Provide each vendor with a written demo script based on your district's actual workflows: taking morning attendance, entering grades for a specific assessment type your district uses, running state reporting for your state, handling a mid‑year student transfer, generating a specific report your administration uses. Every vendor demos the same scenarios in the same order.

Registrar, IT director, at least two teachers, at least one principal, a counselor if applicable, and a district administrator representing overall priorities. Include family voice if your district practice supports it. The committee should be small enough to reach decisions (7-10 people) but broad enough to represent affected roles.

A defensible starting point: 25% functional fit, 25% usability, 20% implementation and support, 15% technical fit, 15% vendor viability. Adjust based on your district's specific priorities. Districts under compliance pressure may weight functional fit higher. Districts with limited IT capacity may weight implementation higher. The specific weights matter less than that everyone agrees to them before scoring starts.

Request references from districts similar to yours - similar size, similar state, similar program mix. Require permission to contact them without vendor mediation. When you call, ask open-ended questions about the actual experience: what surprised you, what would you do differently, would you buy this platform again? Vendor-selected reference customers are typically enthusiastic; independent conversations reveal the fuller picture.

Uptime history (get actual data from the past 12 months). Support response quality (open a support ticket during evaluation, not just talk to the sales support team). Integration performance (test the specific integrations you'd rely on). API access and documentation quality. Data export capability (request an actual export during evaluation). Security certifications (see the actual attestation letters).

3 to 6 months from initial research to signed contract for most districts. Rushing produces bad decisions; dragging exhausts the committee. A reasonable pace: 4 weeks for RFP responses, 4 weeks for scripted demos and scoring, 4 weeks for reference calls and technical validation, 4 weeks for finalist negotiations and board approval. Adjust based on district size and complexity.

Letting the loudest committee voice dominate scoring. Weighing price above 20-25%. Skipping reference calls because everyone seemed convincing. Accepting vendor-directed demos instead of scripted ones. Focusing on features you might use rather than workflows you definitely use. Choosing the platform that impressed the superintendent over the one the registrar and IT prefer. Every one of these leads to decisions people regret.

Alma tends to score well in structured comparisons because the platform's strengths align with what actually matters in daily operations: registrar workflows, teacher usability, family experience, and implementation speed. Feature checklists sometimes make Alma look smaller than legacy competitors; workflow-based comparisons often reverse that impression. Ask specifically about scored comparisons from districts similar to yours.