HP Schools partner with Edifii startup to expand support for students

The Highland Park Public Schools, in partnership with the tech startup Edifii, have significantly scaled up their psychological support resources – without overextending their staff or finances.

National trends track an increase in mental health challenges and the Highland Park community is no exception. At a recent gathering of the New Jersey chapter of ASCA (NJSCA), HPHS Supervisor of Counseling Elizabeth Asamoah met a cognitive scientist from MIT and Yale, Dr. Izzat Jarudi, who had recently launched Edifii, a startup harnessing neuroscience and AI to provide personalized guidance that complements school counseling. That chance meeting has led to a pilot with very promising outcomes.

Asamoah and Jarudi partnered on a winning proposal for a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the US Department of Education to support the development of Edifii’s innovative software prototype and its pilot testing at the Highland Park High School in the fall of 2024.

With participation from 130 teens and two counselors at Highland Park, and the support of Superintendent Dr. Kristina Susca and the Board of Education, Edifii deployed and refined a Web application that helps develop a profile of individual students through an engaging set of “Discovery” quizzes. These short and scientifically-backed quizzes draw on fun questions (like which celebrity they would sit next to on an airplane) to reveal a student’s personality, interests, and potential career pathways aligned with their profile. The app also tracks mental wellness by checking in with users on a regular basis to assess their stress levels. Counselors have their own access to the app through a dashboard, which allows them to view insights and trends across one or many students for personalized recommendations and wellness support.

The pilot elicited an enthusiastic response from both teens and counselors. When asked whether they would recommend the app to a friend, scores initially averaged four out of five and increased throughout the pilot. The app encouraged students to share their stressors and concerns, leading half to receive outreach and a quarter to proactively request meetings with counselors. Counselors found that Edifii revealed aspects of students they had not recognized before the discovery process, and integrated the dashboard’s reporting into regular check-ins with students and leadership.

Given the welcome reception at the high school, the Discovery pilot was expanded to the 8th grade in spring 2025, with equally encouraging results. Students found the initial version of Edifii’s guidance chatbot very helpful, and the schools have undertaken an expanded run of the pilot program this school year.

HP Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Kristina Susca shared her positive perspective on Edifii’s pilot at the New Jersey Association of School Administrators (NJASA) Spring Leadership Conference last May. Ms. Asamoah from Highland Park also spoke about the critical needs facing the American school counseling system and her experiences with Edifii at the NJSCA conference in September 2025 with over 400 school counselors in attendance. As a consequence of these exceptionally positive initial results, Edifii was recently chosen as one of eight companies nationally for an additional $1M grant from the US Department of Education to build on the momentum from its partnership with Highland Park Public Schools this school year.

To request a demo and learn more about Edifii, please contact Izzat Jarudi at ijarudi@edifii.me or go to www.edifii.me. You can reach Dr. Susca at ksusca@hpschools.net.