Team of one: Revamping security across district faculty

It’s no secret that stagnant password security in school systems creates vulnerability, risking cyber threats and unauthorized data access. Outdated practices, like weak or reused passwords, increase the risk of breaches, compromising student and staff confidentiality. Yet, for administrators like Zaire Thyben in Wisconsin, updating password practices proves daunting, especially when applying changes across the entire faculty of the Mequon-Thiensville School District. Here’s how he successfully revamped security with Clever’s partnership.

Ready to roll out security changes across your schools? Talk to a Clever IDM specialist.

The problem: Decades-old passwords pose security implications

Unaware of the risks, many teachers use the same password for decades, putting schools at a significant security risk. This issue arose with a teacher in the Mequon-Thiensville School District, who kept the same password for over 20 years.

Zaire, the Director of Information Technology, recognized the urgent need for better security practices but faced barriers in making changes. Managing the transition, selecting the right tool, and making sure it fit with the district’s existing Google setup felt overwhelming for Zaire, a mighty tech team of one. And on top of that, anticipating resistance from the faculty added to the project’s complexity.

The solution: Revolutionizing school security with seamless IDM rollout

Choosing Clever IDM (Identity Management) was pivotal for the district, offering a tool that not only improves security but also smoothly fits with their Google setup.

Partnering with Clever eased the transition for Zaire and his team. Clever IDM provided teachers with a single secure password for accessing various apps and their devices, enhancing security and encouraging educators to embrace change.

Implementing Clever IDM before the Back to School season automated over 900 account creations and made over 18,800 updates – streamlining more than 19,000 tasks during the busiest time of year.

The impact: Optimized educational operations

• Reduced workload: Decrease in IT support tickets and Back to School chaos.
• Enhanced automation: Exploring the benefits of a streamlined system with minimized room for errors and strengthened security measures.
• Promoting efficiency: How the implementation positively influences educational operations and student data protection.
• Long term benefits: Increased confidence for broad change management like new device rollouts.

Ready to roll out security changes across your schools? Talk to a Clever IDM specialist.

The post Implementing school security tools with a team of one first appeared on Clever.

In September 2023, Steve Archer, the computing subject leader and member of the school leadership team (SLT) at New Longton All Saints’ Church of England Primary School (NLAS), noticed that students were spending up to 20 minutes of learning time by trying to remember their passwords and log into Chromebooks. After implementing Clever GO, students regained classroom time by quickly logging into their Chromebooks and popular learning applications using Clever Badges, a physical passcode similar to a QR code.

The challenge: Chromebook login struggles block learning

Students at NLAS faced a significant hurdle – in a 60-minute lesson, classes were losing up to 30%, up to 20 minutes, of learning time due to login delays. Password vulnerabilities, from looking over students’ shoulders to help them log in to writing down passwords, led to only 5% completion of the computing course curriculum within the term. This led to a learning loss and gap, which would be passed on to teachers in the upcoming terms. Additionally, once Archer learned that teachers were so frustrated with Chromebook login issues they would avoid using them, he knew something had to be done to increase the usage of school-purchased devices.

The solution: Single sign-on into devices and applications with Clever GO

After learning about Clever GO from Simon Hunt, Archer knew he found a simple solution to solve his school’s login challenges. With Clever GO, students use single sign-on to access Chromebooks and learning applications in a single portal – no typing or having to navigate multiple websites. With the help of his school’s IT technician, they implemented Clever GO for Chromebooks in a day by determining which students would need access, uploading one file of five fields, and configuring Chromebook user settings.

After completing the setup, Archer was ready for classroom rollout. Archer identified year 1 and year 2 teacher champions who were most eager to try a new solution. This made it simple to train teachers on how students use Clever Badges, a physical passcode similar to a QR code, for lightning-fast logins into Chromebooks and digital learning applications through the Clever Portal. Archer’s strategy of working with teacher champions not only generated school-wide interest but also reclaimed valuable classroom time for the youngest students.

The impact: Regained learning time makes an impact in the classroom

Thanks to Archer introducing Clever GO into classrooms, students have a faster, more secure way to log in. Now that classrooms have saved an aggregate of 20 hours of learning time in just 3 months, they have been able to complete 100% of their computing curriculum within the term. NLAS has taken further steps to help strengthen his school’s technology program, including purchasing more Chromebooks, increasing usage of their technology in lessons, and starting the path to becoming a certified Google School. Teachers no longer have login issues and are eager to use technology in the classroom, thus helping the school get more return on investment on their Chromebook purchases. Archer also shared that with Clever GO, students have learned the benefits of SSO as a security best practice, through Badges and the Portal. Plus, students look forward to the Clever chime sound when they login to their Chromebooks with Clever Badges!

Tips from NLAS Educators

The post U.K. School reclaims 30% of learning time with Clever GO first appeared on Clever.

In today’s educational landscape, safeguarding student data is paramount. While internal defenses in districts are key, it is also critical to consider how the edtech vendors you work with are prioritizing security measures to protect students and faculty. 

The crucial role of edtech vendor security in schools

Edtech vendors play a key role in supporting comprehensive school security. However, for K-12 administrators—particularly those managing tech responsibilities alone—vetting vendors for data security can pose a challenge. Engaging with vendors who struggle to grasp the school’s stringent requirements often leaves administrators hunting for transparent insights into encryption and data storage within complex policies. 

To support administrators in this process, this guide offers steps to vet and select vendors with a cybersecurity-focused mindset.

