensuring that sensitive family information stays private and secure, giving parents one less thing to worry about.
We're giving central staff the control they need. Our enhanced permissions system lets districts work the way they ned to, whether they're managing current student information or reviewing new applications. You can control who sees what data in each form in a much more granular way than before.
We’ve made significant improvements in data access by making exports speedier and adding capabilities for central admins to schedule and send to SFTP. We’ve also launched v2 of our APIs and webhooks to make it easier for engineering and data teams to integrate to Avela.
Looking ahead to 2025, we're just getting started. In 2025, we want to continue to serve our families with easy workflows, help save our administrators time, and make it easier for you to access your data. We see a world where school administrators can focus on meaningful connections with families instead of wrestling with paperwork. And where schools and families can stay better connected throughout their entire journey together.
We're especially proud of our growing community of common applications, making school choice more accessible to families who might otherwise find the process overwhelming. Every simplified form, every clearer instruction, every smoother process means one more family can focus on what matters: finding the right educational fit for their child.
To every school administrator who's partnered with us on this journey: thank you. Your insights and dedication help us build tools that truly serve your communities. Together, we're making the path to education a little clearer for everyone. We are always eager for feedback and discussions that help us design for a better future.
