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AI Bans, Fall Deadlines, and What Will Get You A Response On LinkedIn
Episode 35 • 17th September 2026 • Marketing and Education • Elana Leoni | Leoni Consulting Group
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New York City Public Schools announced one of the most restrictive AI policies in the country, and LAUSD followed with a quiet moratorium of its own. For any company selling AI-powered tools into K-12, this isn't background noise anymore. It's a sign that the ground rules are being rewritten in real time, and positioning needs to keep up.

At the same time, October is arriving with a full plate. Conference season, award deadlines, and the usual run of thematic days are all stacking on top of each other. It's worth asking a harder question before the calendar takes over: which of these deadlines actually matter, and which ones are just habit?

This field notes episode covers what's moving fast right now, the AI policy shifts landing in New York City and Los Angeles, the conference and award deadlines worth prioritizing this fall, and what actually earns a response on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn

1️⃣ Why NYC and LAUSD's AI policies matter beyond their own districts

New York's policy sounds like a blanket ban, but it's more nuanced than the headlines suggest. Teachers can still use AI to plan lessons, translate, and communicate with families, they just can't use it to grade, decide who graduates, or counsel a student in crisis. LAUSD's own moratorium on student use of generative AI arrived quietly enough that it reportedly surprised its own school board. When the country's largest districts move first, others tend to follow.

2️⃣ What's worth prioritizing on a packed fall conference and awards calendar

DA Awards entries close October 1st, EdTech Week runs October 13th - 14th, FETC's prices increase October 30th, and SXSW EDU's Launch competition deadline is November 1st, on top of national conferences like NCTM in Denver and CGCS in Boston. This episode breaks down which deadlines are worth building a strategy around, rather than trying to hit everything.

3️⃣ What new findings say about getting a response to a LinkedIn connection request

Richard Vanderblom's poll and analysis found that a "helpful" message, one that references something specific about the person's post, is what actually gets a response. It's a small shift, but one that changes how outreach on the platform should be built.

Why It Matters

Education marketers are heading into one of the busiest stretches of the year with less room for error than usual. Districts are rewriting AI policy in real time, marketing calendars are more crowded than usual, and the platforms relied on for organic reach keep changing what earns attention. None of this is a reason to freeze. It's a reason to get more deliberate, know which policy shifts touch a given product, spend fall's limited time and budget on the deadlines that matter most, and build outreach around what's genuinely earning a response right now.

Resources Mentioned in this Episode:

Transcripts

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Hello, everyone. Welcome back to All Things Marketing and Education. I'm your host, Elana Leoni, and this is another special episode of what we're calling the Education Marketing Field Notes. It's just me, and I get to tell you everything that's changing, what I think is important, and some fun stuff in between. I try to keep it really punchy — know this, do this — and know that everything is in our show notes at LeoniConsultingGroup.com.

All right, let's get into it. First, we're going to talk about social media. You know we love it, you know we hate it. In particular, I like to talk about platform updates — what's moving and shaking — and again, with the lens of: how do we use social media in a value-driven way? We're not just entertaining people; we're thinking strategically about who our buyer is, who our user is, and what role social media plays strategically. Now, we're just talking about the organic side, but there is a paid, complementary side. And by the way, for those of you saying that paid social media does not work — you are just wrong. I know there are nuances in education. I know sometimes if you're selling really big contracts to a really niche stakeholder that doesn't go online... guess what? Everyone goes online. But I do know there are instances where you might come back to me and say, "No, Elana, it doesn't work." But in general, I'm finding paid works. Super side note — happy to talk to you about it.

Okay, so some platform updates. We have a new Twitter-ish thing going on. It's called Twitter.now. It's a startup called Operation Bluebird, and they say they've launched — and I say this laughing — but it's got the Twitter name, the bird logo, and it says "not officially affiliated with X." I went to it today and it's down. The update is they're doing security updates and they'll be back as soon as possible. So I got excited.