Latest insights into edtech vendor security

Vendor security is an integral part of any school district’s security strategy. Our recent Cybersecure report reveals a new trend: 55% of districts have updated their vendor security requirements in the past two years, with an additional 65% expecting further changes in the coming year. Regular audits and detailed vendor reports greatly bolster a strong cybersecurity approach.

Key steps for evaluating edtech vendors on security protocols

When seeking secure edtech partners, school leaders should prioritize the following essential steps:

Establish clear vetting standards tailored to your school’s policies and priorities. 

Rigorously evaluate each vendor against your organization’s benchmarks for the data they are handling.

• Define specific security benchmarks: Develop a comprehensive list of security benchmarks that align with your school’s unique policies and priorities. Consider aspects such as data encryption standards, access controls, incident response protocols, and disaster recovery plans.
• Prioritize compliance requirements: Ensure that the vetting standards address compliance needs, including local, state, and federal regulations related to student data privacy. Align these requirements with the vetting criteria for potential edtech vendors.
• Evaluate vendor capabilities against school policies: Rigorously assess each potential vendor against the established benchmarks. Analyze how well their security practices align with your school’s policies and priorities, emphasizing transparency and accountability in handling sensitive data.
• Customize assessments for different types of data: Tailor the vetting standards to accommodate various types of data handled by vendors. Consider demographic information, academic records, personally identifiable data, and any other sensitive information shared with the vendor.

It is important for every school district to develop policies and priorities that best suit your district. We recommend using rubrics created by neutral third parties, such as:

• CoSN: K-12CVAT: K-12 Community Vendor Assessment Tool 
• CoSN: Cybersecurity toolkit on authentication management
• CoSN: NIST Cybersecurity Framework Resources Alignment for K-12
• CoSN + CISA: Online Cybersecurity Toolkit
• CISA: Online Toolkit: Partnering to Safeguard K-12 Organizations from Cybersecurity Threats 

Clever has a close partnership with CoSN and we’ll continue to support the creation of neutral third-party rubrics to provide districts with unbiased evaluation sources.

Vetting vendors for data security has proven difficult, as many don’t understand our requirements and we struggle to get clear answers about encryption and where data is kept. Vendors need to simplify this information rather than hide it in lengthy policies. It’s time for edtech companies to step up and share the responsibility for protecting student data.

– Geoff Jones, Director of Technology, River Valley School

Close examination of vendor privacy security protocols.

Ask detailed questions about data encryption, access controls, breach responses, logical segregation and other safeguards.

• Data encryption: Do you encrypt data both at rest and during transit? What specific encryption methods do you employ for data at rest? Additionally, what measures do you have in place for data during transit, and do you exclusively use HTTPS across your platform?
• Security practices and audits: Can you provide detailed insights into your security practices? Do you have any external audit reports available for us to review? Additionally, could you elaborate on your vulnerability disclosure program and its specific details? Furthermore, do you conduct an annual penetration test, and would it be possible for us to access the latest version?
• Incident response and recovery plans: What protocols do you have in place for incident response? Could you outline your disaster recovery plan? Moreover, how swiftly do you notify clients in the event of an incident?

Here at Clever, we’re committed to supporting a secure, interoperable digital learning ecosystem. Learn more about our comprehensive security program.

Key insight: According to our latest report Cybersecure 2024, the most common cybersecurity district requirements of vendors include multi-factor authentication (50.5%), data encryption (39%), and role-based access controls (36%).

Conduct ongoing monitoring, reassessing vendor relationships at least annually. 

As part of ongoing vigilance in assessing vendor reliability, it’s essential to conduct regular checks, data audits, and control verifications to adapt to evolving risks. Consider the following questions:

• Assessing organizational changes: Has our organization’s tolerance for security incidents regarding student or teacher data changed? Are we increasingly utilizing Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) tools that store data outside our network? Have there been alterations in the type of data we share with vendors, especially concerning demographic data shared with multiple vendors?
• Reviewing edtech vendor security practices and changes: Has the vendor significantly modified how or where they store data? How has the frequency of the vendor’s incident response changed in the last year—has it improved or deteriorated? Have there been notable additions to the vendor’s security features at an accelerated pace?
• Adapting to regulatory and compliance requirements: Have there been alterations in the data protection requirements mandated by local, state, or federal regulations? Additionally, have our cyber security insurance prerequisites for data protection changed?

Empowering school leaders: Collaborative responsibility for edtech vendor security

Safeguarding student data is a collective responsibility, not solely incumbent upon school leaders. Edtech vendors must embrace a transformative shift by implementing simple and transparent security protocols to safeguard student information.

By adhering to these crucial steps and advocating for transparent security measures from edtech vendors, school leaders can significantly enhance their school’s security posture and ensure the robust protection of sensitive student data in today’s ever-evolving digital landscape.

See what Clever can do to support your cybersecurity strategy in 2024. Learn more about our security solutions, or book a call with a cybersecure specialist to discuss your goals.

The post K-12 Administrator guide to evaluating edtech vendor security first appeared on Clever.

In 2023, Clever amplified its focus on systemic change by addressing deeply entrenched patterns. We launched pilots to evaluate performance more fairly, improved our core hiring practices, and emphasized the need to create psychological safety. Clever launched a supplier diversity program and continued its commitment to product equity. We recognized the importance of applying a DE&I lens to various aspects of the organization and celebrated our community’s role in driving DE&I initiatives. This blog post is a summary of what we’ve learned and achieved this year.

