MCP Architecture Guide for K-12: Connecting District Systems to AI Agents

1. The District Data Problem

A typical school district runs somewhere between eight and fifteen separate software systems. The student information system (PowerSchool, Infinite Campus, Skyward) tracks enrollment, grades, and attendance. The LMS (Canvas, Schoology, Google Classroom) tracks coursework and engagement. There are additional systems for behavior and PBIS tracking, transportation routing and ridership, parent communication (ParentSquare, Remind, ClassDojo), special education IEP management, and identity provisioning through Clever or ClassLink.

Each of these systems has its own API, its own data model, and its own authentication. When a counselor wants to understand how a student is doing, they log in to three or four systems and mentally piece together the picture. When a district administrator needs a chronic absenteeism report that also includes academic performance data, someone builds a one-off export or a custom SQL query.

Every integration is point-to-point. Every new reporting need triggers a new project. And most district IT teams have two to five people responsible for all of it. There is no bandwidth for custom integration work on top of keeping the lights on.

Model Context Protocol (MCP) changes this. Instead of building a new integration every time you need data from multiple systems, you build one thin wrapper per system — an MCP server — and route all queries through a broker. Any AI agent (or any application) can then ask cross-system questions through a single, governed interface.

2. Inventory Your District Systems

Before building anything, map out what you have. For each system, note the vendor, what data it holds, and what API access is available. In K-12, also flag which systems hold student PII — this determines FERPA and COPPA requirements downstream.

You do not need to wrap every system on day one. Start with the SIS and LMS — those two systems alone cover attendance, grades, and coursework, which answers the majority of "how is this student doing?" questions. Add behavior, transportation, and parent communication as follow-up phases.

3. Build MCP Servers for Each System

An MCP server is a thin wrapper around one system's API. It exposes that system's data as "tools" — structured operations with defined inputs, outputs, permissions, and audit behavior. One server per system. When PowerSchool ships an API update, you update one server and nothing else breaks.

Example: SIS attendance tool

Here is a pseudocode example for a tool that pulls attendance data from the student information system. The tool returns a summary — not raw records — because PII minimization is critical when dealing with minors.

sis_server.add_tool(
    name="get_student_attendance_summary",
    description="Return attendance summary for a student
                in the current grading period. Returns counts
                only — no timestamps or class-level detail
                unless the caller has counselor.read role.",
    parameters=["student_id", "grading_period"],
    handler=lambda params: {
        raw = powerschool_api.get_attendance(
            student_id=params["student_id"],
            period=params["grading_period"]
        )
        return {
            "absences": raw.total_absences,
            "tardies": raw.total_tardies,
            "trend": raw.month_over_month_change,
            "chronic_flag": raw.total_absences / raw.total_days > 0.10
        }
    },
    policy={
        "rbac": ["teacher.read", "counselor.read",
                 "principal.read", "district_admin.read"],
        "scope": "own_students",  # teachers see only their students
        "pii_minimization": True,
        "coppa_enforced": True,   # extra restrictions for under-13
        "audit": True
    }
)

Security defaults for K-12

Every MCP server in a K-12 district should ship with these defaults. The stakes are higher here than in higher education or enterprise — you are handling data about children.

• Deny-by-default tool exposure — tools must be explicitly enabled. No open-ended API passthrough. If a tool is not in the allow list, it does not exist.
• PII minimization is mandatory — return aggregates and summaries unless the caller's role explicitly requires detailed records. For students under 13, strip all directly identifying information from responses unless COPPA consent is on file.
• COPPA age gating — the server must know whether the student is under 13. If so, apply stricter data handling rules automatically. This is not optional.
• System-scoped service accounts — each server authenticates with its own credentials, scoped to only the operations it needs. No shared admin accounts.
• Input validation and output filtering — validate all parameters before calling the upstream API. Filter responses to remove fields the caller is not authorized to see.
• Audit logging — every tool invocation is logged with the caller identity, the student ID queried, the timestamp, and what data was returned. Logs are immutable.

4. Add an MCP Broker

The MCP broker sits between agents (or any application) and your MCP servers. It handles routing, policy enforcement, and cross-cutting concerns like rate limiting and audit aggregation. In a K-12 district, the broker is where you enforce the rules that matter most.

Grade-level data boundaries

K-12 districts typically organize around grade bands: K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12. The broker enforces these boundaries. An elementary school principal can query data for K-5 students at their school but cannot see middle or high school data. A district administrator can see all grade bands across all schools.

Role-based access

Different staff roles see different slices of data. The broker maps roles from your identity provider (Clever, ClassLink, Google Workspace, or Microsoft 365) to data access policies:

• Teacher — sees data for students in their own classes only. No access to behavior records, special education data, or other teachers' students.
• Counselor — sees data for students on their caseload across all systems: attendance, grades, behavior, and special education (if applicable).
• Principal — sees school-level data. Can query aggregate reports and drill into individual students at their school.
• District administrator — sees district-wide data. Can run cross-school queries and aggregate reports.