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...and now less excited. But I want you to know about it, because in the world of social, we are constantly trying to figure out what's the next platform that provides true collaboration, safety, and a way to really grab attention and increase engagement. Before it was Threads, then it was Bluesky, then — what was the other one? — Mastodon. There are all these micro-platforms out there, but they've all failed to get the audience and the deep engagement we need within our industry of education. So this one's interesting — you can go to it and still sign up. It's early days; you can sign up for paid early access. It's interesting: they say "Founders" gets you in for $20 before the public launch, and "Fighters" gets you a badge. I don't know what the badge does, but it's cool.

I don't know, but that's something moving and shaking in the microblogging space. We're not sure we ever want to use X, but people still use X. If you are on X, by the way — even if you have a lot of followers — you can't just treat it like an RSS feed. There are some education influencers I see using it well, and some of their tweets — and I'm still going to call them tweets, not "updates" — are getting a couple thousand impressions. That's amazing for Twitter, by the way. Most brands, when you look — because it is all transparent, the impressions — most brands are getting under 50. If they're lucky, they're getting 25, and you're like, "Whoa, 25 impressions wasn't worth the two seconds it took me to make that crappy tweet." Right? So I want you to always look at the platforms you're on, look at the ROI, but also ask: is there an SEO benefit? Does it look like an empty dance floor? We're weighing all of these things internally, with capacity and ROI.

All right, LinkedIn. LinkedIn always has new features, but it's got something really cool.

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It's turning live event recordings into short-form clips and chapters. I haven't experienced this yet, and in fact I've seen more people shy away from LinkedIn events, because I feel like LinkedIn doesn't know how to treat LinkedIn Live events. They don't promote them very well — they're buried in the feed, buried on people's profiles. It's just not common user behavior, especially in education, for people to go to a live event on LinkedIn. They've played around with capturing leads; they haven't made it quite easy. They've done some ads to complement it — before, during, and after. They've tried. I wonder if this will help.

I love short-form video clips from any type of webinar — but don't give me short-form clips with a big slide on them that I can't read, then pushed into a vertical video. I love short-form clips pulled from something long-form that's genuinely helpful for the audience. So I'm following that trend.

I'm also, obviously, following AI. In fact, our producer did an analysis of the topics we talk about on All Things Marketing and Education, and AI was the number one thing we talked about. That doesn't mean every episode is centered on AI — it's just that you can't talk about these issues without touching on AI's influence.

agement tool, just released a:

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And then, last but not least — this isn't a platform update, but I thought it was super cool because it reminds me of how I work and what I value when I'm on social media. Richard Vanderblom — he's a great resource for all things LinkedIn, specifically the algorithm — I'll put this link in the show notes. This is all about social selling, and I don't really like that term; it feels creepy. But when you're connecting with somebody on LinkedIn, what are the things people actually respond to? He has this really cool carousel — he did a poll and then all this analysis around it, and he found that "helpful" wins. The helpful message is something like: "Hey, so-and-so, I saw your post on this — it was a super useful angle, I share a practical approach too... I thought it might be relevant for us to connect." That's basically what I do normally — I usually look at your posts when you send me a connection request. Please put a note, by the way — I very rarely respond to people who don't. So that's a great way to say, "make the effort" if you want to connect. I always look at their posts and say, "Hey, I really liked / enjoyed your last post, or what you talk about — I'm looking forward to learning from you on LinkedIn." And I do that with authenticity — I really am looking forward to learning from them and having them in my network. I learn so much from LinkedIn. But, surprise surprise, that is the number one way people respond to you.

I'm also very curated about who I connect with at the first degree. I generally say, if I can't remember, "Hey, we met in person," or "we met on a webinar," or something like that — that's just, "Hey, we haven't met, but here's why," and we start a real, authentic conversation. So think about how you approach building your network on LinkedIn. Don't do, "Hey, are you experiencing blah blah blah — come here, I've got free resources." It sounds like a bad pitch, right? You're on LinkedIn, hopefully, to collaborate, build your network, and share and learn some things.

