We built the tool we kept wishing existed.
Ladwick started in a classroom, not a boardroom. It came from years of teaching and a growing frustration with software that was never actually built for this.
Most LMS platforms are relics of a different era.
Learning management systems were largely designed in the early 2000s for universities — built around semesters, credit hours, and large lecture halls. They were never intended for a robotics instructor tracking 24 middle schoolers across four afternoons a week.
Yet somehow, after-school and enrichment programs ended up relying on them anyway — or patching together Google Classroom, spreadsheets, and endless email threads just to keep things running. It worked, barely. But it was exhausting.
"Every morning started with copying grades out of a Google Form and into a spreadsheet. Every afternoon ended typing parent emails one by one."
The problem wasn't a lack of tools. It was the wrong tools.
The software that existed fell into two categories: overwhelming or inadequate. The enterprise platforms came loaded with faculty workflows, accreditation modules, and committee dashboards that had nothing to do with teaching kids how to build robots. The simpler tools were little more than file storage with a gradebook bolted on.
Neither was built for the actual rhythm of running an after-school program — the quick attendance check before class, the parent who needs an update, the assignment that needs grading before the next session. The gap between what existed and what was actually needed kept growing.
So we built something from scratch.
Ladwick was built with three convictions: AI should handle the tedious work, instructors should have everything in one place, and data should surface insights automatically — not wait in a spreadsheet to be manually analyzed.
We built AI into the product from day one — not as a feature on top of an existing system, but as part of how the whole thing works. AI reads your lesson slides and generates aligned assignments. It grades short answers against your own rubric. It writes parent notifications after attendance is taken. It flags students who are starting to fall behind before you have to catch it yourself.
Where we are today.
Ladwick is used by after-school STEM and robotics programs to run their entire operation — from curriculum and assignments to grading, attendance, and parent communication. Everything in one place, built for the way these programs actually work.
We are still early. We are still building. And we are still deeply biased toward the instructor and student experience above everything else. If that resonates with you, we would love to have your program on board.