Where technology is concerned, many K-12 school districts seem to operate under an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mindset.
The problem with this mentality is that, in many cases, their technology is broken. Legacy education technology (EdTech) not only results in a frustrating experience for teachers and students but also creates a ton of other problems. When a school district opts not to upgrade or innovate, it sacrifices:
Dated technology also creates a significant burden on the IT department, which must spend considerably more time on administration and maintenance. IT staff have to deal with mounting technical debt alongside security risks, issues with data integration, and compliance challenges. What's more, they must frequently accomplish all of this on a shoestring budget.
So, what options do K-12 IT departments have? And what role is software playing in making the job’s of IT easier?
The right software platform can go a long way toward easing the administrative burden on a school district's IT department. Unfortunately, finding that software is often incredibly challenging. The core problem is that most vendors offer one of two things:
It's difficult to find a provider that offers the right balance of vertical features and an active development cycle. Fortunately, that's where Sparkrock comes in. We offer a broad portfolio of software solutions designed with the specific needs and challenges of K-12 educators in mind — everything you need to take the pressure off your IT department and support both administrators and teachers in delivering better, more fulfilling educational experiences.
Sparkrock's Edsembli Ecosystem is an all-in-one platform that seamlessly connects and consolidates your EdTech software. Through a single, intuitive platform, it unifies payroll, finance, human resources, and student record management, all while providing complete visibility of all operations within the district. Better yet, because it's delivered through a dynamic cloud-based model, Edsembli requires minimal hardware configuration.
Edsembli's secure cloud model also includes built-in compliance functionality, which we make sure is always up-to-date with changing rules and regulations. The platform also provides you with plenty of ways to manage data security, such as through granular role-based access and secure audit trails. The Edsembli Ecosystem is also fully modular, meaning that you can choose to install the entire Ecosystem or choose one or more specific modules:
Edsembli makes it easy to eliminate complexity from your school district's operations, keep data flowing between your departments, gain deep insights into both students and staff, and apply intelligent automation across multiple systems and processes.
With Edsembli, your district can finally retire legacy EdTech in favor of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution built specifically for education. Your IT team will no longer need to worry about maintaining and troubleshooting outdated systems. Instead, they'll be free to refocus their attention on other, more strategic initiatives.
They won't need to worry about maintaining Edsembli, either. The Edsembli Ecosystem is fully managed. We take care of all software maintenance, upgrades, and patches for you and will even work with your IT team to help you integrate the platform into your district's existing infrastructure.
On the user side, we've designed Edsembli to be as intuitive as possible, with multiple self-service features for its users. That means fewer unnecessary helpdesk tickets and less time spent on technical support. Moreover, because it breaks down data silos between departments, Edsembli also improves collaboration while minimizing errors.
On the security and compliance side, Edsembli is fully jurisdictionally compliant and also makes it easy to maintain and protect comprehensive student records, employee records, and digital documents. All data on the platform is protected by privileged secure access with extensive access controls. And due to Edsembli's built-in auditing, if anyone gains access to something they shouldn't, you'll be able to trace exactly how that happened.
Your IT team can also benefit from Edsembli's Financial Management functionality, tracking vendors, assets, and purchases and generating tailored reports on spending. Finally, Edsembli is built to be both reliable and infinitely scalable with a 99.9 percent uptime guarantee — so no more worrying about capacity or outages. It's available when, where, and how you need it.
Working in K-12 IT can be both challenging and stressful, but it doesn't need to be. With Sparkrock and Edsembli, you can finally give your IT department a break while also enabling both students and staff across the entire school district. More importantly, you can future-proof your school district, equipping it with a powerful, full-featured platform that evolves alongside the changing education landscape.
And all the while, you'll be achieving arguably the most important goal of all — delivering better, more successful education to your students. To learn more about what Sparkrock and Edsembli can do for your business, book a demo.