Our Story

Built from inside the system

Ripa Elevate was created by a licensed SLP who spent years inside the Department of Education, and a builder who kept asking: why is there no better tool than this?

S

The SLP Founder

Licensed Speech-Language Pathologist

After years working with middle school students inside the NYC Department of Education, it became clear: the assessments we were using weren't designed for the students we were assessing. They measured reading level and math facts, but not whether a student could count change, navigate a social conflict, or make a decision under pressure.

Ripa Elevate was built to answer the questions IEP teams actually need answered: What can this student do independently? Where do they need support? What does growth look like over time?

B

The Builder

Platform Strategist & Product Builder

The frustration wasn't just with the tools. It was with the market gap. Parents of students with IEPs have almost no access to independent assessment outside of what the school provides. The school assessments are slow, opaque, and designed to meet compliance requirements, not to actually inform parents or students.

Building Ripa Elevate meant creating a product that could start with parents, people who desperately want to understand their child, and eventually build into schools from the bottom up, through parent demand.

Our Mission

Assessment should serve the student, not the system

We believe every student, especially those who learn differently, deserves to be seen for what they can do, not measured against what they can't. Assessment should be a tool for understanding, not a label or a ranking. It should tell parents something real. It should tell students something true.

Ability over deficit

We design every question to find what a student CAN do at their level, not to document failure.

Transparency for families

Parents shouldn't have to wait for an IEP meeting to understand their child's functional skills. They deserve direct access to clear information.

Growth over comparison

We never compare students to each other. We measure each student against their own previous performance, over time.

How We Got Here

The longer version

The problem started with a meeting. An IEP meeting where a parent sat across the table, holding a report that was technically accurate but completely useless: a page full of grade-equivalent scores, standard deviations, and comparison bands that told her nothing about whether her son could make change for a $20 bill, or recognize when an adult online was trying to manipulate him, or plan well enough to get his homework done before practice.

That gap, between what schools measure and what parents actually need to know, is what Ripa Elevate is built to close. Not to replace school assessments. Not to compete with SLPs or psychologists. But to give families an independent, clear, affordable way to understand what their child can do in the areas that actually matter for their daily life.

We built the question bank from scratch. Every question was written with a specific student in mind, not a hypothetical average student, but a real twelve-year-old who might need to hear the question read aloud, might need a hint, might work slowly, and still gets the right answer when given the chance. That student deserves a score that reflects their ability, not their processing speed.

The platform is designed to be used before IEP meetings, before school evaluations, as a check-in between assessments, or simply because a parent wants to understand where their child is and where they're headed. No referral required. No waiting list. No school involvement needed unless you want it.

The Ripa Family

Two products. One mission.

Ripa is our parent brand. Elevate is the platform you're on now, built for students with different learning needs. Diagnostics is our first product, for general assessment.

Ripa Diagnostics

For general learners

Adaptive academic assessment for middle school students without specialized learning needs. Same four-level system. Same clean report. Focused on academic subjects.

Ripa Elevate ← You are here

For different learners

Built specifically for students with IEPs, autism, intellectual disabilities, and language processing differences. Life skills + academic skills. Full support scaffolding built in.