Private cognitive scaffolding for students moving into college, training, and work.
James Jurney · June 2026
I built Tomer for my family. I think it can help your students.
Several of the people I love most live with the kind of cognitive and executive-function challenges your students navigate every day — the distance between knowing what to do and being able to start, and the things that slip when no one's there to catch them.
I'd been building proactive software for another purpose, and realized it could meet that gap directly: support that reaches out at the right moment, instead of waiting to be found.
I made it for the people in my life. I think it can help the students in yours.
— James
In high school, the scaffolding is everywhere. The day after graduation, it's gone.
Support comes to the student
- IEPs and 504s
- Case managers and resource rooms
- Daily check-ins and built-in structure
- A parent, a teacher who notices
The student has to come to the support
- College, training, or work — with far less structure
- Help comes only if they ask — on time, in the right place, on their own
- Most of the scaffolding is simply gone
We expect students to master self-advocacy precisely when the scaffolding of school disappears.
Every tool they've tried waits to be opened.
Initiation is the barrier. A tool that waits to be opened fails exactly where students need help most.
Tomer doesn't wait to be asked. It reaches out first.
Tomer connects to the ordinary signals of a student's life — email, calendar, messages — and turns them into a gentle, well-timed nudge before the deadline is missed or the commitment forgotten. It's the part of the scaffolding that used to be a person, made portable into adulthood.
Tomer“You told your advisor you'd send the housing form. It's about 10 minutes — want to knock it out while you're thinking about it?”
What a week looks like with Tomer — whichever way the student is headed.
Tomer works from the signals a student already has — email, calendar, messages, what they tell it, and sleep from a connected wearable. It is not watching the screen over their shoulder.
A scaffold is meant to come down. So is this one.
You already practice gradual release of responsibility. Tomer is built on the same principle:
it externalizes executive function when a student needs it most, then steps back as they build their own
routines, self-advocacy, and confidence. Still there — just fewer nudges.
The goal isn't a student who depends on Tomer. It's a student who leaned on it for a while — and then stood on their own.
support steps back as independence grows
It targets executive function — not a diagnosis.
Executive-function challenges cut across ADHD, dyslexia, autism, and more — and they have little to do with how capable a student is. Tomer supports the function, not a label.
It carries some of the scaffolding you already provide — into the moments you can't be there.
You can't text every senior at 7pm to start the essay, or check in over the summer between graduation and orientation. Tomer can carry the same kind of gentle prompt into those moments, within guardrails you help define. It doesn't replace the relationship. It extends your reach to the hours and days you were never able to cover.
The AI doesn't know who your student is.
Or their family. Or you.
jordan@school.edu
+ the people he messages — his teacher, his mom
boundary
user_a7f3@tomer.work
+ consistent stand-ins for them, too
Tomer swaps identifying details — your student's, and the family, teachers, and friends in their messages — for consistent, realistic stand-ins before anything reaches the AI.
The AI builds a genuinely useful picture of “Marcus” — while the real identities stay isolated, completely separated from the data it reasons over.
Removing identifiers at the boundary lowers the district's data-exposure risk — a real asset in your FERPA and state student-data-privacy review.
WhoDis separates real identity from the AI reasoning layer by design. It complements — it does not replace — your district's consent, retention, and FERPA / state student-data-privacy law / COPPA review. WhoDis is patent-pending.
Where it fits — and the lines we hold.
- Transition planning & work-based learning
- Advisory, study-skills, EF coaching
- Senior-year independence
- The summer gap before college or a job starts
- Postsecondary & workforce readiness
An optional scaffold that complements your work.
- Diagnose, treat, or label a student
- Make IEP / 504, eligibility, accommodation, grading, or disciplinary decisions
- Take autonomous action in a pilot — the student approves first
- Act as a crisis service
- Serve as a monitoring dashboard for staff
Tomer's outputs are informational — an optional support, never a clinical, eligibility, or accommodation judgment.
