What We Took Away from ATLIS 2026

ATLIS is one of those conferences that brings into focus how much this work is driven by community. For independent school technology leaders, it's a rare chance to step away from the daily pace of campus life and connect with peers who genuinely understand the challenges of running technology operations in a K-12 environment. This year, we left with full schedules, great conversations, and a few memories that'll stick with us for a while.

Here's a look at what made ATLIS 2026 stand out for the Ruvna team.

The Badge That Started Conversations

If you stopped by our booth, you may have noticed something a little different about our visitor management demo. Our Co-Founder and CEO, Joey Nutinsky, created a custom visitor badge specifically for the conference, styled as an "Achievement Unlocked" card complete with stats like a maxed coffee count, 99+ browser tabs, and an 11/10 vibe check. It was Ruvna's visitor management product in action, and it turned out to be a natural conversation starter.

The badge did exactly what a good visitor management system should: it made the experience feel seamless and even a little fun, while clearly communicating who someone is and why they're there. The badge itself has a longer backstory than you might expect. Joey wrote about the multi-year engineering journey behind getting badge printing right in The Badge Printing Saga: A Love Letter to the Worst Technology Ever Made — worth a read if you want the full picture.

A Full Track of Sessions

This year, Ruvna had a dedicated four-session track designed for independent school technology leaders, and the conversations that came out of each one reflected how deeply this community is thinking about school operations architecture, not just the tools.

Joey's session explored why school safety is increasingly falling under the technology director's umbrella — and why that shift makes sense given how deeply safety and technology now intersect in daily school operations.

Marshall Singer, Co-Founder and COO of Ruvna, led a panel with Blackbaud and our mutual client Hiram Cuevas, Director of Information Systems and Academic Technology at St. Christopher's School, on what SIS integration actually means in practice. The conversation moved past the standard "we integrate with your SIS" claim to examine the source of truth, data synchronization, and what real workflow integration looks like when systems need to share accurate information during high-stakes moments.

Joey and Bill Farrell, VP of Product at Ruvna, took the audience inside Ruvna's approach to building Dismissal, grounded in what schools actually told them they needed. Pulling up a flowchart that mapped how the product took shape was a highlight — a transparent look at how Ruvna thinks through building for schools.

Marshall closed the track with a session focused on one of the most common challenges tech directors face: getting internal buy-in. He walked through how to navigate budget approvals, overcome objections from heads of school and CFOs, and make the case for integrated safety platforms to stakeholders who don't speak IT.

Booth Conversations That Went Deep

The conversations at our booth this year felt substantive. School technology leaders weren't stopping by with surface-level questions. They wanted to talk through real operational challenges, and two topics came up again and again: visitor management and dismissal.

On the visitor management side, schools are thinking carefully about how they balance security with the experience they want visitors to have. A sign-in process that feels cumbersome or impersonal can create friction for families and community members who are genuinely there to support the school. The question we kept hearing was how to make the process feel professional and welcoming without sacrificing accuracy or accountability.

Dismissal came up just as often, and it's easy to understand why. For many schools, the end of the school day is one of the most logistically demanding windows on the calendar. Coordinating car riders, bus students, walkers, and after-school program participants, often across multiple dismissal locations, requires clear communication and real-time visibility. The schools that stopped to talk with us were looking for ways to bring more consistency and calm to a process that can feel chaotic without the right systems in place.

These conversations reinforced something we think about often: the technology questions independent schools are asking aren't really about technology at all. They're about people, processes, and how to give staff the tools they need to do their jobs with confidence.

An Evening Worth Extending

One of the highlights of the week happened outside the official conference schedule. We co-hosted a happy hour with Blackbaud as an opportunity for independent school technology professionals to connect over a drink and good conversation, no agenda required.

We planned for around 75 guests. About 100 showed up.

We extended capacity to accommodate everyone, and the energy in the room was palpable. There's something valuable about having space to talk with peers outside of a session or a booth visit, where the conversation can go wherever it needs to go. People were sharing what's working at their schools, what they're still figuring out, and what they're hoping to tackle in the year ahead.

It was a good reminder that the independent school community is a generous one. People show up for each other, and they show up ready to share.

What We're Carrying Forward

Every ATLIS leaves us with a clearer picture of where independent schools are. This year, the through-line was clear: schools want systems that work together, and there's a strong appetite for consolidation. Technology leaders are increasingly making the internal case that fewer, better-integrated systems produce better outcomes than a collection of point solutions. We're grateful to be part of that community and to have spent the week in conversation with so many thoughtful educators and administrators.

We'll see you at the next one.

Interested in learning more about Ruvna's visitor management or dismissal products? Schedule a demo to see how they work together as part of a unified platform.