RefynED founder and CEO Jena Draper breaks down the gap between evaluation policy and classroom reality—and explains how districts can move from compliance exercises to systems that support growth and retention.
INTERVIEW | by Victor Rivero
RefynED was founded to address a fundamental gap in how schools evaluate and support teachers. Jena Draper, founder and CEO, previously launched CatchOn to help school leaders understand what was actually happening in digital instruction—turning technology usage data into clarity and accountability and helping shift the market toward evidence-based decision making.
RefynED emerged from a more personal realization. Watching teacher turnover disrupt her son’s classroom in real time, Draper saw students lose routines, momentum, and progress.
Student outcomes depend heavily on teachers, yet evaluation too often functions as paperwork. School leaders frequently play it safe because traditional evaluation processes are inconsistent, time-consuming, and difficult to defend.
‘…school and district leaders move teacher evaluation from compliance to meaningful growth through fair, consistent appraisal systems that teachers trust.’
RefynED helps school and district leaders move teacher evaluation from compliance to meaningful growth through fair, consistent appraisal systems that teachers trust. The platform makes evaluation easier to complete and defend today, while making progress visible across years—not moments—so districts can build great teachers and keep them.
You launched RefynED at a moment when districts and edtech companies alike are questioning what actually works. What gap did you see in the market that made starting RefynED feel necessary now?
Teacher evaluation is required, but most systems treat it like paperwork. The hardest part isn’t the rubric itself. It’s capturing the real work of instruction in a way that stays consistent, defensible, and connected over time.
I built RefynED after watching teacher turnover disrupt my son’s classroom and seeing what it did to students. Routines broke, progress stalled, and the class had to reset. It made the problem personal and it made the stakes clear. RefynED starts by making evaluations easier to complete and defend. But the bigger gap is that schools don’t have a true appraisal system that makes great teaching visible and valued across the year.
‘… the bigger gap is that schools don’t have a true appraisal system that makes great teaching visible and valued across the year.’
When leaders can evaluate fairly, support growth consistently, and keep great teachers longer, outcomes improve for everyone.
RefynED sits at the intersection of strategy, go-to-market, and credibility. Considering founders and executive teams, what’s the most common disconnect you see between how companies talk about their impact and how districts actually experience it?
The biggest disconnect is that companies assume the product delivers the transformation on its own.
Vision matters. Outcomes matter. But great technology isn’t a silver bullet. Districts experience impact when vendors help them operationalize the change inside real constraints, real schedules, and real capacity limits. Without that, even a strong product becomes “just a tool” or “just data,” and now it’s one more system leaders have to manage, fund, and staff.
I’ve learned the hard way that credibility in K–12 comes from pairing the promise with a path. Not just showing districts what’s possible, but helping them actually reach it.
You’ve helped shape category narratives across analytics, cybersecurity, and digital learning. How do you think about category creation versus category clarity—and which matters more for companies trying to scale responsibly in K–12 today?
Category creation gets attention. Category clarity builds trust. But vision is what gives clarity a direction.
In K–12, schools don’t buy shiny categories. They buy outcomes they can feel. For RefynED, the vision is simple: build an appraisal system that helps great teachers stay by moving evaluation from compliance to real growth. When teachers feel seen, supported, and valued beyond a checkbox, retention improves and classroom stability improves with it.
‘When teachers feel seen, supported, and valued beyond a checkbox, retention improves and classroom stability improves with it.’
That’s why we’re not launching as a “new category” for the sake of it. We start inside the required evaluation workflow and fix what breaks in practice: evidence gets lost, alignment is inconsistent, and growth plans don’t carry forward. By anchoring to the vision and staying brutally clear about what we solve today, we can scale responsibly without adding burden or noise
A lot of early- and growth-stage edtech companies struggle with focus. From your vantage point, what should leaders be saying “no” to right now in order to build durable trust with schools?
They need to say no to building for trends instead of building for what schools are already required to do. The fastest way to lose trust is adding complexity to a system that’s already overloaded. Schools don’t need “more.” They need better execution inside the work that already exists. The strongest teams are disciplined. They choose one painful workflow, solve it deeply, and make the product feel inevitable. Focus isn’t limiting. It’s what makes a tool trusted enough to scale.
Looking ahead, what would success look like for RefynED over the next few years?
Success for RefynED looks like evaluation work happening across the year instead of piling up at the end. Observations are easier to complete, decisions are easier to defend, and leadership teams stay aligned before scores are shared. More importantly, teachers feel seen and supported beyond a checkbox. Their goals and progress carry forward, feedback stays consistent, and growth becomes visible over time instead of disappearing between evaluation windows.
If we do that well, districts don’t just run better evaluations. They retain more great teachers, strengthen teaching across schools, and give students the stability they need to thrive.
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Victor Rivero is the Editor-in-Chief of EdTech Digest. Write to: victor@edtechdigest.com
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