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So that just made me happy — I'll put that link in the show notes. Okay, that's the end of the platform updates.

Now we're going to get into something really specific — not a platform, but landing pages. Landing pages haven't been the bane of my existence, but they're one of those things that keep me up at night. When you have a landing page — say you've got a whole campaign and you want people to go to it — there's such a low percentage of people who actually go to the landing page and do what you want them to do. Maybe it's a demo page, or maybe you're scaffolding into other things, like lead magnets — resources so good that people say, "Yes, I want to give you my email address for this."

Most demo pages don't convert the way they should, and it's just wasted traffic — people go to it and bounce out. That kills me. So I wanted to know how to improve it. Daniel Murray from The Bathroom Break, part of the Marketing Millennials — I'll put all his stuff in the show notes, he's a great one to follow — had an article all about demo pages and why they don't convert. And the one thing that made me facepalm — we've all done it — he calls it the "Hail Mary mistake": driving cold traffic straight to a demo request page. Say you have an email campaign, or a co-sponsored email, or maybe you're trying to reach superintendents through AASA or something like that, and the call to action is to go to a demo page. Some of them might not have even heard of you, but they're like, "I'm interested enough, I'll click." That traffic is very unlikely to convert, because it's too much — it's like, "Hey, you just met me, do you want to get married?" It's too big a step. So he basically said cold traffic needs to go to something more scaffolded — always a lead magnet, a really great resource they can download. You still get the lead, by the way. You still get the lead.

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But the question is: how do I convert them into a call or a demo on the back end of the email sequence, once I've really established rapport? And it may not happen through the email sequence alone — you might need a solid six months of your newsletter proving you know what you're doing, proving you have success in the industry. But you have their email, and that's half the battle, right? "Knowing is half the battle" — G.I. Joe, something like that.

So he has a lot of great insights on landing pages — I suggest you check it out. There are four pages in his "Core Four" framework that you should have. One is the Overview Page — top-of-funnel, just for paid media — and I'd add that a lot of paid media converts within the platform itself; we're seeing a lot of success there too. You also have the Comparison Page — middle-of-funnel — which he says is great when buyers are weighing their options and want feature fit. Then you need the Trust & Social Proof Page: customer success stories, testimonials, case studies, with a way to capture emails. And then you have the Demo Request Page, reserved exclusively for high-intent, warm traffic. See how fundamentally different that is? He has all sorts of quick wins — I'll put them in the show notes.

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All right, let's shift to what's happening as we head into October, from an education events and marketing calendar perspective. What do I need on my radar — thematic days, events, thematic months? Are there any deadlines in the industry I should be aware of?

October — home of pumpkin spice. I'm already seeing pumpkin everywhere. Fall-themed ideas get really strong here; October is quintessential autumn — the foliage, and whatever you call the people who go around looking at the changing leaves — this is the time.

October is also Principal Appreciation Month. Even if your buyers aren't principals, you should appreciate principals regardless of whether they purchase your product — they're awesome, underappreciated human beings. So for Principal Appreciation Month, you might highlight principals you work with, or you don't even have to work with them to celebrate them — you could do a user-generated content piece where you ask your audience to tell you one good thing their principal does, or one thing people should know that principals do that no one realizes. Articles like that really appreciate them — highlight specific people, do shout-outs, invite your audience to celebrate them too.

That's Principal Appreciation Month. We also have National Bullying Prevention Month, Global Diversity Awareness Month, and National Book Month. Lots happening in October. The first day of October is International Coffee Day — I know that's not teacher-specific, but I don't know many teachers who don't drink a ton of coffee.

