The concept of Paige & Paxton is more than 20 years in the making. In the 1990s, Rachel O. Williams was looking for a way to give her two daughters an edge in math and science. She searched for resources, but at the time, the majority of the available elementary STEM content was, well, boring. So she started using these two puzzle piece characters that she created for a business venture to teach some of the more complex concepts through storytelling. This approach made the math and science more interesting and relevant for all involved—Jessica, Kelley, and Rachel.

Fast forward 20 years later, and something amazing had occurred. Both Kelley and Jessica were excelling in science and math-related fields and actively involved in STEM pipelining programs for youth. They convinced their mom to bring the characters back to life and build an elementary STEM initiative with the characters at the core. A year later, they secured Chicago Public Schools as their first major client.

Unbeknownst to Rachel, she had stumbled across what is considered best practices in elementary STEM today: early exposure with an emphasis on accuracy and relevance. It’s strange how things turn out. Rachel never imagined that those two rudimentary boxy puzzle piece characters would evolve into an elementary STEM system that would change the way we teach STEM in this country and what we believe our youngest students are capable of.

The whole concept of Paige & Paxton grew out of Rachel’s love for her children and a desire to do what was best for them and now more than twenty years later, her creation, Paige & Paxton, is at the forefront of a movement to do what’s best for all children.