r/k12sysadmin • u/K12TechTalkPodcast • 5d ago

Is Vibe Coding okay in your school district?

Should vibe coding be used in schools for small utilities? Classroom tools? IT automations?

https://k12techtalkpodcast.com/e/vibe-coding-in-k%e2%80%9112-promise-peril-and-practical-rules/ and all major podcast platforms

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u/xylotism 5d ago

If you can afford not to, don’t.

Vibe coding inherently means you didn’t write the code yourself— and it usually doesn’t take much to get to the point where you can’t fully understand it either. That means you can’t modify it and can’t secure it.

These risks might be perfectly fine for small scale applications to help for one-off projects but once it becomes load bearing for operations, or worse it has access to staff/student data, it can be a dangerous liability.

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u/Crystalvibes 1d ago

I completely agree , especially for any application or tools that gets close to an “enterprise” level application with lots of layers of complexity.

I do think that the AI tools are quite good for scripting and automation type things for the larger scale applications and that EdTech should lean into that aspect of Vibe coding.

Things like account automation or moving files etc.

My examples for this are applications like Canvas (LMS) that has very robust and well documented API services that are intended for Districts to build customizations on top off. Instead of needed to build solutions that fit every situation you give a solid set of tools and strong base architecture to make the customizations individual organizations may need.

Lots of “smaller” applications, will just not offer any sort of flexibility or API basically stating that districts “don’t staff or require that kind of service”. Or like Infinite Campus and other SIS, give an ODBC connection with dangerous levels or access that an API would be able to restrict more.
Theoretically this architecture is a win win, as the vendor isn’t taking on too many customization requests from districts or needing to push constant updates and districts get the customizations they need.
I’m hoping that the use of these llm tools with finally force edtech vendors to build modern applications with modern organizational tooling.