New directions for DE&I at Clever 2023

We’ve shared previously that in 2021 and 2022, our DE&I work was more focused on building the right internal infrastructure for our efforts, educating all Cleverites about the role they play in contributing to DE&I and an optimal work environment, and beginning to take a more critical eye toward our people processes and systems. This has been important work. However, one profound belief that we have is that DE&I is not a list of programs or activities. Rather, we must hold strong clarity and conviction that this work is about changing what’s been systemic, patterns deeply entrenched in organizations that may not serve all employees. It’s about examining one’s culture thoroughly, taking a hard look at systems, and shifting everyday practices and behaviors that don’t lead to the outcomes we want.

At Clever, we always try to be honest and transparent that we have a long way to go to reach our aspirations to be an equitable and anti-racist organization. And the work is not easy – In fact, we at Clever must continually persist through our mistakes and failures around DE&I and the competing priorities that inevitably arise. And DE&I work that brings to light the systemic, deep-seated, sometimes hidden dynamics is the type of DE&I work that tests organizations the most, including ours.

To move in this direction, we have to experiment even more than what we’re used to. Thus, 2023 took our DE&I efforts to new levels of experimentation, and we tried new ways of doing, being, and thinking across the organization.

“At Clever, our commitment to DE&I goes beyond just words; it’s a lived reality. Our efforts build an environment for individuals from different departments and backgrounds to come together, freely share our thoughts, experiences, and discoveries. It’s what I’m most proud of.”

-Abby Almontaser, Customer Support

Focus on psychological safety and examining our culture

We introduced the concept of psychological safety more formally to the organization through an all company workshop in 2022 and discussed its strong relationship to DE&I. However, we know that having comprehensive psychological safety across an entire organization – within different teams, cross-functionally, and in broader forums – does not magically happen. And to drive this work a bit deeper, we focused on core facets that lead to more psychological safety, such as the ability to fail and make mistakes, share tough problems and issues, and feel like your unique skills and talents are valued.

As with all organizations, there are important elements that make a culture great and other aspects that may unintentionally exclude. Clever has historically been a highly collaborative and optimistic organization, which is still true and is exemplified by our culture tenets! At the same time, this aspect of our culture can also mean that we lean toward talking about what’s going well, experience more hesitation to bring up concerns, tend to avoid conflict, and have a hard time sharing important critical feedback. A big question we’re asking ourselves is: How might we talk more openly about failures and reframe our view of failure/conflict as productive and part of learning? 

Additionally, psychological safety is not experienced the same by everyone and is completely impacted by one’s social identities. The cost of speaking up and making mistakes are different for those in historically marginalized groups, particularly for women and people of color, than those in more systematically advantaged groups. This understanding must be baked into any psychological safety work an organization pursues.

Through our company offsites, we introduced new tools to have difficult conversations, understand the spectrum of failure, contextualize psychological safety in light of historically marginalized and advantaged social identities, and uncover what can impede our desires for change. That said, one-size-fits all solutions only can take us so far. And, of course, adopting new tools into our everyday behaviors and practices takes time. The challenges that impede psychological safety may vary across immediate teams and cross-functional teams.

Through a workstream focused on a more inclusive and equitable culture, we are leaning into this idea and testing more tailored solutions to diagnose psychological safety challenges and build customized plans for teams. We are also exploring more ways to increase recognition opportunities, so all Cleverites feel they are valued and have contributed to the company in meaningful ways.

We will continue these efforts into 2024.

Rethink and redesign: People processes and systems

Equitable performance management

In 2022, we engaged in a yearlong process to evaluate our performance and promotion processes through a lens of equity – and we learned a lot about what employees appreciated, their critiques of the process, and approaches that other companies are using. We immediately got to work on more low hanging fruit such as ensuring more consistency in each part of the process and being more transparent about the process. We made significant headway on more “medium”-sized improvements such as redesigning and clarifying what’s expected to progress in our job levels. And then there are more foundational changes that require additional time to decide if it’s the right direction and more education and change management to make happen. So for this year, we built upon the research and insights to launch a series of pilots aimed at the underlying changes around how to more fairly evaluate performance. 

We also practiced with tools that describe common DE&I dynamics and curated more intentional moments to normalize a culture of interrupting bias. Managers attended training in 2022 around managing equitably and this year, engaged in a series of labs to put key concepts around managing equitably into action in their day to day. We also incorporated key moments for managers to identify, name, and disrupt bias that may emerge in our performance process. Through our learning and development program, we created a bespoke offering for all employees to uplevel one’s DE&I analysis and ability to interrupt bias in various settings.

Hiring and recruiting

For many technology companies, 2023 was a tough year given the macroeconomic climate. Similar to many tech companies, we slowed down external hiring efforts this year. This provided a perfect opportunity to audit and revamp important parts of our recruiting and hiring process. We detail these efforts in our 2023 diversity report.

When hiring Cleverites for the past few years, I have applied our new DE&I strategies to ensure we reach out to more people consistently, and encourage more people to apply. We want to make clear that people from all backgrounds and ethnicities are welcome to be considered for these roles.

– Oscar Sanchez, Engineering

Bridging the gap: Product equity principles and operations

In 2022, we published a set of product inclusion principles to help guide our product decision making in service of more equitable edtech. Through a cross-functional team, we spent this year continuing to operationalize them, attempting to close the gaps between our aspirations and current practices in the product lifecycle. When we have more product equity and inclusion, we’re better able to serve our customers and their needs in the long run.