COPPA enforcement at the broker

The broker checks the age of the student being queried. If the student is under 13, the broker applies additional restrictions automatically: stricter PII minimization, no data sharing with external services, and verification that parental consent is on file for any data collection beyond the "school official" exception. This enforcement happens at the broker level so that individual MCP servers do not need to duplicate the logic.

broker.configure_policy({
    "grade_bands": {
        "K-2":  {"age_range": [5, 8],   "coppa": True},
        "3-5":  {"age_range": [8, 11],  "coppa": True},
        "6-8":  {"age_range": [11, 14], "coppa": "partial"},
        "9-12": {"age_range": [14, 19], "coppa": False}
    },
    "roles": {
        "teacher":        {"scope": "own_students", "systems": ["sis", "lms"]},
        "counselor":      {"scope": "caseload",     "systems": ["sis", "lms", "behavior", "sped"]},
        "principal":      {"scope": "school",        "systems": ["all"]},
        "district_admin": {"scope": "district",      "systems": ["all"]}
    },
    "defaults": {
        "pii_minimization": True,
        "audit": True,
        "deny_external_sharing": True,
        "model_training_opt_out": True
    }
})

5. Connect Agents and Ask Questions

Once your MCP servers and broker are in place, AI agents can ask cross-system questions in natural language. The agent determines which tools to call, the broker enforces policy, and the MCP servers fetch the data. The person asking the question does not need to know which systems are involved.

A counselor can ask: "How is this student doing?" The agent recognizes this requires attendance data (SIS), academic performance (LMS), and behavior records (PBIS). It calls the relevant tools through the broker, which verifies the counselor has access to that student's data, and assembles a cross-system answer.

A district administrator can ask: "Which schools have the highest chronic absenteeism this quarter?" The agent queries the SIS MCP server across all schools, aggregates the results, and returns a ranked list — no custom report required.

The key insight: nobody built these specific reports. The data already existed in the district's systems. MCP made it queryable. The agent composed the answer.

6. Example: Student Wellness Check

A school counselor opens the agent interface and types: "How is Maria doing?"

The agent identifies Maria from the counselor's caseload, then calls three MCP servers through the broker:

• SIS MCP server — returns attendance summary: 3 absences this month (up from 1 last month), tardy 4 times.
• LMS MCP server — returns academic summary: B average overall, but declining in Math (from B+ to C over the past 6 weeks).
• Behavior MCP server — returns behavior summary: no formal incidents, but reduced participation noted by 2 teachers in the past 2 weeks.

The agent combines these into a single response:

The counselor now has full context without logging into three separate systems. They can intervene earlier — schedule a conversation with Maria, reach out to her family, or loop in the Math teacher — because the information was assembled for them in seconds rather than the 15-20 minutes it would take to gather manually.

7. Example: District-Wide Chronic Absenteeism Report

A district administrator types: "Which students across the district are chronically absent this quarter?"

The agent calls the SIS MCP server with the district administrator's credentials. The broker confirms district-wide scope and routes the query. The SIS MCP server calculates absence rates for all enrolled students across all schools for the current quarter.

No one built a custom report for this. No one wrote a SQL query or scheduled an export. The data was already in the SIS. The MCP server made it queryable. The agent composed the answer and grouped it in a way that is useful for district-level decision-making.

The administrator can follow up: "Show me the 8 K-2 students at Lincoln Elementary with details." The broker checks their role, confirms district-level access, and returns the detailed view.

8. Example: Multilingual Family Outreach

A principal wants to notify families of students who are falling behind in Math about upcoming tutoring sessions. They type: "Send a message to families of students with a C or below in Math about the after-school tutoring program starting next week."

The agent calls multiple MCP servers:

• LMS MCP server — identifies 23 students at the school with a C or below in Math.
• SIS MCP server — pulls the family contact information and preferred language for each student's household. Languages include English, Spanish, Vietnamese, and Arabic.
• Parent Communication MCP server — drafts a personalized message for each family that includes the student's name, their specific Math class and teacher, the tutoring schedule, and how to sign up. Each message is translated into the family's preferred language.

This is not a generic blast. Each message is personalized to the student's actual class, teacher, and schedule — grounded in real data from the SIS and LMS. And it arrives in the language the family actually reads. The principal typed one sentence. The agent handled the rest.

9. Security Checklist for K-12

Before going live, verify every item on this list. K-12 data governance is not negotiable — you are handling data about children, and the regulatory and ethical stakes are as high as they get.

10. Next Steps

If you are a superintendent, CTO, or district technology director considering this architecture for your district, here are the concrete next steps:

• Talk to us — schedule a conversation with our team. We will help you map your district's systems and identify the highest-impact starting point.
• Learn more about MCP servers — read the MCP Servers service page for details on how ibl.ai builds and deploys MCP servers for education institutions.
• Explore K-12 solutions — visit the K-12 solutions page for the full picture of how ibl.ai works with school districts, including student-facing AI tutors, teacher productivity tools, and family engagement.