The Challenge
Denver Public Schools (DPS) is one of the country’s largest urban districts, and managing an app ecosystem at that scale is no small feat. With over 1,200 applications in use and procurement happening across multiple teams, the district recognized an opportunity to bring more structure and visibility to the process. IT and academic technology teams were each handling their piece, but without a shared system, there was no centralized view of what was approved, what was in use, or how the two sides connected.
The tool they were using to manage the list had also run its course. It was a single website dependent on one person to maintain it, and when that person moved on, keeping it current became a challenge.
“Our old system was basically just a website that one person would update. Then that person left the district, so it hadn’t been updated in about a year. Having a single point of failure meant that it failed.”
Luke Mund, Manager of Educational Technology, Denver Public Schools
The district needed a centralized, scalable solution that put academics at the center of the procurement process, gave every stakeholder clear visibility, and could hold up over time without depending on any one person to maintain it.
The Solution
DPS implemented Lightspeed Insight as its single source of truth for app visibility, compliance review, and governance. The platform replaced the outdated website with a collaborative, multi-editor environment that could support the full cross-functional team involved in app review, including academic technology, information security, curriculum and instruction, and operations.
The district’s public-facing app list now lives in Lightspeed Insight. When anyone visits atm.dpsk12.org, it redirects directly to the platform, where parents, teachers, and school leaders can see what is approved, what is under review, and what has not been approved along with the specific reason why.
“The communication piece is what we get the most feedback on as being useful. That is parents, school leaders, and teachers. When a teacher wants something, they can come in and see it’s not approved, and why. Having that context next to the tool is what our community finds most valuable.”
Luke Mund, Manager of Educational Technology, Denver Public Schools
The Impact
App Governance and Reduction
Using Lightspeed Insight as the backbone of a structured review process, DPS reduced its app catalog from over 1,200 tools down to 250, with a full review completed on each one. The district now requires every new tool to go through a defined approval process before use, with school leaders and department heads submitting requests that move through review stages tracked directly in the platform.
Instructional Visibility
Beyond the review process, the App Activity Report gives curriculum leaders direct visibility into which tools schools are actually using, down to the campus level. That data is now regularly shared with department leaders, giving them a real-time picture of adoption across the district.
“I just onboarded our math director and one of her project managers because she really lacked transparency into what math apps schools were using. When we pulled it up, she said, I had no idea that IXL was so popular. I knew people used it, but I didn’t know I had 38 active schools in it.”
Luke Mund, Manager of Educational Technology, Denver Public Schools
Budget and Vendor Accountability
DPS also uses Lightspeed Insight to verify vendor claims against real usage data, making sure contract negotiations are grounded in facts rather than estimates.
“When vendors pitch to us saying they’re selling licenses for 60,000 students, I can go in and say we only have 15,000 students actually using this tool. We’ve had vendors try to use three years of active users as their proof of adoption, and then I pull it up and it’s dramatically different.”
Luke Mund, Manager of Educational Technology, Denver Public Schools
That accountability has paid off. Through the combination of app reduction and renegotiated contracts, DPS has saved over $1 million in overall edtech spending, with one-third attributed directly to Lightspeed Insight.
AI Governance
As AI tools have proliferated, Lightspeed Insight has become the district’s primary lens for tracking approved versus unapproved AI usage across student devices. DPS currently maintains a list of 8 approved AI applications while blocking the broader AI category through Lightspeed Filter. When Gemini was approved for students in grades 6 through 12 in April, the district could watch adoption play out in real time.
“We really lacked a measure of what AI usage actually looks like in our district. Being able to track month by month has been really helpful, and everyone who sees that information has called it an eye opener, seeing our progression over the last year, how things have changed, and how students are impacted when we make governance changes. When we approved Gemini in April, usage quadrupled over about a month. It was valuable to see the data behind the decisions we were actually making.”
Luke Mund, Manager of Educational Technology, Denver Public Schools
Screen Time
Screen time has also become part of the conversation at DPS. With Lightspeed Insight’s screen time reporting, Luke’s team can now put real numbers behind a topic generating significant community interest.
“It’s actually better than I would have thought. We’re at about 0.9 of an hour, which in a school day is not a whole lot. That’s about 50 minutes of a 7.5 hour school day.”
Luke Mund, Manager of Educational Technology, Denver Public Schools
For a district of 90,000 students, having that data on hand means conversations with school boards and community members start from facts, not assumptions.
The Takeaway
What started as a desire for a more coordinated, transparent approach to app management has become a fully evidence-based governance system. Lightspeed Insight gives DPS the visibility to make smarter instructional decisions, tighter budget calls, and more accountable vendor relationships, all from a single platform that the entire district community can access.
