In a Wednesday session moderated by Jennifer Womble, chair of the Future of Education Technology Conference (FETC), two panelists — Oakwood Schools Superintendent Neil Gupta and Los Angeles County Office of Education Chief Technology Officer Jose Gonzalez — focused on the must-haves for school administrators when evaluating proposed tech solutions, highlighting the need for vendors to create tools to solve specific problems in K-12.
Womble added that, in order for ed-tech vendors to understand their clients' needs, school leaders must also be clear about their own demands and goals.
“It is an enormous role with a lot of different moving parts,” she said. “When you have a superintendent who is stable in a position, you're able to have a vision ... but ... we need to make sure that we have that vision in place.”
UNEARTHING DISTRICT PRIORITIES
Panelists agreed that the most successful ed-tech partnerships begin long before a product demonstration, emphasizing that the best vendors are those that take adequate time to research district needs and align their tools accordingly.
“There's a lot of homework that needs to be done,” he said, noting that vendors cannot understand what matters most to a district by simply scanning their website. “I'm going to guess everybody's strategic plan in the United States, world, whatever it is, has literacy, has mathematics. ... Dig a little bit deeper.”
Gonzalez emphasized that genuine interest in education — and in students themselves — sets the best vendors apart.
“When you talk to those vendors that are truly passionate about helping kids, you can tell,” he said. “Really make sure that you understand the mission, the vision, that you really understand education, and that you know that you tie it all back to kids, because that’s really why we’re here.”
RELATIONSHIPS MATTER
While understanding district needs is a first step, panelists said building sustained relationships is what turns an initial meeting into a long-term partnership.
For Gupta, this means vendors should resist the urge to lead with a hard sell.
“[V]endors are coming in, and they are obviously very passionate about ... their product, and they believe in it,” he said. “But the idea of a cold call and just trying to rush into explaining what their product is isn't always the best."
Superintendents throughout the country are connected with one another, Gupta said, adding that they routinely share experiences — both positive and negative — with fellow district leaders about the companies they interact with.
“Those conversations matter, and I'm going to be honest with you, reputation can be sunk quickly,” he said. “‘Yep, I felt like they were too pushy. Yep, I felt like they didn't listen to the needs that I had at the time.’ ... And we all do that for each other.”
The same is true on the technology side, Gonzalez noted. He said he stays in regular contact with about 30 CTOs and CIOs nationwide, sharing information and recommendations about specific tools.
Relationships also need to evolve beyond the sale, Gupta said, so vendors should view implementation as an ongoing collaboration rather than a one-time event.
“Maybe there's great implementation at the very beginning of the relationship, but by year three, you're just doing a check in, and you're not really [communicating]," he said. "That's how things fall off."
PRAISE FOR INTEROPERABILITY
The speakers underscored another major challenge districts face: interoperability, or the ability of different digital systems to seamlessly communicate and share data. Without it, technology can become a source of friction rather than efficiency.
“I can tell you that we’ve identified about 110 different systems across our organization that are not interoperable at all,” Gupta said. “It’s definitely something that, as a vendor, I’d be concerned with as I’m coming in, if you want to be compatible with everything that’s already in that district.”
Gonzalez added that poor interoperability not only slows down administrative processes but can also compromise data integrity and security — areas where districts are increasingly struggling amid the rapid evolution of generative AI. He suggested that vendors that prioritize seamless integration and data safeguards stand out as partners that understand the operational realities of K-12 systems.
MEASURING IMPACT AND OUTCOMES
Beyond technical functionality, district leaders said they mostly want to know whether and how a product will impact student and teacher outcomes.
Gupta cautioned against flashy marketing or extensive feature lists that obscure the real question: Does this tool help students learn?
“The data is not ‘We’re in 55 districts.’ That doesn’t matter to me,” he said. “I’m talking about the data that is the student outcomes. ... I’ve got to go back and stand in front of our teachers and our parents to say this is the thing that we chose, and we’re going to invest not just money, but time.”
Flexibility also matters, Gupta added, especially in a landscape where each district faces different needs and constraints.
“Are you willing to customize it to tailor it to our needs, or is it just going to ... jam ... what you have into ours and we'll never hear from you again?” he said.
TO PILOT, OR NOT TO PILOT
Lastly, panelists said that while pilot programs can be beneficial, they can also create challenges when not managed thoughtfully.
“Especially now with the cuts pending and the looming fiscal cliff that a lot of our districts are coming up on because of (COVID-era ESSER) funding kind of disappearing, and also some of the federal funding disappearing, if the teachers are the ones that are supposed to be using the software, and they're not ... they're definitely throwing that into the negotiation conversation," Gonzalez said.
He also flagged ed-tech vendors who abandon districts after a successful pilot.
“[Vendors] would leave a year or two later and say, ‘Oh, if you want to keep us, it's like $100,000,’” he said. “It's just sad for the school, the principal, the teachers, everybody that went to the PD to learn the system, whatever it was to help you get that data.”
Instead, Gonzalez encouraged companies to view pilot schools as long-term flagship sites — examples they could continue to reference and invest in over time. He said vendors who maintain those relationships demonstrate not only confidence in their product but also a commitment to improving student outcomes beyond the initial rollout.
“I think that's a missed opportunity for a lot of vendors,” he said. “Do a pilot and you say ... ‘I’m tied to this school. I am sponsoring this school, and I’m going to make it better ... and I’m never going to pull away from under you. You got it forever.’”
Editor's note: A previous version of this story quoted LACOE CTO Jose Gonzalez as describing a looming fiscal cliff due to the LCFF [Local Control Funding Formula] disappearing. He misspoke, intending instead to refer to ESSER/COVID funds, and the story has been updated to reflect that.
