For years, Ok–12 expertise conversations revolved round what to undertake subsequent — the latest system, the most recent platform, the subsequent huge promise. However as district leaders enter 2026, the query has essentially shifted from “What ought to we purchase?” to “What’s really value maintaining?”
If there’s a typical thread, it’s this: The period of expertise for expertise’s sake is over. The pandemic pressured fast adoption with out reflection. Now comes the reckoning.
Districts are asking harder questions on return on instruction, demanding higher knowledge governance, and recognizing that cybersecurity is a cultural problem. They’re grappling with the way to put together college students for an AI-shaped workforce whereas defending them from display overload and knowledge exploitation.
Right here’s what is going to outline 2026.
Display-Time Reckoning Will get Sophisticated
Final fall, Kris Hagel had loads of uncomfortable conversations. As chief info officer for Peninsula Faculty District in Washington, he discovered himself explaining to anxious dad and mom, lots of whom had simply learn The Anxious Era, why their kids had been nonetheless utilizing units in class.
“We needed to outline pedagogical use versus passive consumption,” he says. “Youngsters should not sitting in class mindlessly scrolling TikTok. There’s a pedagogically sound cause for what we’re doing. However we haven’t at all times communicated that distinction nicely.”
Some leaders imagine the criticism is warranted. Evan Abramson, director of innovation and expertise at New Jersey’s Morris-Union Jointure Fee, argues that edtech has displaced good instructing.
“We’ve taken the facility from academics and put it in expertise’s palms,” he says. “There’s by no means a function for units in kindergarten and first grade. They need to be studying the foundational abilities many aren’t getting elsewhere.”
However Susan Moore, director of tutorial expertise at Meriden Public Faculties in Connecticut, warns in opposition to wholesale bans.
“Only a few, if any, of our college students will graduate right into a workforce that doesn’t use expertise,” she says. “Let’s have conversations about what makes an excellent immediate, the way to be a important shopper of knowledge. That’s the work we needs to be doing.”
The dialog is shifting from whether or not expertise belongs in colleges to the way it needs to be used, and that requires clearer communication and stronger pedagogy.
AI Stops Being Elective
“To borrow a phrase, AI is like corn syrup; it’s going to be in every little thing,” says Freddie Cox, chief expertise officer of Tennessee’s Knox County Faculties. He sees AI embedding itself into edtech merchandise whether or not districts are prepared or not.
“That is the 12 months a frontrunner can’t bury their head within the sand,” Cox says. “AI turns into a part of the buying resolution.”
The problem isn’t simply choosing instruments; it’s supporting educators via fixed change. Hagel describes a revealing second final fall when academics in his district admitted that, for the primary time, they may not sustain with all of the adjustments.
Different districts are approaching AI implementation cautiously. Jon Castelhano, govt director of expertise for Gilbert Public Faculties in Arizona, assembled an AI activity drive and spent final 12 months coaching academics. “We needed it to be conservative and significant,” he says.
Tom Ingram, director of IT for Escambia County Public Faculties in Florida, has targeted on educating district management about what AI is and the way it’s concerned in several apps.
Information Governance Turns into Everybody’s Drawback
For years, knowledge governance lived within the IT division. However as AI instruments proliferate, districts are discovering their infrastructure isn’t prepared.
“AI is barely pretty much as good as the information that backs it up,” says Chantell Manahan, director of expertise at Metropolitan Faculty District of Steuben County in Indiana. “Information governance conversations are leaving the tech division, and AI is exposing points we’ve ignored. We now have to concentrate on knowledge governance, privateness and ethics.”
The issues are elementary: inconsistent definitions throughout methods, unclear possession of knowledge, weak privateness controls.
Hagel frames it in a different way: “How do you get info into AI methods in order that they do what you want and make the adjustments you need to see? That requires understanding what knowledge you’ve obtainable.”
Michael Steinberg, assistant director of expertise at Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake Central Faculty District in New York, devised his personal methodology to control knowledge. He spent 4 years constructing role-based entry profiles tied to each job title in his district. “When somebody will get onboarded, offboarded, or adjustments roles, every little thing updates robotically,” he explains. “A particular training instructor who turns into a bus driver, for instance, instantly loses entry to IEPs.”
Cash Will get Tight and Questions Get More durable
The ESSER cliff has arrived. Federal aid {dollars} are gone, and districts are navigating rising {hardware} prices and infrastructure calls for.
Constrained budgets are forcing tougher conversations about what expertise is value paying for. “We’re taking a look at return on instruction,” says Moore. “What metrics present us whose merchandise are efficient?” She’s pushing again on vendor analytics that don’t reveal studying outcomes. “I’ve seen loopy metrics, like variety of clicks.”
Manahan expects extra districts to consolidate platforms — even when meaning dropping options. “It’s not nearly funding,” she says. “It’s about human capability. Dad and mom, academics and leaders can’t juggle limitless platforms.”
Debbie Leonard, govt director of expertise for Greenwood Faculty District 50 in South Carolina, places it merely: “The system just isn’t the instructor. We’d like direct instruction and platforms that help academics as a useful resource — not substitute them.”
Cybersecurity Turns into Everybody’s Duty
In New York, one among Steinberg’s board members misplaced cash to a phishing assault impersonating the superintendent. “AI makes it simple to create plausible emails,” he says. “The standard methodology of blocking domains doesn’t work anymore.”
Districts are responding with layers: consciousness coaching, superior e-mail safety, multifactor authentication and community certificates. Steinberg deployed scholar multifactor authentication all the way down to fourth grade utilizing pictograph-based authentication.
Leonard’s district in South Carolina can also be feeling the urgency and can quickly start conducting phishing simulations with highschool college students. “We now have to do higher at educating folks,” she says.
What It All Means
Districts are taking again management of the dialog. As a substitute of letting distributors, headlines or emergencies drive choices, leaders are asking what college students want and selecting merchandise that serve these targets.
“We have to get again to innovation and creativity amongst academics,” Abramson says. “We’d like companions who will push again typically and take the journey with us. Know-how can’t be the entire curriculum anymore.”
