K-12 Student Information Systems
The buyer population — Elementary and secondary schools
Base industry report for 611110 →- Establishments · CanadaA
- 2,171
- Under 10 employeesA
- 24%
- Establishments · USA
- 22,378
- Employment · USA
- 1,114,583
- Payroll · USA
- $51.6B
Of 2,171 Canadian establishments with employees, 24% have fewer than ten — an industry where large establishments carry real weight. Each of those is one potential account, before any filter for size or fit.
Entry signal — what decides who wins here
Execution decidesThe hurdles here are ones a better operator clears. That is not a promise of success — it is the absence of a structural reason you cannot win.
Get to the buyer. The product is reachable and the need is real; the channel is owned by someone else, and a route to it — a partner, a reseller, a trade relationship, a book of clients bought outright — is what has to be built.
Measured, not forecast: the share of US establishments opening in one year that were still active later. It counts good operators and bad ones together, which is exactly why it is the honest answer to “what are the odds”. It is for the whole sector rather than this market, and the ten-year figure comes from an older cohort because no younger one has reached ten years.
This is not a probability of success, and it is not a verdict on you. No survival probability is published per market, and inventing one would be worse than saying so. What the bar reads is how much of the outcome sits inside an operator's control: green means the hurdles are ones a better operator clears, red means the binding constraint is capital, an asset or a permission rather than execution. Someone arriving with an advantage this screen did not assume can win a market shown in red.
Companies named in this market · 7
The binding constraint — distribution
District procurement is RFP-gated, board-approved, and runs on a 12–24 month cycle aligned to the school year. Student data privacy obligations add a heavy compliance floor before first revenue. Nothing is disclosed here. Every vendor named on this record is private, or sits inside a parent that does not break the line out, so no revenue floor can be built and the market size is genuinely unknown rather than estimated.
Sectors joined: EdTech · Gaming/EdTech · Training/AI · EdTech AI · Arts Education · VR/AR Training
[UNVERIFIED] Sector-to-NAICS mapping is analyst judgment — see data/angel-sector-map.json. Counts are a per-record cross-reference and are not additive across records.
The incumbent
Who owns this market and who is coming for it. Fields a screen never reached say so rather than guessing.
Financials & market size — sourced
Figures that came from a filing, a results release or reputable reporting, each carrying its evidence tier.
The field
Every vendor named on this record, and what each one discloses. Most disclose nothing, which is why the market is not sized.
Competitor set · 4 named · 0 disclose revenue
| Name | Revenue | Share | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| PowerSchoolB | not disclosed | — | Taken private by Bain Capital at a $5.6B enterprise value, completed 1 October 2024. Claims 60M+ students and 18,000+ customers [vendor]. No revenue published since |
| Instructure (KKR)B | not disclosed | — | Canvas and Parchment; taken private by KKR at $4.8B. The LMS rather than the SIS, but the same budget and the same buyer |
| Google ClassroomNASDAQ: GOOGLC | not disclosed | — | Free at the point of use and bundled with Workspace for Education — the floor under the whole category |
| Infinite Campus / Skyward / AeriesC | not disclosed | — | Private; the long-standing district-level SIS alternatives |
Nobody here publishes revenue. The market is not sized for that reason — an estimate built on nothing would only look like knowledge.
Startups & challengers
Newer and smaller vendors going at the incumbent — funded challengers first. Named, not researched to the depth of the field above; a company with a page here links to it.
| Company | Stage | What it does | Raised |
|---|---|---|---|
| August Schools | Startup | School health office software: nurse visits, immunizations and medication logs for K-12 | — |
Evidence
Evidence. UNVERIFIED — screened on analyst judgment against the model in _method/screening-model.md. Incumbent names and positions are from general market knowledge and were not independently researched for this record. Verify before acting. Updated 2026-09-18: the two defining transactions are now on the record — Bain/PowerSchool at $5.6B and KKR/Instructure at $4.8B [B]. Those prices are the only hard numbers in K-12 software: both buyers took the businesses private, so the category's scale is now measurable only by what private equity paid for it. Google Classroom is free, which is why it is listed as the price floor rather than as a competitor with revenue.
Where the industry talks
The associations, forums and events where people in this trade actually talk shop — where to listen before entering, and where the first customers are found. Each link was opened on the date shown.
IT leaders of Ontario school boards; runs vendor security/privacy vetting (VASP), ERP and SIS reference architecture, annual conference
Boards of Education represented through its 9 provincial member associations, per home page
K-12 district technology leaders; CETL certification, chapters, corporate membership directory
School business officials (the district finance buyers); 2026 Annual Conference & Expo in Pittsburgh
Vetted membership community for K-12 tech departments; also runs the K12TechTalk podcast and moderates r/k12sysadmin
K-12 IT staff forum where SIS and vendor choices are argued in the open; Reddit blocked automated access, activity confirmed via search
K-12 edtech show; FETC 2027 is Jan 26-29, 2027, Orlando, per event site
Magazine for K-12 IT leaders; ISTELive 26 coverage and cybersecurity features on the K-12 section
OASBO (Ontario school business officials) and ISTE are relevant but OASBO blocked automated access and ISTE is broader than SIS buyers; PowerSchool's customer community is login-gated.