Every new platform starts the same way. There’s excitement, a promise to save time or solve a problem or improve instruction, and sometimes it delivers. Someone saw it at a training… loved it… and now MUST integrate it into their curriculum. #shinynewtoy

But fast forward five years: the original champion has moved to another campus, the teachers who loved it have changed grade levels, and the district has since adopted something that overlaps with half of what it does. But we keep it, b/c someone loved it, and we’ve already budgeted for it.

Here’s what that looks like IRL. At one point we were carrying two full enterprise suites of similarly functioning products, plus the security add-ons sized to protect all of them. When we finally pulled actual usage reports instead of relying on what we thought was happening, the story wasn’t even close: one part was used by nearly everyone, every day. Other tools in that same suite? Fewer than one in ten of our staff opened them on a typical school day. One application was seeing daily use from about 1–2% of the people we were paying to license. And to be fair, none of that came from bad decisions. Every one of those licenses was purchased for a good reason by people trying to make sure staff had what they needed. That’s the trap: universal licensing feels like the safe, generous choice… right up until the usage data shows you what people actually reach for.

The fix wasn’t buying anything. It was committing to the suite we already paid for, migrating everyone onto one platform, and right-sizing the leftover licenses to the finance, admin, and operations roles that genuinely used them. The modeling alone showed five figures in annual savings, way before we ever talked about adding a single new tool. Almost every district I know has a version of this hiding in their renewal list.

The part I didnt put on facebook? None of it was easy. I sat in those meetings, and nobody wants to be the person who says, “I think it’s time.” I WAS that girl once, and it landed with a thud. Not because the numbers were wrong, but because change is hard, even good change. Teachers have built lessons around it. Students know it. Someone remembers a success story from three years ago. Every platform in a district has somebody who loves it, which is exactly why these decisions are never just financial. They’re emotional. When we consolidated platforms, we didn’t rip the band-aid off. We ran a small pilot first, announced the timeline early, migrated in waves, kept the old system running in parallel during the transition, and made sure people’s years of work moved with them. Sunsetting a platform without a plan for the people who depend on it isn’t leadership. It’s just a reason to make people REAL MAD at you and question your decisions moving forward.

I’ve now come to believe one of the most underrated leadership skills isn’t selecting technology, it’s curating it. It’s the audit, the review, the data dig into its usage AND, in Amber land, the impact it’s having on student achievement. Why do we keep paying for tools that aren’t showing an ROI on our students’ growth?

Every new tool means another login, another training, another parent question, another tech ticket, another thing a teacher has to remember on a Tuesday afternoon while juggling a hundred other priorities. We rarely talk about the cognitive load of technology, and we should, because sometimes the best thing you can give teachers isn’t another amazing app. It’s one less thing to think about.

The same logic applies to AI. I’m genuinely excited about what it can do in education,  I use it almost every day, and I believe it’s already changing how leaders work, communicate, and solve problems. But AI won’t fix scattered systems. If your information lives in six different places, AI just helps you search six places faster. If your workflow is inefficient, AI accelerates the inefficiency.

So before asking “what AI tool should we buy,” I’d rather districts ask a few harder questions. What work are we actually trying to make easier? Do we already own a tool that can do it? Because if your suite already includes an AI assistant, you may already be paying for the thing you’re about to buy twice. What could we eliminate instead of adding? What if we doubled down and learned the thing we’re already paying for REALLY WELL… then decided whether it meets our needs? In one budget cycle, that lens alone cut several things we were paying 100% for while using 20% of what they offered.

Good technology leadership isn’t measured by how many tools a district owns. It’s measured by how invisible the technology becomes. When systems are clear, intentional, and well supported, teachers stop thinking about the technology and start thinking about students. That should always be the point.

Former dashboard reviewer and