"Deering is a very diverse school; there's something like 50 languages spoken. There were platforms that allowed us to contact families with translation, but they all, it seemed, had limitations," Borland said. "It seemed like it could be better."
He got his computer whiz student Aidan Blum Levine on board, and together they created ReachMyTeach, a website that allows teachers to write messages in English that automatically get translated into parents' preferred languages and can be delivered via email, text or WhatsApp. Any responses are translated into English.
The program supports more than 200 languages, and is also a helpful hub for communicating with English-speaking families.
It is now universal in Portland Public Schools, for both teachers and the district office.
In the last four years, ReachMyTeach has seen massive growth. More than 2 million messages were shared through the platform in November, and it's now in use in 40 Maine school districts, nine states and one international school.
LOCAL ORIGINS
Borland enjoyed coding on the side and knew that his student Blum Levine, now a senior at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, had essentially exhausted his class options and had some free time. They wanted to create a better, more consolidated platform for teachers and parents to communicate across languages.
As a teacher, Borland was aware of the district's growing multilingual population. In 2021, there were 1,484 English learners in Portland schools; by 2024, that number had grown to 2,002 — more than a quarter of all students.
Borland and Blum Levine coded the site over February break and pitched it to Deering administrators in March. An early version went into use at the high school that spring.
By the summer of 2021, Borland and Blum Levine received an investment from the education company Faria Education Group. Borland took six months off from teaching to develop the program.
Borland said the local origins of ReachMyTeach were integral to its early development. One early change was adding a WhatsApp option because Deering teachers said that was necessary to reach all parents. WhatsApp is a free app that doesn't require cellphone data and is widely used outside of the United States and by immigrants in the country.
"We were constantly, that spring, adding and adding until it was more robust. It was literally all from teacher comments and feedback, and from families," he said.
'GAME CHANGER'
Kailen Kennedy is a kindergarten teacher at Presumpscot Elementary School and previously taught elementary-age English Language Learners. Kennedy has been using ReachMyTeach since the fall of 2022 and described it as a "game changer." She said she previously relied on interpreters, which would sometimes take days to set up.
"I think it affected the types of relationships I had with families," she said. "I feel like now, I can reach everyone, at one time."
ReachMyTeach is connected to the school's attendance software, which makes mass parent emails much smoother.
Kennedy said there were some growing pains, but the product has drastically improved over time, and the creators are very open to feedback.
Now, Kennedy uses it for everything from setting up conferences to letting parents know they should send their kids to school with snow pants. Nearly half of her 21 students come from families that rely on translation, and ReachMyTeach improves equity and access.
"It's leveled the playing field with who we communicate with, and how we communicate with them," she said.
It's also a time saver.
"Before ReachMyTeach, it was just a more daunting task to reach out to families, because there were just so many more steps," said King Middle School English teacher Chris Pirkl.
Pirkl said the software has revolutionized communication with parents who don't speak English. Previously, he said, before sending any mass email to parents, he would need to manually run it through Google Translate six or seven times to get different translations.
Pirkl was part of the beta test for the new ReachMyTeach cellphone app and has used a new feature that allows teachers to send bulk emails that autofill with students' names. The new version also suggests better word choices that will translate more cleanly.
Kennedy and Pirkl both said they're proud that the product was created by fellow Portland teachers.
"They've built this thing that not only is popular and successful but ultimately is just useful and practical and fills a need that existed," Pirkl said.
EXPANSION
Helen Cohen was a fellow Deering High teacher who taught history and English language learners before she joined the ReachMyTeach team in June 2022 as the CEO. Borland returned to the classroom, Blum Levine continued his studies at college and Cohen took the reins.
While ReachMyTeach has become ubiquitous in Portland schools, it's also available in dozens of other school districts. The company also works with a few nonprofits that have similar translation needs to schools.
"What works well for multilingual families works really well for English-speaking families," Cohen said. "And if you can have everything in one place, no one slips through the cracks."
The platform is still growing. The company recently hired its first full-time sales person and is still making major product improvements, like partnering with the company Lexikeet Language Services to provide live interpreters for districts that don't have translators on staff.
ReachMyTeach uses Google Translate for a lot of its translations, as well as other machine translation services. But the company is now working with native speakers to improve the smoothness of the translation, especially for languages like Lingala and Somali that aren't well accommodated my machine translation.
Blum Levine said it's cool to observe from a distance as his younger sister and parents now use the product.
"We were kind of just making this for something to do, and we thought it would maybe get used by a few people. And then the feedback we've gotten, and how quickly it's grown, has been amazing," Blum Levine said.
Borland is only teaching part-time these days so he can remain involved in the company. Blum Levine is graduating from MIT a semester early and said he'll spend the next six months working on the platform "pretty full time." Although he's focused on ReachMyTeach now, Blum Levine said the experience has prepared him for future endeavors.
"I have learned a lot, and not just focused on like the coding skills side, but looking more holistically at how you make a successful startup," he said. "If in the future I did have an idea that I was excited about, I feel like this has been like an invaluable experience, learning skills useful for that."
©2024 the Portland Press Herald (Portland, Maine). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
