Ensuring Operational Efficiency and Cost Management in K-12 Schools

Like it or not, AI is the new trend in education. A February 2025 poll by EdWeek showed that 60% of teachers say they use AI in lessons - up 20% from a similar poll last school year.

As school technology continues to innovate, education administrators must balance the desire to use cutting-edge solutions like AI with the need to maintain operational efficiency and cost management. 

A new report by researchers at Gartner describes the challenge of this balancing act.

Gartner's findings show that schools are seeking to eliminate data silos and consolidate fragmented systems so they can prepare to unlock the full potential of AI and other new technology. 

Read on to learn more about how K-12 CIOs and technology administrators can ensure that the technology they procure is cost-efficient and easy to use. 

Current Challenges To Efficiency

Operational efficiency within school technology is a continuous challenge for K-12 administrators. The Gartner report identifies many reasons for this: 

• Funding constraints on schools post-ESSER funds
• Talent shortages, especially in K-12 IT departments
• Fragmented systems and data silos

The Gartner report identifies operational inefficiency as a central blocker to adopting AI in schools - a critical priority for education leaders nationwide. Therefore, increasing efficiency is essential to unlocking the power of AI. 

Operational efficiency is hampered by several factors:

• Lack of interoperability: the Gartner report suggests that K-12 school districts have "up to 38 active technology solution implementations, creating risk of data silos."
• Arbitrary cost cutting: the Gartner report urges schools to utilize strategic system consolidation to "simplify the IT landscape and drive efficiency," rather than arbitrarily cutting costs.
• Short-term planning: planning for short-term cost savings often harms long-term efficiency by "impacting operating capabilities and limiting the ability to deliver long-term objectives."
• Tightening budgets: Gartner survey data shows that education IT budgets were expected to rise just 2.1% on average in 2024. During a time of inflationary pressures to both staffing and non-staffing costs, many schools may see their actual spending power decrease.

Operational efficiency can be impacted both by financial pressures and by technology challenges. 

Ensuring Operational Efficiency and Cost Management

Schools have the capacity to overcome financial pressures and technology challenges. The Gartner report lays out several ways that schools can ensure operational efficiency and cost management. 

Schools can modernize their technology. The report recommends that K-12 administrators "establish a technical foundation for modernization by deploying enterprise capabilities that are standards-based and cloud-capable."

Schools should leverage technology with the flexibility to support new innovations. The report recommends partnering with vendors which enable artificial intelligence, advanced integration, and workflow orchestration. 

Schools can stretch their dollars with innovative IT infrastructure. The report recommends "reducing on-premises infrastructure investments" and using funds for new technologies and cybersecurity.

Financial pressures are a major challenge for IT departments, which the Gartner report says can often "become a target for cost cutting" within K-12 school districts. According to a survey of education CIOs and technology administrators, 1 in 3 IT administrators feels pressure to improve operating margins. 

IT leaders can overcome this challenge by collaborating with other district administrators to show the business value of a holistic software platform. When holistic software increases interoperability and decreases data silos, schools see increased efficiency and experience added business value. 

Holistic software simplifies cost management and increases operational efficiency.

Choosing The Right Technology Partner

For schools that want flexible solutions in a single platform that allows them to reduce costs and consolidate vendors, Kokomo24/7® is a great option. 

In line with the Gartner report's recommendations, Kokomo24/7®'s holistic platform enables schools to increase operational efficiency and pursue cost management. 

Kokomo24/7® provides the most holistic health, safety, and operational efficiency platform in the education market today. We offer organizations the ability to quickly create niche solutions and utilize its current bundle of highly configurable modules. Kokomo24/7® easily pairs with external services, data sources, and hardware devices to create a seamless interaction with clients’ existing systems.

Since 2018, Kokomo24/7®’s unique configuration-based platform has helped more than 120 leading national and global organizations respond quickly to complex business and operational challenges. The Kokomo24/7® platform continues to evolve to efficiently meet the unique needs of every organization in the areas of health and safety, wellness, communications, compliance, accountability, and incident management.

Request a demo to see the efficiency of the Kokomo24/7® platform for yourself!