Material
School

Who it's for

Real decision-support for the people making everyday choices for kids.

Three pillars

Tools you can use 🧮

Free calculators that turn our research into a number you can take into a budget meeting.

Every topic comes in two pieces. A Guest Speaker conversation with someone who knows the problem first-hand, and a short Efficiency Eval that runs the same decision through the Material School framework. Watch either one first.

📱

Cell phone bans

Nearly every state now tells schools to put phones away and leaves the how to them. Lockers, pouches, backpacks — what each one costs, and what breaks.

🎤 Guest Speaker · 25 min

Cell Phone Bans

Monica Kress has run three versions of a ban across her schools. What each cost, and what she'd tell a district deciding today.

📋 Efficiency Eval · 4 min

Lockers vs. Pouches

Why one shared line beats many separate ones when every student needs their phone back at once.

📱 Then put your own numbers in the Cell Phone Ban Plan Calculator.

📝

AI for IEPs

About 15% of students have an IEP, and writing them eats enormous amounts of teacher time. AI looks like the obvious fix, and it isn't that simple.

🎤 Guest Speaker · 20 min

AI for IEPs

Allison Hite, an attorney who advises districts, on what student data privacy law actually prohibits — and where AI still saves time.

📋 Efficiency Eval · 4 min

Stop Asking It to "Make For Me"

Using AI to plan with you needs no student data at all. Same time saved, none of the exposure.

🔬

Elementary science kits

Forty-nine states expect science in every elementary grade. Meeting that takes physical stuff — seeds, soil, bulbs, wires — and somebody has to buy and maintain it.

🎤 Guest Speaker · 26 min

Elementary Science Kits

Betsy Davis, who chaired the National Academies committee on elementary science, on what districts actually spend and what the visible cost leaves out.

📋 Efficiency Eval · 5 min

The Trade-off Districts Are Actually Making

Kits cost money in supplies. Loose supplies cost teacher time. Which one your budget is really spending.

📮

Show & Tell Coming soon

Real stories from teachers, principals, and school staff about the supplies in their classrooms — the ones that changed everything, and the ones that flopped. Sent in by you.

📣 Share your story

Email materialschoolusa@gmail.com — or leave a voicemail at (313) 306-7476.