How Melissa ISD Built a Safer, More Intentional EdTech Ecosystem

A practical approach to strengthening student data privacy, managing app sprawl, and bringing usage and spending into focus.

“GoTeacher allowed us to look at the programs we have a contracted partnership with, but also what students and teachers were going to that we didn’t have a contract with. That helped us guide teachers and campuses toward more approved resources for our district.”

— Hillary Croissant, Director of Curriculum, Melissa ISD

The Challenge: When Apps Accumulate Faster Than Governance

It is surprisingly easy for applications to accumulate across a school district.

A teacher finds a useful resource and signs in with their school Google account. A student tries a new AI tool. A free application gets introduced for one class or project. Many of these tools never go through a traditional purchasing process, but they can still become connected to district accounts and student data.

Melissa ISD had experienced the same challenge. When the district began working with GoTeacher, nearly 1,000 applications had accumulated across its Google environment over several years, including the rapid expansion of digital learning during and after COVID.

The district needed a better way to understand what was connected, determine which applications should continue to be supported, and make sure the appropriate student data privacy agreements were in place.

Step 0: Get the Privacy Foundation Right

Before looking at software ROI or deciding what to renew, Melissa first focused on the foundation: which applications should be part of the district’s environment and whether they had been appropriately vetted.

Reviewing hundreds of applications individually would have created a significant amount of work. GoTeacher helped automate the vetting process and worked with Melissa to narrow the broader universe of connected applications to approximately 100 tools the district intended to continue supporting.

The next step was making sure the appropriate data privacy agreements were in place.

Resources such as the Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC) make it easier for districts to build on privacy work already completed by other school systems. Where applicable, districts can use mechanisms such as Exhibit E to extend an existing agreement instead of negotiating separately with every vendor.

GoTeacher handled this process with Melissa, helping identify existing agreements and supporting the work needed to put the appropriate privacy documentation behind the applications the district planned to continue using.

This gave Melissa a much stronger starting point: a defined set of applications the district could intentionally support and manage.

Understanding What Is Actually Being Used

With that foundation in place, Melissa could start looking beyond whether an application was approved and understand how its EdTech portfolio was actually being used.

Previously, usage information often came directly from individual vendors, making it difficult to compare applications consistently across the district.

“With GoTeacher, it provides a comparison of all the different programs that we look at all at the same time, which is huge because we would meet individually with different programs and they would provide usage, where this one program was able to allow us to look at all of them at once.”

That district-wide view also helped Melissa identify where multiple applications were serving similar purposes.

“The biggest one that we noticed was the duplication of tools where we were able to really analyze what multiple programs we had access to that our kids had access to that did the same thing.”

Instead of evaluating applications in isolation, Melissa can compare similar resources and make clearer decisions about which tools it wants to continue supporting.

Connecting Usage with Spending

Melissa is now taking the next step by connecting software usage with contracts and spending.

The district can see which programs are being used in classrooms and compare that activity with how much it is investing in each resource.

“We can compare and see the usage of which programs are benefiting our students the most, which are being used in the classroom, as well as how much financials are tied to each program. And that allowed us to really compare: are the dollars that we’re tying into programs being used to their full potential?”

This becomes particularly valuable as renewal season approaches. Instead of looking at teacher feedback, vendor reports, contracts, and usage separately, Melissa can bring those signals together when deciding what to continue, consolidate, or reconsider.

A More Intentional EdTech Ecosystem

Melissa ISD started by solving a student data privacy challenge, but that work created the foundation for something broader.

The district now has a clearer understanding of the applications it intends to support, better visibility into what students and teachers are actually using, and a growing picture of how that usage connects to contracts and spending.

“The pilot really helped us move towards an intentional and data-informed approach to managing all of our EdTech tools, and we’re excited to build on that work.”

For Melissa, student data privacy was Step 0. Getting that foundation in place has made it possible to move from simply keeping track of applications to managing the district’s EdTech ecosystem more intentionally, from what gets approved to what ultimately gets renewed.