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So if you're a brand, sometimes use days like this to celebrate and do giveaways, or surprise people with Starbucks gift cards or whatever coffee is near you. We have National Custodian Day on the 2nd. The Nobel Peace Prize is announced earlier in October as well. We have Banned Books Week — the exact dates change annually, but this year it's October 4th through 10th. We have World Space Week, also the 4th through 10th. We have World Teachers Day — that's a big one, October 5th — and honestly people never know what to do with it. Brands don't know what to do — they usually do something super generic, "we love teachers." But think of a way to appreciate and celebrate teachers authentically, in a way that resonates with your audience and really reflects your brand's values. I want you to look at your feed and think, "yeah, that's the way only we could do it" — not a generic "hey teachers, we love you."

We have World Mental Health Day on the 10th, International Day of the Girl on the 11th, and Digital Citizenship Week the 20th through the 24th — this has become more and more important as we think about AI. So look at your audience, see if this is relevant to them, and if it is, get ahead of it — maybe a tip-a-day or something helpful over email. We have the National Day on Writing — sometimes it's called "Day of Writing" — on the 20th, a great holiday celebrating the power of writing. That's also around when NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) launches, if that's still around. And then National Cat Day — shout-out to the cat moms — on the 29th.

Last but not least, we've got Halloween. I know that's controversial — figure out how you want to talk about it. I just want to give a shout-out to all the teachers who have to teach the very next day. I'm not sure if that's a Friday this year, but if it is, that's rough — a lot of kids are on a sugar high or a candy hangover and not paying much attention.

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notes. Our next planner, for:

Now, the time-sensitive stuff. March is a really pivotal event time in education, but October ramps up a lot with events too. We've got AASPA — the school administrators' conference — in Austin, EdTech Week in the middle of October, and ALAS — the Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents — holding their national summit. We've got CGCS's annual fall conference in Boston, which is more for district leaders. We've got NCTM, the national math conference, in Denver at the end of the month. So there's a lot happening in October, and I didn't even mention all the regional ones — a lot of our clients are doing regional, state-specific, county-specific events too. It's popping when it comes to October conferences.

And then, don't forget awards. Someone in my community asked me, "Should we be applying for awards for our clients? Is it worth it?" And I said, my gosh, yes. The reason people say no is because they win an award and don't do anything with it. You have to put it on your website, on an awards page listing everything you've ever received, and on your LinkedIn — if you have LinkedIn Premium, there's a spot to highlight recent awards. I'll say it: as marketers, we're born to milk it, but it is a legitimate award and it does help with credibility — you wouldn't have won it if your product or service wasn't good. So that's my little soapbox on awards.

Speaking of awards: District Administration's DA Awards of Distinction — people just call them "DA Awards" — entries close October 1st. There's also the FullScale Symposium, a cool event FullScale is doing October 8th through 10th. EdTech Week isn't an awards thing, but they've got a cool Shark Tank, and they also have a CEO Summit you have to request an invite for — they've always had Shark Tank.

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The deadline is October 13th — I'd double-check that on their site. EdTech Week itself is October 13th and 14th. FETC — I'll be there, I'm so excited — but prices increase October 30th, so register before then if you're planning to go. And then SXSW EDU had their Launch startup competition — if you're an early-stage education startup, you can apply to be in that showcase by November 1st.

Nobody's paying me to say any of this — it's just stuff I think should be on your radar. You should have a conference strategy, you should have an award strategy. This might just be, "I heard about this, Elana told me about it, let's apply." I've worked with clients who didn't have an award strategy and automatically won a CODiE, and it was like, "wow, this is awesome, let's build a strategy."

So there you go. Last but not least, I love to end these episodes with thought-provoking LinkedIn posts. There's been so much going on in the last few weeks — it feels like it's been especially intense.

