Kate Sanchez and Kirsty Dahdah Schoolparents Interview

Kate Sanchez and Kirsty Dahdah Schoolparents Interview

Best friends, Kate Sanchez and Kirsty Dahdah created schoolparents after they each experienced difficulty meeting other parents at their kids' schools.

Kate and Kirsty's friendship began when they met in year 7 at MLC School, Burwood, and continued to flourish as they studied at the University of Sydney together. Both women went on to have very successful careers but had always aspired to create a business together. After having children, Kate and Kirsty decided it was the perfect time to work together but it wasn't until their eldest children started preschool that the idea for schoolparents was formed.

Though Kate and Kirsty chose different preschools for their children and had different experiences they shared the same core problem – it was difficult to meet and form connections with other parents. After speaking with a number of their friends with young children they realised two things. One, they weren't the only ones who faced this struggle and two, parents are comfortable communicating online, but didn't have an appropriate platform for parent, school and child related discussions with other parents. From there the idea for schoolparents took shape.

Kate and Kirsty's aims for schoolparents are that the platform will do for parents what LinkedIn does for professionals, and to take parents' -school gate' discussions online. To this day the two friends love spending time together with their families and have immensely enjoyed working together over the past 12 months.

Kate's Background

Kate completed a Bachelor of Economics majoring in Economics and Marketing at the University of Sydney. After graduating in 2002, Kate began working in the FMCG industry for companies including So Natural Foods and Campbell Arnotts, specialising in brand management including brand communications and new product development.

A highlight of her career was leading a team to turn around a previous market leading cooking brand, which had been in steady market share decline. Kate has drawn on her experience to help develop a strong brand identity for schoolparents and to lead business communications.

Kate is mother to three beautiful children; six-year-old Austin, four-year-old Talia and two‐year-old Scarlett.

Kirsty's Background
Kirsty studied at the University of Sydney, graduating in 2000 with a Bachelor of Commerce majoring in Human Resources, Industrial Relations and Marketing. In 2001 she began in her family business, Trivett, Australia's largest prestige Automotive Group. She began her career as an HR Assistant and progressed to the position of General Manger, HR before ultimately taking on a Group General Management position. Kirsty remained with The Trivett Group until it was sold in March 2013.

One of Kirsty's most notable achievements was introducing an Apprentice Program for School Leavers and the creation of a reward and recognition program for the Group's Apprentices. The Apprenticeship Program was a first in the automotive industry, and set new benchmarks. Another career highlight was receiving an exemption from the NSW Anti‐discrimination Board following her successful application to recruit female only Sales and Service providers, addressing the automotive industry's traditional gender imbalance. This was the first time such an exemption had been granted to the Australian Automotive Industry by the Board. Kirsty says she's always gained great satisfaction from doing things differently and being the first – a motivation that's helped in the development of schoolparents.

Kirsty is the proud mother of four‐year-old daughter Mikhaela and two-year‐old son Harrison.

Interview with Kate Sanchez and Kirsty Dahdah

Question: What is Schoolparents?

Kate Sanchez and Kirsty Dahdah: Schoolparents is a free, secure, parent-only social networking platform that makes it easy for mums and dads with children in childcare, primary and high school to meet and communicate with one another. It is unlike any other in that it was created by parents for parents of school-aged children and provides a secure way for parents to connect based on the school their child attends.

Question: What inspired the creation of Schoolparents?

Kate Sanchez and Kirsty Dahdah: The inspiration for schoolparents came about once our eldest children started school. Though our children went to different preschools and had different experiences, there was one issue we both faced – it was difficult for us to meet and form connections with other parents. After speaking with a number of our other friends with young children we realised we weren't the only ones who faced this struggle. Following this realisation, we came up with the idea for schoolparents so that parents could have an appropriate platform to communicate with one another about school and child related topics.


Question: Why did you think a parent-only social platform was required?

Kate Sanchez and Kirsty Dahdah: Many parents face long working hours and schools not sharing contact details of parents within your child's class, which are factors that inhibit parents' ability to meet and form relationships at their child's school.

