Edtech Renewals: Ten Questions Every School Board Should Ask

Before approving an edtech line item, ask how many of last year's licenses students actually used. Across 1.8 million K-12 licenses, students used a median of 30 percent. Ten questions follow from that one. Meta Typing Club, a platform with more than 2,000 typing lessons, answers the hardest of them below.

TL;DR: Ten questions a trustee can read off the page in open session: usage, cost per active student, evidence, data, duplication, exit terms.

Where the money goes missing

Ryan Baker's team at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Learning Analytics examined 1.8 million software licenses across 48 districts. Students used a median of 30 percent of them, and 97.6 percent of them never reached the researchers' bar for intensive use, ten hours of use between assessments.

A board voted yes on every one of those dollars.

Monitoring performance is one of six foundational principles from the Illinois Association of School Boards, one state's association: "using data as the basis for assessment, the board constantly monitors" district progress. A renewal vote with no usage figure switches that principle off for the evening. Renewals deserve more scrutiny than new purchases; that is my position, not a finding.

The ten questions

These ten questions belong in the board packet, which the superintendent builds. Four routes exist: a policy amendment, a board self-evaluation goal, a request at a study session, or an agreement with the board president to standardize them. The last costs the superintendent relationship least.

1. What share of last year's licenses was actually used?
2. Which board goal does this serve, and who reports back on it?
3. What is the cost per active student, not per enrolled student? Divide the contract total by students who used the tool twice a month or more, a denominator your board defines.
4. What evidence does the vendor claim, at which ESSA level? ESSA levels run 1 to 4. Levels 1 and 2, which the What Works Clearinghouse calls Tiers, need a statistically significant positive effect, 350+ students and at least two educational sites, under WWC standards.
5. Where does student data live when the contract ends? Ask for the signed data privacy agreement, its deletion timeline, and who in the district signed it.
6. Whose instructional minutes does this consume?
7. Who verified this does not duplicate a tool we already license?
8. What are the term, the notice window, the auto-renewal clause and the price escalator?
9. What would we see in twelve months that would tell us to cancel?
10. If this is a renewal, what has changed since we last voted? Put last year's usage beside this year's price.

Nine of these can be answered in writing. The tenth, what would make us cancel, needs floor time.

What the answers look like for a typing program

We sell typing lessons, so read this as a vendor showing its work. On question 1, our answer: a teacher running a class sees lessons completed per student, so the usage figure exists before the renewal vote. Across 10,000+ learners, daily practice averages about 10 WPM a month, our number, not an outside finding. Ask for district terms in writing, not a consumer plan page.

Question	Weak answer	Answer you can vote on
Utilization	"Teachers love it."	Licensed students who finished a lesson in each of the last eight weeks; ask if the system reports it.
Evidence	"Research-based."	The ESSA level claimed. Typing platforms, ours included, sit at level 4, demonstrates a rationale.

Ask any supplier, Meta Typing Club included, to fill the right-hand column before the vote.

The objection worth taking seriously

The strongest objection to a ten-question checklist is death by diligence, and it is not wrong. A trustee who cross-examines every small subscription has walked into the superintendent's job.

So set a threshold: the ten questions apply above a dollar figure your board picks, to renewals older than two years, and to anything touching student records. The board is not choosing the product. It is refusing to approve a purchase whose success nobody has defined.

Key takeaways

• Students used a median of 30 percent of 1.8 million K-12 licenses.
• 97.6 percent never reached ten hours of use between assessments.
• Cost per active student, counted twice a month, is the honest denominator.
• "Research-based" is marketing; an ESSA level, 1 to 4, is checkable.
• Define the cancellation trigger before the vote.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will asking these in open session embarrass our superintendent?

Not if they arrive in the packet a week early. Questions published in advance let staff prepare; the same questions asked cold on the dais produce defensive answers.

Do we do this for every renewal?

No. Set a dollar threshold and run the ten questions only above it. Any member can still pull an item off consent, which is what separates a consent agenda from a rubber stamp.

Administration says the vendor is "research-based." Is that evidence-based?

No. "Research-based" has no agreed definition, and any vendor can use it. ESSA's four levels do have definitions. Ask which level the claim sits at, and ask for the study.

Can we approve the item but attach conditions?

Yes. The Southern Education Foundation's Center for Outcomes Based Contracting describes contracts where "a substantial part of payment to a service provider is contingent on meeting agreed upon student outcomes." A reporting condition in your motion is a smaller version.

What if nobody tracks utilization at all?

Then you have found something worth the meeting. Table the item and ask staff for a usage report before the next regular session. A district that cannot count logins cannot price a renewal.

Before the next consent vote

Budget season for 2027 renewals starts before most boards look at usage. Put these ten questions on the agenda one meeting before the renewals arrive. If a typing program reaches that agenda, hold us to the list: try Meta Typing Club's lessons, then ask us all ten. More for boards on our school leadership blog.