Abby grad helps create app for special ed parents
By Nathaniel Underwood
Abbotsford native Jillian Bichanich has worked with numerous technology start-ups across the country, but she knew that she needed to see how her next venture would have a positive impact on the world.
That’s why, when she met Christine Dodaj and heard her ideas for an application that would help families with children with special needs help navigate the labyrinth of paperwork, appointments and lifestyle changes, she jumped at the chance to try to make those dreams a reality.
After years of diligent work and development under their new banner of SpEd Connect, co-founders Bichanich and Dodaj have seen that effort come to fruition as they launched their new app, Parent IEP Manager, in November.
The app serves several functions, all designed to give parents of children who have special learning needs the tools they require. From document management, mood trackers, and other organizational tools to an extensive global directory of professionals who work with students with disabilities, Parent IEP Manager hopes to lessen the load and give parents an easy way to find resources and information.
The program fills a gap that Dodaj experienced personally.
“[Christine] had two daughters and one had gone through eight diagnoses in just a day,” Bichanich said. “She always explains it beautifully. She says it felt like she got dropped into a foreign country. She didn’t know the language, she didn’t have the currency, she had no friends.’ That’s how she felt when her daughter got all these diagnoses and she’s trying to manage all these IEPs.”
IEPs, or individualized education programs, are plans set out for students with an identified learning disability designed to give them the special accommodations they need, as well as setting goals and tracking progress towards those goals.
Between the IEP paperwork, appointments with therapists and doctors for assessments, and working with the school itself, there was a lot to manage and keep track of. It was something that Dodaj had to try and tackle herself, and upon reflection, she knew that she wanted to help other families in similar situations.
“She had this concept that she really wanted to make sure that no other families would be left behind as she essentially selftaught and navigated this entire world,” Bichanich added. “I had all of the tech background and we were like, ‘Let’s co-found this company.’” Bichanich, who currently lives in the Madison area but who graduated from Abbotsford as co-valedictorian in 2008, spent most of her childhood in the area. She describes fond memories of growing up in Abbotsford, from participating in clubs and sports as a Falcon to working at El Norteno and Hawkeye Dairy and going to church at St. Bernard’s. Bichanich believes that the formative years she spent in rural Wisconsin were extremely important to her, both personally and for her career.
“I’ve spent so much time in Silicon Valley and on the East Coast for work and I actually think that being from a small town has significantly helped my career,” she said. “People really do perceive us as very hardworking and very loyal and I believe that about our community. I believe that we will give our shirts off our backs to help others and that we are instilled with good morals and values.”
“I’ve always been really proud of that and proud of the education that I got in Abbotsford. It let me go get five post-secondary school degrees,” Bichanich added. “I obviously wasn’t ever feeling like I wasn’t prepared for any of that.”
After graduating from UW-Madison and getting an additional project management degree at UW-Milwaukee and an MBA from Quantic, Bichanich worked primarily with startup tech companies. However, after helping get a number of companies off the ground, she knew that she wanted something a bit different.
“I did tons of very cool things in my professional life, but over the last few years I hit this point where I was like, it has to impact the world for good or I cannot do it any longer,” Bichanich noted.
It was while she was working for one of these businesses that she met Dodaj and, after hearing her story, the two decided to pair up to co-found SpEdConnect.
An early experience in Abbotsford’s Big Brothers, Big Sisters program gave Bichanich her own insight into those with special learning needs, one that she notes had a huge impact on her. As a “big sister,” her “little brother” had Asperger Syndrome and, through her time with him, Bichanich learned a lot.
“He was one of the most brilliant humans,” she said. “He could ramble off any animal fact that you could ever want to know. He was such a joy when I got to be around him and yet, I also saw first hand a lot of the social things that he went through. It was difficult for him a lot of times; he would get bullied or kids wouldn’t understand what he was doing or how he was trying to communicate with people. It really left an imprint on my heart.”
These personal connections have helped Bichanich and Dodaj through the tireless work of creating Parent IEP Manager over the better part of the last three years.
One of the primary functions they wanted to tackle was to turn the boxes upon boxes of paperwork from IEPs and other documentation into a single, organized digital space that would both cut down on physical space and paper and also make locating documents easier. They’ve also included an in-app calendar, to-do lists, and alerts and notifications to help keep track of appointments and meetings. A mood tracker can also be used to track and evaluate how changes like new medications, different sleep routines or changes in class schedules may be affecting their children.
Bichanich and Dodaj have also worked to compile the first global directory for special education families. This directory has providers from all over the world and includes information on everything from lawyers, speech pathologists, psychologists, and nannies, to perhaps less obvious but still important sectors, such as dance centers with adaptive dance. They hope this directory helps parents find people who are trusted and are welcoming to their family situation.
The app is currently on the Apple App Store and has a small subscription fee, though they will be looking to get it onto Android devices via the Google Play storefront soon. There are also plans to bring about a free version of the app to get even more families access to the resources available.
As the app continues to add additional features and SpEdConnect looks to continue to work with schools, Bichanich hopes that Parent IEP Manager can help close the gaps between families, schools and professionals and to create more trust between them.
“We’ve really tried to endlessly work to help a group of people that we see as underserved,” she said. “It’s not the schools’ fault, we’re not against education systems, we love them, it’s just that no one has the money or the people to help navigate all of this right now and we know we can bridge that with our tech.”
APP INVENTOR - Jillian Bichanich, a 2008 graduate of Abbotsford High School, recently helped develop Parent IEP Manager, a smartphone app for parents whose kids have special needs. At right is a screenshot showing the app’s different features.
PHOTO BY EVAN KREBSBACH STUDIOS
