Your kid just brought home a C− in Algebra.
Pennavo reads their actual report card, works out which classes they've fallen behind in, and works through their own homework with them, one step at a time — without ever handing over the answer.
Student: stuck on #7 [photo]
Pennavo: Got it — solving for x in 3(x + 4) = 27. Before we touch anything, what does that 3 outside the parentheses do to what's inside?
Student: multiplies both of them?
Pennavo: Exactly. So write out what 3(x + 4) becomes and show me.
No app to install. It opens in a browser.
How it works
Three steps, then it runs on its own.
Setup takes about two minutes, and you only do it once.
Pennavo covers grades 6–12 — math, science, English, history, and foreign language. If your student is outside that, it isn't the right fit yet.
Send the report card
Take a photo of the report card, or screenshot the grade portal — PowerSchool, Infinite Campus, whatever your school uses. Upload it. A portal screenshot gives it more to work with than a printed card.
You confirm what it read
It transcribes the grades and shows you what it got, next to your photo, before any of it counts. If the upload lists individual assignments — most grade portals do — it goes down to the quiz that dropped the average. A printed report card usually just gets it to the class.
Your student starts tonight
They open Pennavo and send a photo of the problem they're stuck on. It walks them through it one question at a time, and keeps pulling them back to the units it knows they're weakest in.
Why it's different
Built around your student, not a generic curriculum.
It starts from real grades
Most tutoring apps open with a placement quiz your kid rushes through in four minutes. Pennavo starts from the grades their teacher actually gave them, so it knows where the problem is before the first conversation.
It works on their real assignments
Not a library of generic practice problems. The worksheet due tomorrow, the study guide for Friday's test, the lab report they don't understand. What's actually being graded is what they work on.
It opens in a browser
Nothing to install and no new icon on the home screen to ignore by week two. It runs on whatever they already do homework on — the school Chromebook, the laptop, the phone in their hand at 10 PM.
You see everything
No black box between you and your kid.
You're handing a tutor to your teenager. Here's exactly what you can see, what happens to what you upload, and the one thing you won't be told.
Progress first, transcripts if you want them
Your page shows what they worked on, how long they spent, and the steps the tutor had to walk them through because they couldn't get there alone. Any session opens in full from there — the actual back-and-forth, not a summary.
Your student sees the same page
Not a version of it — the same page, built from the same data, open to them from their own account. Nothing in your view is hidden from them, and they're told that up front. A kid who thinks they're being watched in secret stops typing anything real.
The report card stays inside your account
You upload it, and you confirm what Pennavo read off it before any of it counts — it doesn't get to decide your kid's grades on its own. It's used to pick which classes to start with. Not sold, not shared, not shown to anyone else.
If they're in trouble, tutoring stops
If something they write suggests they're in danger, Pennavo stops doing homework and puts a real crisis line on the screen instead of trying to counsel them. In serious cases you're told — and they're told you were told, in that same conversation. The exception: if what they describe is someone at home hurting them, you aren't told, and they get a number for someone outside the house.
Pennavo is built and run by one person, not a large company. That means no security badges to point at — just a straight answer about where your family's information goes. Ask me anything at hello@pennavo.com.
The promise
It will never just give them the answer.
This is the part we refuse to compromise on. If your student sends Pennavo a problem, they will not get a number back. They'll get a question back.
Ask any AI chatbot to do question seven and it will do question seven. Your kid copies it down, the homework gets turned in, the grade on that assignment looks fine — and they learn nothing. Then the test comes, there's no phone on the desk, and the grade tells the truth.
Pennavo works the way a good teacher at the whiteboard does. It asks what they've tried. It finds the exact step where it broke down. It makes them do that step themselves, then checks they can explain why it works. Slower on Tuesday night — which is the entire point.
- Never returns a final answer, even when asked directly
- Checks understanding before moving to the next step
- Makes them explain the reasoning back in their own words
- You get a page showing what they worked on and where they're still stuck
Student: can you just tell me what x is
Pennavo: Nope — but I'll get you there. You already expanded it to 3x + 12 = 27. What's the one move that gets 3x by itself?
Student: subtract 12
Pennavo: From both sides — do it and tell me what's left.
Student: 3x = 15 so x = 5
Pennavo: That's it. Now put 5 back into the original and show me it checks out — that's the habit that saves you on the test.
Every problem ends with them doing the work.
Early access
I'm onboarding the first group of families now.
A private tutor runs $40–80 an hour. This is a month of unlimited help for less than one session.
Pennavo isn't open to everyone yet. Tell me about your student and I'll email you within a week with their start date and a link to upload the report card. Nothing to pay today.