We had the Department of Education's recent "Dear Colleague" letter, and there were so many thought-provoking posts that I devoted an entire section of our newsletter to them. Go to our website or our LinkedIn — you'll find it. There are podcasts, articles, and lots of LinkedIn posts. It's fascinating to see people's takes on that letter. Let's move away from that letter, though,

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and into something fun and inspiring. I want to talk about a post from my friend Kate Busby — she's a growth marketer in ed tech. I'm just going to read a couple of lines; I'll put this link in the show notes too. She talks about how our system in education and ed tech is designed to incentivize the wrong metrics, so we end up optimized for things other than learning outcomes. She opens with: the real problem in ed tech isn't that some companies don't care about learning — it's that the metrics they're rewarded for systematically undermine it. She talks about how ed tech has scaled faster than ever — billions invested, millions enrolled — yet learning outcomes are rarely measured beyond engagement. She asks: what about completion rates? What about enabling learners to secure opportunities? She calls it a systems failure. That gave me goosebumps reading it. Go, Kate. I'll put that in the show notes.

Next, I want to talk about — let me pull it up — someone I don't know, Lisa Mo. I don't know if she's in ed tech; I haven't looked at her profile, but someone in my network reshared her post. I'm a sucker for Top Gun, and she opened with, "It's not the plane, it's the pilot." Oh my gosh, I love that quote. She paired it with an image that read: "Screen time needs a flight check — it's not the plane, it's the pilot." Yes, yes. She says she's used that line for years when talking about educational technology, and this conversation around screen time is no different. We spend so much time and energy focused on how much screen time is happening, but that alone doesn't tell us what students are actually doing.

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County Teacher of the Year in:

Last but not least, I'm going to round it out, and I hope this is a good one, because I hate ending on a womp-womp — though these are all really good. I want to talk about two trends to close out the show: AI policies and the bans we're seeing right now. By the time you're hearing this, it might have already accelerated further, with more states adopting these kinds of policies.

New York City Public Schools just announced one of the most restrictive AI policies in the country. Shout-out to Brett Rohrer — I hope I'm spelling and pronouncing his name right — most of you probably know him, he's great to follow on LinkedIn. I'll put his post in the show notes. The New York Times also did a big piece on it. But he synthesized it well and said it's not a hundred percent restrictive —

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read further and the picture changes. There are centrally approved programs — ebooks, coding software, tools for students with disabilities and multilingual learners — those all stay. Teachers can still use AI to plan lessons, translate, and communicate with families. They cannot use it to grade, decide who graduates, or counsel a student in crisis.

So they're coming up with these restrictions and bans, and really thinking critically about what's allowed and what isn't. It's interesting, because when New York does something — especially New York City Public Schools — other districts follow. And, sure enough, LAUSD: I don't know if they were thinking, "New York's doing this, we have to too," but they quietly imposed a district-wide moratorium on student use of generative AI in schools this year. There are also a lot of activist parents who've campaigned for stricter screen time rules — I don't know all the details on this one, but there's an LA Times article covering it, and shout-out to Jacob Cantor, who pointed me to it on LinkedIn.

From what I understand, the moratorium came to light at the first meeting of a school board committee examining AI use in schools — it was reportedly a surprise to board members, who were told by their CAO and head of technology that the new policy means generative AI is off-limits for all students on district devices until further notice. So there's some drama and a lack of communication there. But the bigger picture is the trend: when the biggest school districts in the country take these steps, other districts take note, and it creates ripple effects. If you're an AI-first company, you'd better be watching this closely and positioning your tool in a way that's likely to remain allowed. That would keep me up at night.

All right, I hope you all enjoyed this show. We're experimenting with the length and what we cover, so —

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talk to me — tell me what's most helpful here. We'll cut things out, we'll add things. This is all for you: education marketers, education founders, ed tech founders — helping you gain the attention of your buyer, engage your users, and not waste people's time in education, while helping uplift a rising tide. That's what we're all about.

So thank you for listening, everybody. Make sure you go to Apple Podcasts and leave us a review — we're trending up quite a bit on downloads, so thank you all. More reviews means more reach, and the more reach, the more we can help others. So we'll see you next time on All Things Marketing and Education. Take care, everyone.

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