By Christopher Fletcher, KSDE information technology team 

The Kansas State Department of Education (KSDE) continues to work on rolling out the KEDS system for parallel reporting during the 2025-26 school year.  

KSDE has completed the vendor certification for this school year for all  the major SIS vendors in Kansas: Harris (go.edustar), PowerSchool, Skyward (both Qmulativ and SMS products), Synergy, Infinite Campus, and EduConnect. Staff are working with the vendors to begin connecting their districts to the KEDS system. Currently, almost 100 districts have been given the key and secret to connect. If your district wants to connect and hasn’t yet been contacted by your vendor, you can check out the KEDS Getting Started page to find out the steps to get connected. The KEDS team will also be attending the Infinite Campus Users Group meeting on Nov. 6 in Kansas City, Kansas. 

Districts can learn more about the KEDS system during new trainings beginning in November. These training sessions and other support will be available through virtual meetings using Microsoft Teams. They can be done with the web version of Teams. We ask that users requesting support have the Teams application installed on their device with proper security permissions to share their screen. These sessions can be scheduled using Microsoft Bookings. Some training days will not be available in Bookings due to holidays and previous staff commitments.  

Training descriptions 

Part 1: Introduction - Get the news, timelines and expectations for KEDS this school year. 

The following topics will be covered Tuesdays at 10:30 a.m. and Thursdays at 1:30 p.m.: 

• Contrast the differences between KIDS and KEDS 
• New technologies implemented within the KEDS system 
• Implications of the new data collection process for both districts and KSDE 
• KSDE expectations of districts for the current academic year 
• Ongoing work required to complete the transition from KIDS to KEDS 
• Identify KEDS resources, training and support processes 
• Key Master Role & Form 

Part 2: Onboarding - Learn about the onboarding process and review the purpose of code mappings in your Student Information System (SIS). 

The following topics will be covered Tuesdays at 1:30 p.m. and Thursdays at 9:30 a.m.: 

• Review Part 1: Introduction 
• Discuss the relationship with vendors and KSDE during onboarding 
• Accessing your key and secret combination through the Ed-Fi Credential Manager 
• Discuss descriptors and the purpose of mapping them in your SIS 
• Review KEDS resources, training and support processes 
• Requesting Data Validation Portal (DVP) Accounts 

Part 3: Data Validation Portal - Review the processes of the KEDS Data Validation Portal (DVP). 

The following topics will be covered Tuesdays at 2:30 p.m. and Thursdays at 10:30 a.m.: 

• Review Part 2: Onboarding 
• Data Validation Portal introduction and purpose 
• Discuss Data Validation Portal Documentation 
• Review roles 
• Navigation and selection menus 
• Validation jobs 
• Job summary page 
• Task list page 

Part 4: Jobs and Rules - Review the jobs and rules in the KEDS Data Validation Portal (DVP) 

The following topics will be covered Wednesdays at 10:30 a.m. starting Nov. 12: 

• Review Part 3: Data Validation Portal 
• Overview of jobs and rules 
• Discuss jobs and rules documentation 
• Job types and descriptions 
• Rules overview 
• Using jobs and rules to validate data 

The schedule for December will be set up and announced by Nov. 21, in KSDEweekly and through the KIDS listserv. To stay up to date with KEDS, go to https://kedx.ksde.gov.  

Contact Chris Fletcher, christopher.fletcher@ksde.gov, with questions.