This year, we identified four areas to accelerate our ability to fully enact these principles for greater customer impact: 

1. Create a more rigorous and defined process for grappling with complex product decisions that have clear equity implications
2. Build the internal infrastructure to identify and surface equity issues quicker
3. Empower our product teams with the right tools to conduct inclusive research
4.  Increase the opportunities for more direct student and teacher input through levers such as school visits

Of course, there are some critical initiatives, such as our accessibility work, that have been well-established for several years and remain a focus.

Lastly, we know that our internal communities, such as employee resource groups (ERGs), can be a key partner in identifying improvements that can lead to better products that serve all. As our ERGs have matured and grown over the last few years, they’ve leveraged their lived experiences to consult and make recommendations on products.

Launching our first supplier diversity program

For the first time ever, Clever launched a supplier diversity program. We believe supplier diversity is important for a number of reasons: the positive competition it can create in a historically homogenous supplier group, generation of economic opportunities, new avenues to create partnerships, and for potential means to innovate. And, supplier diversity is a way to have more intentional behaviors and practices that uphold our commitment to DE&I externally. 

Many large organizations already have well established supplier diversity programs. And while we knew that we could certainly learn from the best practices of larger companies, we also simultaneously adapted practices to fit our smaller company context. Through an evaluation of current suppliers, we made some key findings this year around our patterns of partnering and spending, which will inform the direction of our efforts next year and beyond.

This work is just beginning, and we’re eager to learn from other smaller technology companies about their efforts. 

During the pandemic, I heard teachers urging edtech companies to use their power for a greater good—a sentiment I fully supported. That’s why I jumped in to help launch Clever’s supplier diversity program, aimed at more mindful company spending.

-Erin Browner, Marketing

Reflections from the year

Expand the aperture of what constitutes DE&I work

Building DE&I into the fabric of an organization means that we have to see DE&I work in a different light. When leaders think about DE&I work, the first things that usually come top of mind are employee resource groups and recruitment/hiring work. Even at Clever, early conceptions of DE&I focused on these elements. And don’t get me wrong: These are absolutely critical facets of DE&I work and should continue, be elevated, and supported. 

That said, we’ve learned that we have to talk about and think about our DE&I efforts in a more expansive way. There are pieces of DE&I work that may not feel like the obvious or traditional type of DE&I work but are critical to ensuring more optimal workplace conditions where all, regardless of background, can thrive. In fact, technically, pretty much anything could be considered DE&I work because DE&I is primarily an approach and lens that can be applied to many contexts, situations, and even job functions.

For example, culture change work cannot be done as effectively without a lens around DE&I. Learning and development cannot be done as effectively without a lens around DE&I. To manage or lead a team effectively, one must have a DE&I lens.

Ambiguity is an opportunity

It’s probably apparent by now that at Clever, we don’t shy away from experimentation or venturing to try new things! We think this is something in our culture to be preserved. But, trying new things does not mean taking uninformed guesses.

As in the case of our new supplier diversity efforts, part of experimentation involved learning best practices from others and then adapting to what would work for us. This is also true of our equitable performance management efforts; in our pilots, we melded what research tells us about equitable and fair performance management with what’s worked well in other organizations, and modified for our organizational context.

An important point we’ve been reflecting on is that when wading through the ambiguity and complexity, we need to recognize there are many potential pathways. There’s not “one right way.” We have to make pivots where needed and constantly evaluate the pathway.

Infrastructure and strong community are key

Last, but definitely not least, we could not forge into new DE&I territories without the incredible foundation and strong community of Cleverites who are deeply passionate about DE&I and are heavily involved. 

Our employee resource groups are a bedrock at Clever and support our internal communities in profound ways. We would not have steady footing to enact other types of change at Clever without them.

We also have Cleverites who have other full-time roles but who make time to support our most critical DE&I efforts through a model where anyone can join a DE&I working group, focused on a specific project, for the year and contribute to DE&I in concrete ways. This has created a community of people who are driving toward the same goals. 

And in fact, our greatest learning over the last few years has been that the most significant and powerful DE&I work happens in community.

We look forward to the impact that we can continue to drive around DE&I in 2024.

To learn more about DE&I at Clever, visit our website.

The post Year in review: Diversity, equity, and inclusion in 2023 first appeared on Clever.

Amid an increasingly hyper-political environment surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion work, it’s important to stay focused on commitments we’ve made and what we know is right for becoming the organization we want to be long-term. Particularly, our goal remains the same: To become an employee workforce that’s as diverse as the schools we serve. 

Making progress toward that goal proved challenging this year because of tough macroeconomic conditions that impacted many companies across the technology sector. Regardless, accountability around our goals and commitments are still critical and part of our values of what it means to thoughtfully engage in DE&I work. And we continue to be steadfast in our annual practice of sharing Clever’s demographic data.

The data

Before we share our commentary and reflections, let’s start with what’s most important: the data itself. 

See Clever’s Annual Diversity Report for the 2023 Year

This information was collected from our human resource information system in October 2023. For previous data, please see our 2022 Diversity Report. Please also see our notes on methodology at the bottom of this post.