We wanted to provide a simple solution to make it easy for parents to communicate with each other. By connecting through schoolparents, parents can help to foster their children's friendships, build new friendships with other parents and safely share parenting experiences by giving them the ability to communicate directly in real-time. Schoolparents also provides a secure platform for healthy discussions about family and parenting issues to take place amongst existing parent friendship groups.


Question: How did your own experiences guide the Schoolparents process?

Kate Sanchez and Kirsty Dahdah: All throughout the development process we were thinking about parents needs, and what features would really make a difference. With the search feature for example, we designed it so that parents could search not only by school name, but more detailed, right down to the year level. Often my child would come home asking for a playdate, but could only tell me his friends first name. Being able to search just the year group would make identifying that child's mother or father much easier!

When we were discussing the -friend request' function on schoolparents, we thought it best to reflect how this interaction would take place face-to-face. That's why we decided to encourage parents to add a note to their friend request, introducing themselves, for example -Hi, I'm Zoe's mum, she talks about Grace all the time so I thought I'd get in contact'. It's little details like this that we hope make the site really feel like an online version of the school gate.


Question: What conversations take place on Schoolparents?

Kate Sanchez and Kirsty Dahdah: Our vision for schoolparents is that mums and dads would chat about the things they'd happily share at the school gate, or at school events on an online platform from lunchbox ideas, dealing with bullying to family holiday tips. We find that parents enjoy talking about upcoming school events, sending notes of congratulations for student achievements and planning school fundraisers on schoolparents.
In addition to connecting parents, other functionalities of schoolparents include a marketplace for on-selling pre-loved items and e-invites for easily inviting guests to an event. Schoolparents also includes a language translator so that parents whose first language is not English can easily and effectively communicate with their child's teacher and other parents.


Question: What is your ultimate goal for Schoolparents?

Kate Sanchez and Kirsty Dahdah: Our aim for schoolparents is that the platform will do for parents what LinkedIn does for professionals, and to take parents' -school gate' discussions online.


Question: Can you talk about the growth of Schoolparents since the release in February?

Kate Sanchez and Kirsty Dahdah: While schoolparents is still a relatively new site we've already had thousands of parents from across Australia sign up. Our aim is to continue to grow this community for both parents but also teachers and schools.


Question: What's next for Schoolparents?

Kate Sanchez and Kirsty Dahdah: The site has already started to achieve our initial goal of helping connect parents to one another but we're continuing to work on building awareness of the platform and helping more and more parents connect through it. We're also now working on improving the communication between schools and parents (and vice versa) and building stronger school communities through the platform. We have several great new features launching soon including the ability for schools to create highly targeted groups for teachers and parents to communicate within for example a group for a sports team which brings together the coach and parents to share updates, results, wet weather information, organise carpooling for away games, etc.


Question: What's a typical day like, for you?

Kate Sanchez: My day starts bright and early at 6am with my six year old bounding into the room, closely followed by my four year old with my two year old waking up not long after. A hectic couple of hours follows getting breakfast and lunches made and several negotiations about school uniforms or outfits for kindy. After a days work it's time to pick up the kids and ferry them off to afternoon sports and other activities. Evenings are family time mixed with dinner and homework for my six year old. We top off the night with some 'stories from books without pictures", Enid Blyton is the family favourite at the moment. Then it's bedtime before we do it all again the next day.
Kirsty Dahdah: I like to kick start my day with an early morning gym session then head home to get everyone up for breakfast together. It's then time for everyone to get dressed and ready for school/work. Once my six year old is at school I usually take my four year old to tennis or swimming lessons. On the days he's at pre-school I'm in the office with Kate. There's always a lot to get through but we have fun working together. Getting to work with your best friend is a real privilege. Our evenings are very routine – I help my daughter with homework while my son plays, the kids have dinner together followed by a bath then books and cuddles in bed. We've got it down to an art so by 7.15pm it's lights out for the kids and time for my husband and I to cook dinner and catch up.


Interview by Brooke Hunter