About TERI

The Technology Ecosystem Readiness Index (TERI) is a district-level self-assessment instrument covering the full K-12 technology ecosystem — policy to practice to student development — as one integrated system — not thirty-five disconnected initiatives.

TERI is its own instrument. Prompt-Ed also publishes Human Learning and Development in the Age of Intelligent Technology — a standalone expansion pack for ISTE that brings human-development depth to AI-era curriculum and standards. The two are complementary but distinct: the Framework develops one lane (Curriculum & Instruction) in depth; TERI audits the wider ecosystem of which curriculum is one piece. Use the Framework as one resource alongside CoSN, EDSAFE, Common Sense, TeachAI, and ISTE — TERI organizes how all of them fit together at the district level.

TERI organizes thirty-five checkpoints across five layers:

• Layer 1 — Foundations (Policy, Data & Systems)
• Layer 2 — Curriculum & Instruction
• Layer 3 — Professional Practice
• Layer 4 — Environment & Culture
• Layer 5 — Community & Continuity

How to read each checkpoint

Every checkpoint follows the same structure:

• What this is — plain-language description of the checkpoint.
• Why it matters — the failure mode TERI is trying to surface.
• Connects to — useful cross-references, including ISTE standards, Framework Conditions where relevant, and other strategic frameworks the district may already use.
• Maturity Levels — Not Started / Emerging / Established / Expanding, defined in observable terms.
• Go deeper with — tiered curation: one "Start here" recommendation plus "Also consider" alternatives. TERI does not replace established tools; it integrates them into an ecosystem view at the district level.

Four observable maturity levels

Each checkpoint has four maturity levels, defined in observable terms rather than aspirational ones. Districts self-assess at the level that currently describes their practice, not the one they aspire to.

The profile across all five layers — plus a single named tier (Audited / Developing / Operating / Leading / Innovating) — is the result. No fine-grained numerical score; the profile and tier carry the whole signal.

The three indicators

Budget as cross-cutting authenticity check

TERI treats budget as an authenticity check that cuts across every checkpoint rather than a standalone checkpoint. A district with policies but no funding has paper policies. For any checkpoint where the district self-assesses at the Established level, implementation (including PD, legal review, staffing, communications, and tooling) should be funded in the current budget cycle. For any checkpoint where the district self-assesses at the Expanding level, sustained multi-year funding should be secured. If funding is not in place, the honest self-assessment is one level lower. This principle applies to every checkpoint in every layer and is not restated within individual checkpoints.

Sustainability as cross-cutting lens

TERI treats environmental sustainability as a lens that surfaces on a subset of checkpoints rather than a standalone category. For checkpoints where the district's procurement, infrastructure, classroom practice, or planning decisions carry meaningful environmental weight — device lifecycle, e-waste, energy use, refurbishment, sustainable specifications — the sustainability lens prompts an honest read: how is this decision aligned with the district's environmental commitments? The lens is observational, not gating. It does not change a checkpoint's level or tier math; it asks the audit user to think before answering. Districts in states with e-waste laws or sustainable procurement statutes have a verification ask layered on top — the state-law indicator handles that case independently.

Adapting TERI for charter networks and independent schools

TERI uses district, board, and central office as canonical terms because most users are public-district leaders. Charter networks and independent schools can run TERI as written by translating those terms to their structural equivalents — the substance transfers cleanly.

• Charter networks (CMOs / EMOs). The CMO acts as the district; the network board acts as the board of trustees; central-office functions sit at the CMO. Most checkpoints transfer without modification.
• Single-site charters. The head of school and governing board carry the roles TERI attributes to superintendent and board. A few checkpoints that assume cross-school coordination collapse to the single site — read them at that scope.
• Independent / private schools. The same translation applies. State-law indicators (the scales icon) may apply through accreditation or state private-school regulation rather than public-district statute — verify with counsel.

What this audit doesn’t cover

TERI is deliberately scoped. Knowing what it does not measure helps a reader interpret the report honestly:

• Per-school-building variance. TERI is a district-level audit. Individual schools may sit above or below the district profile on any checkpoint.
• Individual teacher quality. The audit measures structures (PD, modeling, coaching), not the practice of any individual educator.
• Family-side and community-side practice. The audit measures district practice and the structures the district provides to families — not how families use technology at home.
• Whether this is the right approach. The audit measures practice against a defined framework. It does not adjudicate philosophical questions about technology in K-12.

How TERI fits with what you already use

TERI is the ecosystem layer other frameworks don’t cover — it doesn’t replace what your district already uses. It names where those pieces fit together.

Companion: Eighteen governance questions for boards

A standing question companion published independent of any district’s audit, for use by trustees, school committees, and governing boards. Three questions per layer plus three cross-cutting governance anchors — designed to be asked once a cycle alongside the district’s TERI report.

Boards using these questions don’t need to run the audit themselves. The questions are framework-grade and stable across districts; districts cite them in their own board reports so trustees can reach them directly.

Open the board-questions guide →

Privacy and how your answers are stored

TERI runs entirely in your browser. There is no server, no account, no login.

What’s stored, and where. Your answers, audit date, conducted-by name, and notes are saved to this browser’s localStorage at the key teri.assessment.v1. They live on the device that ran the audit.

Nothing is uploaded to Prompt-Ed. We don’t have a database. We don’t run analytics on the audit, set tracking cookies, or read what you typed.

No cookies. TERI itself sets no cookies. The audit uses localStorage, which is technically a separate W3C storage mechanism — but most browsers clear them together. In Chrome’s “Clear browsing data” dialog, the “Cookies and other site data” checkbox also clears localStorage. So if you want to wipe TERI from your machine, that checkbox does it.

No analytics. No Google Analytics, no Plausible, no Heap, no third-party tracking pixels. The only third-party domain this page contacts is Google Fonts, for the font files themselves.

What the share link contains. The 35 maturity-level codes (one character per checkpoint: N=Not Started, E=Emerging, S=Established, X=Expanding, u=Unsure), plus the district name and audit date if you set them. Notes are NOT encoded in the URL — they’re local-only and ride along only when you download the PDF.

What anyone with the link sees. The same report you see, but read-only in their own browser. Opening a TERI link in a different browser does NOT touch their existing TERI audit if they have one — it loads in alongside, and they can choose to overwrite by clicking “Continue editing checkpoints →”.

License. TERI report content is CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. You can share the link, the PDF, or the saved HTML, but you cannot modify the framework and redistribute it as TERI.