Budgets are tighter than ever, positions are going unfilled, and the staff who remain are drowning in administrative work. Meanwhile, back-office functions in HR, transportation, food service, and finance are still running on spreadsheets and software from the 1990s.
The opportunity isn't just "AI in the classroom." It's AI that works while your staff sleeps. AI that handles the 400-email-a-day inbox, the master schedule that takes all summer, the help desk tickets that pile up faster than IT can answer them.
While a lot of the focus has been on large language models (LLMs), districts across the country are starting to figure out to deploy agentic AI to solve real problems and save time. The schools and districts that figure out how to incorporate agentic AI into their workflows won't just run more efficiently, they'll free up resources to invest where it matters most: teaching and learning.
IN THIS ISSUE:
Buying Back Time: What Operational AI Looks like in Practice
The 72% Problem: Why Most Districts Aren't Ready
72%
Percentage of districts using AI for 10% or less of their operations (CoSN)
3%
Percentage of districts using AI for more than 50% of their operations (CoSN)
7%
Districts that feel fully confident that their AI usage aligns with cybersecurity best practices (CoSN)
50+
Hours saved per school by Austin ISD schedulers using AI for master schedules (EdWeek)
363
The number of emails a risk management director at Val Verde USD didn’t have to read at the end of the day after AI triaged his inbox (EdTech Magazine)
Val Verde USD (California, ~19,000 students) Principals use AI to formulate announcements and brainstorm activities to encourage parent night attendance. HR staff use it to improve job interview questions. Other staff draft board documents, project plans, and improve email messages. When the risk management director returned to 400 unopened emails after a day of district business, he used agentic AI to find and summarize the most urgent ones. It whittled the pile down to 37 (EdTech Magazine). That's the difference between staying late every night and going home to your family.
Brevard Public Schools (Florida, ~74,000 students) Accounting staff use AI to design complex Excel formulas. Procurement uses AI prompts to update templates for contracts, bids, and RFPs. Their CTO uses agentic AI to manage security alerts and automate tedious security tasks. The result? "It's given joy back to our staff," says their tech director. "AI takes away administrative hassle and lets everyone do the things they want to do" (EdTech Magazine).
Austin ISD (Texas, ~72,000 students) Using an AI-powered scheduling tool, the district saved principals and their scheduling teams an average of 50+ hours per school. The tool sorts students, keeps students who shouldn't be together apart, balances classes with special education and general education students, and handles the complex constraints that schedulers previously managed by hand. As their director told EdWeek: "Most of our schedulers would spend quite a bit of their summer trying to refine and finish the schedule. It's not quick, you have to basically do it by hand, and there's a lot of opportunity for human error" (EdWeek). That's a job that used to consume someone's summer now taking a few days.
South Putnam Community Schools (Indiana, ~1,100 students) Superintendent Corey Smith wears every hat in his rural district. He uses AI to triage his inbox, surfacing what actually needs his attention. When he writes an announcement, AI converts it into formats for the website, text messages, and Facebook simultaneously. When vendors submit RFPs, he feeds them into AI with his grading rubric for initial sorting. When he gets budget reports, he uploads them to spot trends he might miss. "Email is the devil as a superintendent," Smith told EdWeek. "It's one of the biggest time sucks that I have" (EdWeek).
OUR TWO CENTS
The pattern across these four districts is clear: size doesn't determine readiness. Val Verde has 19,000 students and a dedicated AI committee. South Putnam has 1,100 students and one superintendent wearing every hat. Both are finding ROI. The difference isn't budget or staff. It's willingness to start with a specific pain point instead of waiting for a comprehensive strategy.
We talk to district leaders weekly who say they're "not ready" for AI. But readiness isn't the issue. The issue is that the normalized inefficiencies in your organization are actively draining your budget and burning out your staff. Every hour your scheduler spends on manual work is an hour not spent on students. Every email your administrator triages by hand is energy not spent on leadership. The cost of doing nothing isn't zero. It's compounding.
Ask where time disappears. Survey your department heads: "What takes you longer than it should?" The answers will point to your highest-ROI AI targets.
Calculate your hidden costs. Pick one administrative process (scheduling, help desk, email triage, substitute coordination). Estimate how many hours it consumes annually. Multiply by average hourly cost. That's your baseline.
A CoSN survey of 281 district technology leaders delivered the reality check: 72% of districts use AI for 10% or less of their operations. Only 3% have crossed the halfway mark.
The barriers are predictable:
61% say their data is siloed or needs cleaning before AI can use it
Only 7% feel fully confident that their AI use aligns with cybersecurity best practices
Most cite lack of technical expertise and uncertainty about where to start
OUR TWO CENTS
Notice what's not on the barrier list: "We tried it and it didn't work." Districts aren't failing at AI. They're failing to try. The most common answer was "uncertainty about where to start." That's not a resource problem. It's a decision problem. And it's the only one that gets worse with time. As for the 61% waiting for clean data? Data is never "ready." It gets ready when you have a reason to clean it.
Start with processes where a mistake means rework, not crisis. The districts making progress aren't the ones who figured out perfect AI governance first. They're the ones who picked a problem where human review was already part of the workflow anyway.
Audit your operational AI readiness. ClassCloud's AI Readiness Assessment and Barrier Analysis Framework helps districts evaluate where they stand across nine key domains, from leadership and policy to infrastructure, security, and community engagement.
Pick one operational win. Not a strategy. Not a roadmap. One problem, one pilot, one quarter. Prove value, then expand.
Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI by Ethan Mollick
Wharton professor Ethan Mollick wrote the definitive guide to using AI as a colleague, not just a tool. While often cited for classroom applications, his sections on AI as "co-worker" apply directly to the operational challenges district leaders face. His core insight: "One of the main mistakes people make with AI is assuming that because it's a technology product, it should only be used by technical people." If you're making the case for AI beyond IT, start here.
Chat with ClassCloud
We’re listening. Let’s Talk!
This newsletter works best when it’s a conversation, not a broadcast. If you want to talk through how any of this applies to your district specifically, or if you have feedback on what would make this more helpful, just hit reply. We read and respond to everything.
Meet Up In Person
Location: Louisville, KY
Dates: January 28-29, 2026
To Schedule a Meeting: Email Sarah ([email protected])
Location: Nashville, TN
Dates: February 12–14, 2026
To Schedule a Meeting: Email Sarah ([email protected]) or Russ ([email protected])
Schedule a Virtual Meeting
Thanks for reading,
Russ Davis, Founder & CEO, ClassCloud ([email protected])
Sarah Gardner, Director of Growth & Partnerships, ClassCloud ([email protected])
ClassCloud is an AI company, so naturally, we use AI to polish up our content.
