Why school districts are becoming edtech creators.
TRENDS IN EDTECH | by Victor Rivero
For years, the relationship between school districts and edtech companies has been relatively straightforward: vendors built the tools, and schools bought them. But a new shift is emerging—one that could fundamentally reshape the education technology landscape.
District leaders are no longer just technology buyers. Increasingly, they’re becoming builders.
In a recent episode of The Boys of EdTech podcast, Wichita Public Schools CIO Rob Dickson—EdTech Digest’s Future Focus Forums (F3) Senior Advisor and a frequent F3 panel chair— and Peninsula School District Executive Director of Technology Kris Hagel explored what some are calling “vibe coding”—a fast-moving wave of AI-assisted software creation that allows educators and district leaders to build customized solutions in hours instead of months.
The implications are enormous.
What once required software engineering teams, procurement cycles, and costly vendor contracts can now often be accomplished with generative AI tools, low-code environments, and a clear understanding of a district’s immediate needs. According to the podcast discussion, districts are already developing internal applications tailored to their own workflows, in some cases saving hundreds of thousands of dollars.
What Is “Vibe Coding”?
“Vibe coding” is the idea of building software by describing the vibe—or intended outcome—of what you want, then using AI to help generate the code, workflows, or applications behind it. Instead of manually programming every detail, users guide AI with conversational prompts, refining and shaping solutions in real time.
In education, this means district leaders and educators can rapidly create customized tools tailored to their schools’ specific needs—often in hours instead of months—without relying entirely on traditional software development cycles or outside vendors.
That matters because one of the biggest longstanding frustrations in K–12 technology has been the mismatch between generalized products and highly specific district realities. Vendors design platforms to scale nationally. Districts, however, often need tools that solve very local problems.
AI is beginning to close that gap.
From Buyers to Builders
Instead of waiting for feature requests to make it onto a product roadmap, technology leaders can increasingly prototype and deploy solutions themselves. In this model, schools are no longer passive consumers of innovation—they are active participants in creating it.
This trend reflects a broader shift happening across industries, where AI is flattening traditional software development barriers. But in education, the stakes are uniquely high because the work is so contextual. Student services, transportation systems, intervention tracking, substitute management, family communication, and curriculum workflows all vary dramatically from district to district.
Historically, customization has been expensive. Now it may become expected.
The New Build-vs.-Buy Era
One of the most compelling ideas raised in the podcast is that software itself may be reaching a maturity point. Rather than relying on increasingly bloated platforms stitched together through countless integrations, AI could enable simpler, more intelligent systems that sit closer to the data and automate workflows dynamically.
That possibility raises a provocative question: if districts can increasingly build what they need, what becomes of the traditional edtech vendor?
The answer may not be extinction—but evolution.
Vendors may shift away from being primarily application providers and toward becoming infrastructure partners: supplying secure data environments, interoperability layers, governance frameworks, and trusted AI ecosystems on top of which districts can innovate. In other words, the value may move from the software interface itself to the reliability, security, and scalability underneath it.
And that’s where caution enters the conversation.
Innovation Meets Responsibility
As Dickson and Hagel note, the excitement around AI-generated solutions must be balanced with serious considerations around cybersecurity, student privacy, and responsible decision-making. Building quickly is one thing; building safely in a K–12 environment is another.
District-created tools still require governance. They still require ethical oversight. And they still require human judgment.
That may be the defining tension of this moment in education technology: AI can accelerate creation, but it cannot replace wisdom.
The conversation also surfaces a deeper philosophical issue. AI systems may become increasingly intelligent in terms of processing, prediction, and automation—but education is fundamentally human work. Schools are built on relationships, trust, empathy, and context. The challenge for district leaders will not simply be deciding what AI can do, but what it should do.
Even so, this moment feels different.
Why This Moment Matters
For decades, innovation in education technology largely flowed in one direction—from companies into classrooms. “Vibe coding” hints at a reversal, or at least a redistribution, of that power. The people closest to the problems may now have unprecedented ability to create the solutions themselves.
If that trend continues, the future of edtech may not belong exclusively to Silicon Valley startups or established vendors.
It may increasingly belong to the districts themselves.
Taken together, the discussion reflects why conversations like this are becoming increasingly important across the education sector—and credit is due to The Boys of EdTech team for surfacing the topic at exactly the right moment.
While this particular episode featured hosts Matthew Millstein and Jacob Kantor alongside district leaders Rob Dickson and Kris Hagel, the broader podcast collective—including Ryan Patenaude, Jeff Piontek, and Rick Fernandez—has quickly become a notable voice in the evolving edtech landscape.
Millstein, CEO of Old Soul, has championed relationship-driven growth strategies that use podcasting and authentic conversations to connect education companies with district leaders in more meaningful ways.
Kantor, an EdTech Digest Top 100 EdTech Influencer for 2026, brings nearly two decades of experience helping education organizations build trust-centered partnerships with schools nationwide.
Together with the wider Boys of EdTech team, they are creating something increasingly valuable in education: candid conversations that don’t just react to trends, but help identify where the future of teaching, learning, and technology may be headed next.
Watch this and more episodes of The Boyz of EdTech here.
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Victor Rivero is the Editor-in-Chief of EdTech Digest and Executive Producer of EdTech Digest’s Future Focus Forums (F3), bringing together edtech companies with top U.S. school district technology leaders for the most effective way to get feedback on new and existing products. Write to: victor@edtechdigest.com
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