Before Chris Hull co-founded Otus, he spent 11 years in the classroom, sitting in the same meetings most educators know all too well. A team gathers to talk about student support, and half the meeting disappears into a round-robin of grades, test scores, notes, and best guesses. By the time everyone has pieced the story together, there’s barely enough time left to decide, “What do we do next?”
On a recent episode of the Learning Can’t Wait Podcast, Chris shared how that experience shaped (inspired, even) the original idea behind Otus: a more complete, connected student profile that moves educators from “What’s going on?” to “Here’s what we need to do.” From learning recovery and student motivation to AI’s role in schools, the conversation always returned to one central idea: even the slickest tools still depend on the deeply human work of helping students feel seen, supported, and capable of even more than they realized.
The meeting starts, and the pieces are scattered from the get-go: one person has recent test scores, another has grades, someone else has notes. Before the team can talk about what students need, they have to reconstruct what happened. Most educators have been there. The problem is that students can’t wait for adults to spend half a meeting finding information.
That frustration helped spark the idea behind Otus. Chris and his co-founder wondered why schools didn’t have something more like a medical record. A shared, comprehensive profile that follows the student and gives every educator involved a clear place to start.
When the full picture is easier to see, teams naturally spend less time collecting the story and more time changing the ending.
“There was a moment where we were talking about a student that I had from several years before that had something happen to him. And I’m like, ‘Why isn’t there some record of this? Why isn’t there some history?’” – Chris Hull, President and Co-Founder of Otus.
One story from the podcast centered on a district trying to understand why a group of fourth-grade students was struggling in reading and math. The families had a theory that the issues arose in the second-grade year, but school leaders needed more than that.
By looking across the students’ full history in Otus, the district was able to see where the dip began, what instructional changes had already been made, and how students responded afterward. That context turned a difficult question into a clear, evidence-based conversation.
“They had this huge question that they had spent hours on. And then they're like, ‘Oh wait, we can do this.’ And their answer allowed them to proceed to have the conversations with the parents of what happened, what is happening moving forward, and why they're in a good place now.” – Chris Hull, President and Co-Founder of Otus
AI can help educators interpret data, summarize information, prepare for conversations, and even bridge gaps in tech or data literacy. In the right hands, it becomes the kind of thought partner teachers and leaders have needed for a long time.
Still, AI is not what makes students care. Motivation comes from something much more personal. It grows when students connect learning to what they love, notice their own progress, and believe the next attempt is worth it.
The tools can make the work lighter. Educators are still the ones who make learning feel possible.
“What I would tell teachers is, enjoy the moment and seize every opportunity you have to ignite learning within a student. When a student has an aha moment, there is no better fuel in any profession. It is incredible when they get something, and you just see that light bulb go off; that is honestly breathtaking.” – Chris Hull, President and Co-Founder of Otus