Aspirations in 2023

To reflect the diversity of the schools that we serve means that we’ll be better able to serve our customers. However, we know we have gaps in our internal representation: 

1. Public school enrollment of Latinx students is around 28%. Last year, Latinx employees represented 10.4% of employees and are underrepresented in every department at Clever. This year, we wanted to reduce the gap by 2.6% (from 10.4% to 13%). 
2. Public school enrollment of Black students is around 16%. Last year, Black employees represented 16.2% of employees. However, certain departments, such as our technology departments, still show underrepresentation. With potential attrition and accounting for imbalance across departments, we hoped to be ahead of the gap (from 16.2% to 17%)
3. Gender diversity in schools tends to be more balanced. However, public K-12 gender data is limited and does not consider gender non-binary students. Last year, women and non-binary engineers comprised 32% of engineers overall. To achieve more balance, we aimed to reduce the gap by 2% (from 32% to 34%). 

While it should have to go without saying, we want to be very explicit that our goals do not serve as rigid quotas. In fact, quotas or set-asides have been illegal for a long time. Rather, our goals serve as aspirational markers that guide our understanding of who is underrepresented at Clever due to systemic inequities in the technology industry and our workforce. They help us to have difficult and important conversations about representation at Clever and help us to interrogate our biases more thoroughly.

Race/Ethnicity at Clever

Unfortunately, we did not meet our 2023 aspiration of increasing Black representation or increasing Latinx representation. For Clever overall, the representation of Black employees decreased slightly from last year. The representation of Latinx employees increased slightly. In general, the representation across race/ethnicity at Clever has not shifted much since 2022.

In our technical departments, we saw a decrease in Black representation from 8.8% last year to 7.1% this year and a decrease in Latinx representation from 11% to 9.5%. 

Our non-technical departments saw an increase in Latinx representation (from 9.9% to 11.6%) and East Asian representation (from 6.1 to 7.4%). Representation for Black, Middle Eastern and/or North African, South Asian, Southeast Asian, and White employees remained relatively flat from 2022 to 2023.

One area we continue to monitor each year is the diversity that exists on our manager and executive benches. Our manager bench experienced a slight increase in Black representation and South Asian representation but a decrease in Latinx representation. White managers and executive team members continue to make up a dominant portion of Clever leadership.

Gender identity or expression at Clever

We are proud that we reached our aspiration this year to increase gender diversity specifically in our engineering organization. In 2022, 32% of engineers identified as women or non-binary. In 2023, this increased to 40% of engineers.

Our tech organization, which comprises engineering, product, and design, has the most diverse gender representation overall at Clever – 49.2% identify as men, 35.4% identify as women, and 10.8% identify as non-binary.

Our non-tech departments, managers, and executives are predominantly women. 

An area of improvement for Clever is to continue increasing the representation of employees who identify as non-binary and/or gender-non conforming.

Intersectional race and gender

Since 2021, we have also shared high level demographic data at the intersection of race and gender. Intersectionality, a framework first coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, helps us unpack how race, gender, and other social identities might overlap with one another to create systems of power that advantage and disadvantage folks differently. Intersectional data provides more nuance and uncovers what could remain hidden with aggregated data.

With intersectional data, we can even more intentionally understand who is underrepresented at Clever. In this year’s data set, it’s clear that Black men, Hispanic/Latino men, and Hispanic/Latina women are underrepresented. Non-binary folks of all races are also underrepresented. 

Our reflections and learnings from the year

Focus on retention

We’ve always believed that a focus on retention is a non-negotiable to becoming a more diverse organization in the long-term. And because Clever did less external hiring this year than in previous years, retention was even more critical. While factors around retention are often multifaceted, one of the key drivers is career growth and development. Thus, one of our People team priorities in 2023 was centered on employees feeling like they have career development opportunities across all levels and functions. 

Of course, career development can mean different things to different people, from promotions to building skills to understanding one’s career pathway at a company. We expanded our leadership development offerings and role-specific learning opportunities. We started a process to revamp our job levels to provide more clarity around pathways. We worked on manager enablement to increase frequency and bring more consistency to career conversations. We also analyze all performance and promotion data for equity across demographic groups, elevate areas of concern, and work to rectify them. Additionally, our efforts around building company culture provides another lever for retention. You can learn more about that work in 2023 DE&I Year in Review.

Undoubtedly, our retention efforts could still be improved, and there’s always more we’re striving to do to support our employees while they’re at Clever and beyond. Of course, there’s attrition that we’re happy about, especially when employees further their education or switch career paths into something we don’t offer. However, it’s the attrition that we could and should have prevented that we spend extra time thinking about and strategizing how to mitigate this for the future.

I’ve seen the shift in the way the company discusses employee performance over the last year —we are now more focused on employee growth and development within level vs. purely evaluative. This has led to more equitable and meaningful conversations in calibrations and performance check-ins.

-Joelle Barrios, People Operations

Improving internal hiring and recruiting structures and processes 

Given the decreased external hiring activity, this presented a prime opportunity to dive into the work of overhauling portions of our hiring and recruiting process through a DE&I lens. 

Our recruiting team, alongside a cross-functional working group, spent the year reviewing all of the interview questions we have ever used to ensure they align to the day-to-day work and can be answered with clear behaviors and evidence. The team restructured our hiring guides for all departments for more consistency. They evaluated the efficacy and equity of any assessments used throughout a process. And lastly, the team has started work to modify hiring rubrics to anchor more on evidence.

Our recruiting team is deeply passionate about leading fair and equitable processes that help us identify amazing talent, and this work will undoubtedly set us up for the future when our external hiring efforts increase.

Build a culture of partnership to interrupt bias

No organization is immune from bias, which can influence any decisions related to people from hiring to assigning work to promotions. But the work of checking bias can’t be the responsibility of just a few people. Rather, how might we distribute responsibility across the organization for interrupting bias when it emerges in the spaces we find ourselves in? This means normalizing and creating a culture of interrupting bias. Interrupting bias is often more of an art than a science. It’s also natural that people feel nervous to have bias named and believe if it is, they’re being “called out.” So making this part of the culture is inevitably challenging.

