From Pilot to Partner: What District Leaders & EdTech Execs Expect Before Scaling Partnerships

Launching a successful EdTech pilot with a school district is hard enough. Scaling it into a sustainable partnership is even harder. When grant funding expires, when the champion who signed the contract moves on or when a tool isn't embedded deeply enough to survive a budget cycle, most EdTech relationships quietly end. This session puts district decision-makers in the driver's seat for a candid conversation with EdTech executives about what goes wrong in the transition from pilot to partnership and what successful companies do differently. Discover the internal dynamics and discussions EdTech companies are rarely privy to. Identify the stakeholders beyond the primary buyer whose buy-in is essential to scaling, and when and how to engage each across the district hierarchy. Recognize common structural reasons tools succeed in pilots but fail to grow, including champion turnover, funding cliffs and interoperability gaps, and how to design against them. You will also hear directly from district leaders what separates a vendor from a genuine long-term institutional partner.