Lightspeed Systems Product Roadmap Webinar: What’s Next in 2024

2024 marks the 25th anniversary of Lightspeed Systems serving the K-12 education market. Today, the dedication and commitment to the mission of education and keeping students safe remains the company’s guiding principle. Although things, including Lightspeed System’s product suite, may look different from 1999, when Christina Aguilera’s “Genie in a Bottle” ruled the top of Billboard’s Hot 100 Singles list, our passion remains strong.  

On February 21, the team provided one of many regular updates to clients of Lightspeed System’s product portfolio in the webinar, “Product Roadmap: What’s Next in 2024.” As always, guiding Lightspeed Systems’ product priority involves an incredible amount of research with district users and leaders, addressing education trends and more. Below, please find a quick overview of the highlights of the webinar.  

K-12 Education Trends

When it comes to the edtech space, it’s important to understand the increasingly complex context of the entire school ecosystem. School districts need solutions to their most pressing challenges and opportunities, all the while demonstrating they are good stewards of public funds.  

As we enter the second half of the 2023-24 school year, educators from decision makers to classroom teachers continue to experience persistent challenges. Our focus at Lightspeed Systems is to deliver solutions that keep students safe, learning, and thriving while meeting challenges head on, including the following:  

• There is a growing mental health crisis affecting our youngest, most vulnerable generation. Together, Lightspeed Systems and its clients successfully intervened in over 1,400 potential incidents of self-harm in the last year.  
• Online security threats continue to grow. Together, Lightspeed Systems and its customers kept district and student data secure by blocking over 3.3 billion security threats. 
• Education has become the preferred target for ransomware attacks, and 80 percent of K-12 schools have reported being hit. 
• While it’s common for a district to utilize over 2,000 apps over the course of the year, the average student uses just 72 apps to accomplish their coursework. 
• Staff shortages are a common challenge across districts, with over 75 percent of districts struggling to fill open positions.  

Lightspeed Systems Product Roadmap 2024

Lightspeed Systems’ product teams focus on delivering solutions that:  

• Enable districts to stay ahead of precocious students and technology trends. 
• Improve the administrative experience for all users. 
• Optimize technology investments across the district. 
• Ensure equity in edtech access and use.  

What’s ahead for Lightspeed Systems products this Spring and beyond? Check out these highlights coming to customers both this quarter and over the remainder of 2024: 

Security & Compliance

Lightspeed Filter: With a focus keeping IT ahead of students and improving the administrative experience, clients will see scheduled reporting and gaming/coding bypass prevention in Spring. Next up in 2024 are continued bypass features, SmartPlay for Vimeo, and easy policy management. 

Lightspeed Digital Insight: With a focus on optimizing technology investments, customers can look forward to enhanced administrative roles, site access requests (in concert with Lightspeed Filter), and approval and public list workflows.  

Safety & Wellness

Lightspeed Alert: In the Spring quarter, Lightspeed Alert will add CPOMS integration to support international school safety. By the end of 2024, adding to recently released Spanish language monitoring and a community Tip Line, the product will also feature both email quarantine and an enhanced alert user experience.  

Engagement & Impact

Lightspeed Digital Insight: In the Spring quarter, customers can expect an app approval workflow (in concert with a teacher app request workflow in Lightspeed Classroom Management, below), an equity map, and SmartSync. 

Lightspeed Classroom Management: In the Spring, adding to the redesigned and easy to use teacher experience, teachers will be able to easily discover and request apps with ease via an integrated app request workflow. Additionally, highly anticipated co-teaching assignment features will deliver benefits.  

Lightspeed Systems Product Roadmap Webinar on Demand

For more details on the Lightspeed Systems product roadmap update for 2024, please access the recording as a webinar on demand. For more information on Lightspeed Systems’ products and their upcoming new features, existing customers should contact their designated Customer Success Managers. Prospective new customers can easily schedule a quick demo to discuss solutions to their highest priority challenges.