That said, we can view interrupting bias as part of a mutual partnership where we’re attempting to build a collective community that truly recognizes every person carries bias. And that, in fact, we will all make mistakes around bias and DE&I at some point. It cannot be avoided. Even DE&I practitioners and professionals make mistakes; this is just part of the learning journey around DE&I. 

But instead of staying silent when we see or experience something, we can partner together and support each other to understand a different perspective. And we can absolutely name bias in a way that is constructive and thoughtful while simultaneously giving grace when naming bias is not perfect. We can all embody a mindset that everyone is still practicing. We can also support people to feel less defensive when bias is named – rather, it’s just part of what it means to adopt a true DE&I lens.

One way that we’re practicing and getting better at interrupting bias company-wide is through a new experiment where we pair hiring managers and recruiters with a hiring advocate, or another employee whose sole goal is to name and surface bias and support all stakeholders in a specific hiring process. They are specially trained on implementing techniques and strategies to practice interrupting bias, particularly across lines of positional power. This role gives an additional trusted partner to the hiring team, alongside the hiring manager and recruitment team leader. 

We don’t think this is a magic panacea for creating the culture we aspire to. However, we think it can be a start and get more people actively practicing and proactively checking for bias and inequity. We also believe it spreads the load of DE&I work across the company since uprooting bias and inequity should be part of everyone’s role.

To find out more about our DE&I efforts in 2023, please see this blog post here.

A note on methodology

For all data presented here, our reporting minimum was more than 3 employees who identified with groups. Otherwise, we risked potentially violating privacy.

We count multiracial people as a member of all the racial/ethnic categories they identify with; this is denoted with a plus sign. Because of rounding and how we ensure the identities of multiracial people are fully honored, the individual percentages may not add up exactly to the overall percentage.

The post Diversity report 2023 first appeared on Clever.

Earlier this fall, we presented our vision for Clever school leaders. I sat down with our CEO, Trish Sparks, to chat about the challenges we’ve seen during the past few years and how we want to partner with you to solve them. 
Here’s a quick summary of how Clever is investing in layered security and interoperability to support K12 schools – watch our full fireside chat or chat with our district partnerships team to learn more. 

Book a conversation with a Clever specialist to discuss your cybersecurity goals.

Layered security for all users 

We know from the Clever Cybersecure 2023 report that one in four schools reported a cyber attack in the last year. That’s why we want to help districts build a secure, modern and steadfast IT infrastructure. 

That starts with consolidating all users in a central unified repository – including classroom users (teachers and students), non-teaching staff, parents, and administration.

Clever is here to support you in building and managing your centralized directory. That way, the right people have access to the right tools at the right time. In 2024, expect expanded user management capabilities for our award-winning identity and access management tool, Clever IDM.

We’re also a proud signatory of CISA’s Secure by Design Pledge. Taking the pledge was a natural extension of our longstanding security posture, and we’re honored to continue supporting over 100,000 schools on their security journey.

Get ahead on cybersecurity planning: Review user management access points ahead of 2024. While automated user management might sound like a nice-to-have, it’s a critical aspect of reducing unauthorized access to critical student data. Talk to a specialist to learn how Clever can help. 

Securing student and teacher data in the digital classroom

Student accounts are also vulnerable to takeovers, both from fellow students & outside attackers. That’s why we want to help schools tackle security like a team sport – and that extends into our classrooms.

Our vision is that security for students doesn’t come at the expense of access or usability – and that will become a reality with the release of Student MFA in Spring 2024. We are also committed to building solutions that include adaptive MFA using school secure networks, and auditing tools to help identify suspicious logins.

Get early access to Clever’s Student MFA solution: We’re looking for schools to provide detailed feedback in the last stages of student MFA development. Join our early-access group to influence the product direction.

Industry-leading LMS and application integrations

When technology isn’t interoperable, it’s easy to see the effects: clunky experiences, data silos, frustrated users. District administrators, teachers, and edtech applications told us that connecting to learning management systems is critical to improving interoperability. That’s why we’re excited to announce Clever LMS Connect – an expansion of the Clever APIs to make it easy for all of your edtech tools to easily and deeply integrate with your LMS.

Get Clever support for your LMS connections: Sign up for the LMS Connect District Waitlist. Then, bring all of your applications into Clever for a secure, interoperable experience when applications start rolling out LMS Connect. 

Ready to learn more?

Reach out to our security specialists chart your layered security roadmap. 

The post Layered security and LMS interoperability advancements announced at Clever CIO event first appeared on Clever.

Challenge: A lean implementation team faces sudden surge in customers

Happy Numbers experienced substantial growth during the pandemic in 2020. This surge in customers underscored the need for an efficient rollout of their program to a large audience of teachers and students. Before Clever, their Implementations Team worked with schools to manually match their rostering needs and formats. They were often using .csv files, which meant that rolling out their tools to millions of students could take over a week for each individual customer. What’s more, keeping rosters up-to-date required a lot of manual work for an already overburdened team.

Solution: Customers gain access within 24 hours

By partnering with Clever, Happy Numbers was able to meet increased demand without expanding their team, or impacting customer service. They securely automate the process of rostering with their customers so that data sharing is instantaneous and they can roll out Happy Numbers within 16-24 hours. Here’s how they do it:

1. Their integrations team sends customers an invitation to connect via the Clever Dashboard that includes recommended data sharing rules. 
2. The district approves data sharing. Then, the Happy Numbers integrations team apply any necessary filters to ensure only the correctly licensed schools and classes are shared. 
3. The connection is launched, and teachers and students can start logging in.