A small, low-risk pilot — and we learn together.
Educator sandbox
Your staff explore the flows with demo scenarios. No student data.
Classroom visit
I present to your students directly, in their language.
Opt-in student pilot
A small cohort (≈8–15, grade 11–12 / transition), ~6 weeks, WhoDis on, nothing sent without approval.
Consent- and FERPA-aware: scope and safeguards are set with your team and families first. Student assent plus guardian consent where required, minimal data to start. No cost for the pilot.
Tomer's proactive cognitive-assistance architecture and its WhoDis privacy layer are patent-pending.
Two things I'd love.
Let me come talk with one or more of your classes — to your students directly.
Let's see whether a small, opt-in pilot fits your program. Either is a great place to start.
James Jurney · james@tomer.work · +1 (917) 653-3391 · tomer.work
A guardian for the brain you have.
Tomer is cognitive assistance software, not a medical device. It does not diagnose or treat any condition and is not a crisis service. Its outputs are informational and are not a substitute for professional evaluation.
For the administrator & privacy conversation
Supporting detail — privacy posture, IEP/504 fit, pilot design, and the data behind the numbers.
Areas a transition team may want to observe
Tomer is an optional scaffold that complements transition and IEP/504 work. It does not generate eligibility evidence, make accommodation decisions, or monitor students for staff.
Turning scattered school and life signals into a short, clear set of next steps.
Helping draft the hard message — “can you clarify the deadline?” — that the student approves and sends.
Proactive, well-timed nudges that support moving from intention to action.
Privacy & data posture
- FERPA & PPRA (U.S. Dept. of Education, Student Privacy Policy Office)
- COPPA (FTC) where students under 13 are involved
- Your state's student-data-privacy law (e.g., NY Ed-Law §2-d; many states use SDPC data-privacy agreements)
- IDEA assistive-technology guidance, if a school later considers Tomer inside a plan
- WhoDis reduces identifier exposure before AI reasoning — it complements, does not replace, the above
- Data minimization: collect the least needed, start small
- Student assent + guardian consent where required
- Clear retention & deletion; a data-privacy agreement if we proceed
- No autonomous outreach in pilot — human approval first
This is not legal advice; it identifies the review paths a district will expect. We work to your process, not around it.
Pilot guardrails & what we'd learn together
- Human approval before any outward action
- Source-linked suggestions — the student can see why
- Honest “I'm not sure” and clarification states
- No clinical, crisis, grading, eligibility, or disciplinary role
- Reduction in “what do I do next?” friction
- Commitments correctly surfaced
- Approve / reject rate of Tomer's suggestions
- Staff minutes saved per student per week
- Student & educator feedback — and zero privacy incidents
The goal is feedback, fit, and safety — not a procurement request.
The numbers — sources & caveats
- 94% → 17% receive LD accommodations in K–12 vs. postsecondary — NCLD, Understand the Issues (2024). The 17% postsecondary figure traces to federal data; confirm base year before external citation.
- More than 1 in 4 (21% never attended + 7% left without finishing) — NCLD & WestEd, State of LD: Navigating the Transition to Adulthood (2024). Opt-in online panel, n=1,283, weighted, self-reported LD, ages 18–24; a derived sum, not a single federal figure.
- 4-year college enrollment: 21% (LD) vs. 40% (peers) — NLTS2 / NCSER 2011-3005 (2009 cohort).
- Completion among those enrolled: 41% (LD) vs. 53% (peers) — NLTS2 / NCSER 2011-3005.
- Self-determination in the final HS year predicts better employment & wages a year out — Wehmeyer & Schwartz (1997).
- Broader (all-disability, not LD-specific): employment ~23% vs. ~65% (BLS, persons with a disability); HS graduation 71% vs. 87% (NCES 2021–22).
LD-specific figures are labeled as such; disability-wide figures are flagged and used only for broad context. Full source list on file.