Three administrators from Edison Township Public Schools skipped the usual round of vendor demos. Instead, they sat at the table while the product took shape, phase by phase, decision by decision. The pilot opens in September 2026. This case study follows the collaborative journey from vision to rollout.
Before this work began, Edison Township relied on multiple disconnected systems to manage student information. Attendance lived in one system. Assessments lived in another. Interventions, family communication, and student records each had a separate home, and none of those systems talked to each other. Teachers spent valuable time searching across systems instead of preparing for the classroom.
"Information about students lived in different places. We knew it. Everyone knew it. We just hadn’t found a way to start fixing it."
The Edison team never sat on the receiving end of a demo. They mapped their own workflows, questioned ideas that looked good on a slide but wouldn’t hold up in a classroom, and worked alongside XDuce Public Services through five structured phases to shape the platform.
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
Defining what one connected view should mean
Gathering input from across the district
Identifying systemic workflow disconnects
Collaborating on the ideal solution
Ensuring compliance and data protection
"What we pushed for that made it into the product..."
"What we had to let go of..."
"What surprised us most about our own schools..."
When school opens in September, teachers will log in once. Everything they need about a student (attendance, assessments, interventions, family communication) will be in one place. Not because a vendor sold it to them. Because the district built it for itself.
Edison’s story is specific to Edison. The math behind it isn’t. Every district running on disconnected systems is paying for that fragmentation somewhere, whether in dollars, staff time, or decisions made without the full picture. Take a minute and see where your own numbers land.
Edison’s pilot starts with something simple: connection. But connection is the foundation everything else sits on. Once the data is unified, AI stops being a buzzword and starts being a tool. Patterns become visible. Risk becomes something you can see coming. Teachers get answers surfaced for them in the morning instead of hunting for them between classes.
What should a new teacher see the moment they log in?
Where are teachers losing time that technology could give back?
How fast can a new question become an actual answer?
Edison's co-design experience offers a practical frame for K-12 districts that recognize the same fragmentation in their own systems. The advice below reflects what district administrators said they would share with a counterpart starting from where Edison started.
Most districts don’t have a tools problem. They have a visibility problem about their own stack.
The problem definition matters more than the solution you eventually pick.
Process matters as much as the product that comes out of it.
You don’t have to replace everything on day one. You shouldn’t.
What do you want to be true for your students by the end of year one? Start there.
XDuce offers a complimentary SmartEducation workshop for New Jersey school district leadership teams. The session walks through your current technology stack, maps where student data is fragmented, and identifies the most practical first step, whether or not it leads to a product engagement. Districts leave with a clear picture of their current state and a recommended path forward.
.svg)
No cost
XDuce covers the discovery session at no charge to the district.
.svg)
No vendor pitch
If there is nothing worth building, the team will say so directly.
.svg)
Your team, our facilitation
90 minutes, available on-site or virtually, on your schedule.