With Clever’s data cleansing capabilities, Happy Numbers and their districts are always on the same page about how data is represented. Moreover, with Clever’s Single Sign-On (SSO) and Badges, students and teachers can effortlessly access the platform, eliminating the hassle of juggling multiple passwords.

Impact: Happy Numbers doubles its user base and improves onboarding experience with existing team of 5

Streamlined implementation: This partnership relieves the burden of navigating intricate technical implementations so the Happy Numbers team can focus on providing optimal math learning experiences for students. Clever streamlines and standardizes the process for their customer success team, ensuring everybody is on the same page. They have been able to maintain a lean implementation team of 5, while doubling their user base on Clever through facilitated discovery of their application. 

Improved onboarding for schools: They have also significantly reduced the onboarding time for hundreds of thousands of educators and districts to just 24 hours in the majority of cases. They are able to do this for new customers, and during annual renewals with long-term customers to switch them from manual rostering to automated rostering via Clever. 

Doubled user base: With district administrators approving usage of Happy Numbers on Clever, and seamlessly making it available to teachers via the Clever Portal, adoption among teachers and students has accelerated rapidly to more than double Happy Numbers’ total user base, and increasing student activations 1.5x. Teachers in approved districts can launch the application for their class at the click of a button, saving countless hours of instruction time. What’s more, teachers can easily discover Happy Numbers through the Clever Library by browsing thousands of glowing reviews from their peers, launch it instantly for their class even if their district is not yet a customer, providing a valuable upsell channel for the Happy Numbers team to continue growing their customer base.

The post Happy Numbers doubles reach in K-5 schools first appeared on Clever.

Canva for Education fosters the development of critical skills such as digital collaboration, design, and visual communication, preparing students for the future workforce. Teachers and students can easily bring their ideas to life using high-quality templates for presentations, posters, infographics, videos, digital whiteboards, newsletters, websites, parent communication, and more.

Creativity tools designed for K-12 at your fingertips

In partnership with Clever, Canva for Education’s digital creativity tools are easily accessible with the click of a button via the Clever Portal. 100% free to K-12 districts, this partnership brings you:

1. Seamless rostering: Student access is updated in real-time with secure, reliable, automated rostering, removing the need for manual account creation. 
2. Secure, delightful logins: Students and teachers can login with the same Clever Badge or user credentials they use to access all their other applications, reducing lost instruction time on troubleshooting logins.
3. Safe-for-school content: Rest-assured that both Canva for Education and Clever are FERPA and COPPA compliant, and content has been vetted to be safe and appropriate for the school environment.
4. Advanced management and controls: District administrators remain in control of provisioning, access control and student publishing or sharing options with a product designed specifically for K-12 schools.

How to access Canva for Education in Clever

Clever administrators can request to connect to Canva for Education via their Clever Dashboard here. 

To learn more about the Canva for Education integration and requirements, reference the Canva for Education setup guide in the Clever Help Center.

Once setup is complete, teachers and students will be able to access Canva for Education in the Clever Portal.

Click here to learn more about Canva for Districts.

The post Canva for Education partnership: Elevating classroom creativity together first appeared on Clever.

The challenge: Implement an insurance-approved and end-user friendly MFA solution in just 4 weeks 

Nettle Creek School District, a small district in Indiana, faced a crucial challenge: They were required by their insurance provider to implement a robust Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) solution to protect sensitive staff and teacher access. Braden Albert, Director of Technology, and his team were tasked with finding a comprehensive yet user-friendly MFA solution that met insurance requirements and could be swiftly rolled out before the upcoming school year, in just under a month.

Braden’s team was determined to find a MFA solution that would protect access to critical systems like Gmail and PowerSchool, both housing sensitive data. Previous explorations with MFA solutions resulted in experiences with solutions that either couldn’t protect everything they needed such as Windows devices, or were too complex for end users and posed usability issues like breaking some of their Macbook logins. 

The solution: Clever MFA+ meets insurance and district-specific needs with all-in-one solution

In his quest for a suitable solution, Braden discovered Clever’s newly introduced Clever MFA+. Given the district’s seven-year partnership with Clever, Nettle Creek teachers and IT staff were familiar with the platform, comfortable with the easy access and organization of the teacher portal, and only considered new apps that were already “on Clever.”  This familiarity not only made change management easier on the end users like teachers but also helped Braden and the IT team with centrally managed digital learning and access tools in one place.

Braden opted for a 30-day free preview of Clever MFA+ and discovered its capacity to meet the district’s core needs. Clever MFA+ not only ensured strong security for Google Workspace and PowerSchool, their SIS, but also seamlessly integrated with district Windows devices to protect on prem access and support for staff MacBook devices to leverage the built-in biometric functionality.

Braden successfully met the ambitious implementation deadline of July 1st, despite purchasing the solution only weeks before in June, all thanks to the intuitive in-product set up flow, ample help center documentation, and the assistance of Clever’s responsive onboarding team. 

Try a 30-day free preview of Clever MFA+ to see if it’s right for your district!

