About
It started with one parent's panic and one student's answer.
EdgeUCoin runs one program: eighteen weeks in which students earn coins for adult-verified change and redeem them for real rewards. This page is why it exists, told by the person who started it.
Why I started it.
Two and a half minutes, in the founder's own words. It is the same three moments the section below sets out in text, for whoever would rather read them.
Why it exists
Three moments, in the order they happened.
Jean Desamour started EdgeUCoin. He is from Queens, New York, and the first version of this ran in his own house rather than in a school.
The panic.
During the pandemic his own kids went from A and B students to Ds and some Fs inside a month, and he could not work out how it had happened that fast. What he built in response was a token economy for daily life at home: name what you are working on, do the work, earn something real for it. That structure is still what the program runs on.
The student.
A particular student, a lively kid who got into his share of mischief, was serving in-school suspension when he asked about the program that gave students rewards. Asked what he would work for, he said that if he could get dinner, he would do everything he had to do, and his teachers would not hear a thing from him. That answer is why this is a behavior-change program and not a prize table.
The stranger.
At one of the lowest points, Jean mentioned EdgeUCoin to a stranger in a coffee shop. The man listened the whole way through, and then stepped in and helped fund the next reward. Jean never learned who he was. It is not how the program is funded, then or now, and nobody should read a model into it. It is why the work kept going on a day it would have been easier to stop.
What EdgeUCoin has run since, and what one pilot actually measured, is set out with both denominators. See the impact.
What it is built to move
Three things at once, because moving one alone changes nothing.
A student is measured in three directions across the eighteen weeks, and a coin is only ever a record that adults verified movement in one of them.
Educational Competency
Academic goals are set against a student's own starting point rather than against the class, and a coin follows measured improvement on them. A facilitator confirms the workbook before any of it counts.
Family Engagement
One of every student's goals is worked on at home, and a parent or family member confirms it themselves. No coin is released on the school's word alone, which is what makes the family a signer rather than an audience.
Behavioral Improvement
Behavior goals are set with the student, logged weekly, and signed off by the adults who see them every day. It is the pillar the 2023 pilot measured, and the numbers it produced are published with their denominators.
What happens next
The next student's answer depends on who shows up.
EdgeUCoin runs one program today, and running it anywhere new takes three kinds of people: schools willing to host the eighteen weeks, funders willing to stock the rewards students work toward, and volunteers willing to give hours where they compound.