Profile

Tonner Technologies is creating an app-based solution that empowers school nurses and administrators with tools and resources to manage and improve the health and wellness of pre-K through grade-12 students.
Education and healthcare professionals… Tonner Technologies is creating an app-based solution that empowers school nurses and administrators with tools and resources to manage and improve the health and wellness of pre-K through grade-12 students.
Education and healthcare professionals increasingly understand how important individual and population health factors are to learning, from the increasing levels of chronic conditions to behavioral issues and impact of childhood trauma. The COVID-19 crisis has magnified this challenge to our educational systems -- and to our school nurses.
The Permission Pal app and School Nurse 411 app provides the interactive guidance and resources that school nurses and staff members responsible for student health need to address the growing population health crisis our education system faces.
Our growth-oriented company goals seeks to be in use by at least 20% (33,000) of the 132,853 K-12 schools in the U.S. within 3 years.
Our primary target will be school nurses, along with the principals, administrators and decision makers at the 132,853 K-12 schools in the U.S. -- as well as their school districts.
While edtech is a growing multi-billion-dollar industry, very little of it has focused on student health -- just as educators are awakening to the large impact that student health has on learning. As such, Tonner Technologies has found no competition to date in our research.
Our founder and CEO, Kathleen Tonner, has been a school nurse in the Chicago Public School system for more than two decades, which gives her unparalleled insights into the student health challenges faced by schools throughout the country (and world). She is assisted by technology advisor Rey Villar and business development advisor Michael Williams.
We are a lean startup using the lean startup methodology to bring our unique and much-needed solution to market quickly and efficiently. While we are essentially bootstrapping our launch, we will be looking for angel investors and seed funding to support our development and growth.‚ÄÉ
II. Company Description
The mission statement of Tonner Technologies is…
To empower school nurses and staff with the tools and resources they need to promote the health and wellness of their students.
Tagline (proposed): Technology for healthier & safer students
Company philosophy and vision
We are driven by and embrace these key values:
‚óè Integrity
‚óè Protecting children
‚óè Empowering health & education leaders
‚óè Innovation
Our vision is to become the indispensable tool for school nurses and health offices, eventually offering an AI-driven assistant to optimize their time and better serve the public health challenges of their students.
Company goals
Our growth-oriented company goals seeks to be in use by at least 20% (33,000) of the 132,853 K-12 schools in the U.S. within 3 years:
‚óè End of year 1: 100 schools
‚óè End of year 2: 5,000 schools
‚óè End of year 3: 33,000 schools
Target market
Our primary target will be school nurses, along with the principals, administrators and decision makers at the 132,853 K-12 schools in the U.S. -- as well as their school districts.
While all schools have at least one principal, not all schools will have a dedicated school nurse. In smaller or struggling schools, the nursing duties are performed by a staff member or someone from the school district.
Industry
Tonner Technologies' School Nurse app is typically included in the edtech (education technology) industry, but it also overlaps into the digital health industry.
According to EdSurge, there was $1.7 billion invested by venture capital funds into the edtech market in 2019. Zooming out to investments globally, HolonIQ released a report that showed $7.0 billion global education venture capital funding in 2019. Even more telling is the stunning rate of growth from $0.5 billion of edtech VC funding in 2010. They are also predicting a tripling of investment in edtech over the next decade. Therefore, Tonner Technologies will become the leader in edtech especially for School Nurses, Administrators and
Clinicians/Related Service Providers.
While the bulk of edtech innovation has focused on learning tools and methods, Tonner Technologies focuses on a too-often overlooked element of learning: children's health.
Legal structure
Tonner Technologies is a founder-owned Delaware C-corporation, which will position us for projected fundraising needs.
III. Products & Services
Tonner Technologies primary product is the School Nurse 411 app.
Through this app, school nurses, administrators and staff members responsible for student health and wellness will have interactive guidelines and resources at their fingertips to properly handle common (and many uncommon) student health challenges.
The current problem
Student health is a critical but long-overlooked factor in learning. Unfortunately, school nurses and student health professionals face multiple healthcare demands while lacking the resources and guidance of a medical facility.
These unaddressed student health issues result in increased absenteeism and behavioral issues that negatively impact the learning environment for the student and the entire classroom.
They have performed well with what they have, but the COVID-19 crisis has magnified the need for digital health to step up and address the population health needs of our students. From our initial research, School Nurse 411 has identified key school nurse and student health challenges that its app will solve:
‚óè Lack of direct guidance for nurses facing common and uncommon ailments
‚óè Increasing lack of continuity with turnover at the agencies and district teams schools often use
‚óè Lack of guidance on leveraging available opportunities for increasing resources to improve student health, especially free or subsidized healthcare
‚óè Confusion around the new normal we face with COVID-19
‚óè Lack of focus or investment in preventive (rather than reactive) health and wellness
In our initial interaction, our app provides school nurses with interactive checklists to address the most common (as well as some uncommon) health issues. We're also curating and sharing the most current guidance for school nurses and student health professionals.
At this time, we have not been able to identify any competitors in the digital health space. We will continue to research potential competitors, as well as continue interviews with school nurses to gain more insights on what they need to face the increasing challenges they face at their schools.
Eventually, we envision creating a complimentary app for the parents and guardians of students, allowing them to communicate and collaborate with their school nurses.
Pricing
Our preliminary pricing schema is a tiered subscription model, such as…
‚óè Basic subscription - $10 per month per user or $100 per year per user
‚óè Premium subscription - upon rollout of value-add features, we anticipate premium tiers at $19 and $49 per user month, with an annual discount
‚óè Flat rate for school districts - we anticipate negotiating flat rate agreements with school districts that would lower our average revenue to about $6 per user month, in exchange for larger volume
‚ÄÉ
IV. Marketing Plan
Tonner Technologies has investigated and developed a
Market Research
Our total available market (TAM) is currently the 132,853 K-12 schools in the U.S., organized into 13,506 school districts.
While the number of school districts may decrease as many states are looking to consolidate smaller districts, the number of schools may see an increase this decade. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, "elementary and secondary enrollment is projected to increase 2 percent between fall 2018 and fall 2028, when enrollment is expected to reach 57.4 million." In addition, COVID-19 prevention may force smaller class sizes, which could result in more schools.
Our primary research found no other school nurse app on either Google Play or Apple (iOS) App Store. Our internet search only found a handful of indirect competitors that primarily provide information and resources for school nurses.
Having been a school nurse in the Chicago Public School System for more than two decades, Kathleen Tonner has both first-hand knowledge of the challenges faced by school nurses, as well as research feedback from other school nurses around the Midwest