Key benefits:

• Stronger security for peace of mind
  • The solution offered peace of mind by significantly enhancing security measures, eliminating concerns about weak and unchanged passwords.
• Product and support resources, designed for K-12
  • Clever MFA+ was an optimal choice due to its K-12 specificity, ensuring that it addressed the unique needs of educational institutions better than enterprise solutions.
• Easy to use and deploy for school
  • The simplicity of Clever MFA+’s setup and deployment process was a standout feature. The ample support provided by Clever made the transition seamless for both the IT team and end-users.
• Familiar user experience, simple management and rollout
  • Leveraging Clever’s familiar platform facilitated the adoption of the MFA solution. This all-in-one approach streamlined the rollout and ensured a higher level of user engagement.
• Cost savings with a budget-friendly solution
  • The implementation of Clever MFA+ resulted in the ability to meet insurance requirements.
  • Nettle Creek was also able to purchase Clever IDM to streamline account provisioning for less than they would have paid just for MFA licenses with another vendor. 

About Clever MFA+

Clever MFA+ provides K-12 staff and teachers with one secure login for protected access to key applications and devices. By providing a second layer of authentication, you can better meet insurance requirements and prevent malicious account access with your K-12 partner in secure digital learning.  

Try a 30-day free preview of Clever MFA+ to see if it’s right for your district!

The post Indiana district enhances and secures tech access with MFA from Clever first appeared on Clever.

We all know that the digital education realm is getting more complex and more risky by the day, and keeping our students’ data safe has become a bit of a juggling act. That’s where Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) or two-factor authentication (2FA) has a big part to play – and not just because insurance companies are asking for it. 

We know from the Clever Cybersecure 2023 report, that 1 in 3 school districts or charter organizations plan on implementing MFA in the next 1-2 years. MFA or 2FA has been shown to drastically limit the number of account intrusions by bad actors according to CISA, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency of the United States.

But before you go all-in on an MFA solution for your school or district, let’s help you figure out how to choose the perfect fit—one that’s friendly enough for education but that meets your specific requirements.

MFA guide: 7 Considerations when selecting a multi-factor authentication solution for your school

While cybersecurity budgets may be growing, there is still a lot of scrutiny on where those funds get spent. Before you start sifting through MFA options, let’s break down how to find the best fit solution.

1. Pick a multi-factor solution that’s user-friendly in schools

Has the MFA solution been designed for people who are spending time in schools and classrooms, or for different types of organizations and employees? 

• It’s important to think of your end users’ unique needs—do the second factor options align with teacher or student constraints in your school/district? 
• What happens when your end users get locked out—how do you avoid lost instruction time? Who supports account resets?

2. Cover sensitive school data and access points

Prioritize sensitive PII protection and cover all users with access.

• Consider which systems at your school or district contain the most sensitive data. For many education organizations, this might be their student information system (SIS), learning management system (LMS), behavior management or SEL system, HR or ERP.
• Are there certain systems or applications that insurance is requiring you to protect?
• Do you have onsite servers or specific devices that would require MFA?

3. Imagine the experience of your school users

Marry security with ease to create the best experience for your end users. 

• Do you want a federated SSO and identity solution? Will this require a change from the way your end users access systems today?
• Are you ok with end users having multiple different account credentials and a variety of MFA configurations? Or do you prefer to have one set of credentials and one layer of additional authentication?
• Will you be able to centralize key resources into an access portal for end users?

4. Consider which school users will need protection

Determine who has access to admin controls and sensitive data or whose accounts, if compromised, would have the biggest impact. 

• Are you primarily concerned about external threats? What about internal bad actors? Who needs protection?
• Will you eventually need to protect student access? Will a new solution provide adequate support for student end users?

5. Identify your school training and support needs

Consider internal resources, tech savviness of your end users, and the offerings provided by the vendor. 

• How big is your IT team and do they have bandwidth to onboard, support this roll out and continue to manage a solution? 
• Does the offering provide adequate training resources? Do they have staff to support implementation and roll out? What will the expectations be on your team?

6. Create a timeline for school implementation

Vetting and implementation of any new technology takes time. When change management is involved, give yourself even more time! 

• Is your selection process hinged upon an insurance deadline? If so, it’s good to work back from this date. 
• Do you have time to try a pilot or free trial? This can help you determine if a solution will meet your needs. 
• Is the solution simple or complex to set up and roll out? This will affect your ultimate go live date.

7. Calculate your multi-factor authentication budget

Purchasing new technology is a big responsibility and often involves using public funds that may fall under scrutiny. Ensure the offering you select makes the most budgetary sense. 

• What is your total budget for an MFA solution? 
• How can you maximize your budget? Are there available deals to secure multiple years, products, additional services you can take advantage of?
• Do costs for the offering change year over year?
• Will you need to factor in hardware costs such as hardware tokens for teachers that may not wish to use cell phones?

Choosing an MFA solution for your school or district isn’t just about ticking boxes. It’s about fitting those pieces perfectly into your unique technology puzzle.

Look for a multi-factor authentication solution from a partner you can trust

At Clever, we’re dedicated to streamlining and protecting account access while maintaining an efficient and delightful digital classroom experience. We’ve designed an MFA solution specifically for the classroom– beginning with support for adult users like teachers and non-teaching staff, and soon will have protection for student accounts.

Learn more: Clever MFA+ is built to protect access and secure logins

Remember, taking the time to figure out what your district truly needs isn’t just another item on your to-do list—it’s your secret weapon against cyber criminals and internal naysayers. So, read up, explore those MFA options, and choose the best solution for your unique needs.

The post Multi-factor authentication for schools: How to select the right MFA tool first appeared on Clever.