District outlines plan for academic dashboards, scorecards and school-level metrics

Superintendent Dr. Thomas and academic staff presented a draft framework for district academic dashboards and scorecards intended to align with the district strategic plan and provide high-leverage metrics to the board and public.

Dr. Zumbusch (staff member) described two primary displays: a public "by-the-numbers" snapshot that would show enrollment and key demographics, and an internal scorecard aligned to the district's four strategic pillars (academic excellence, optimized resources, positive learning environments and community partnerships). He emphasized this was a working draft, not final data.

The proposed metrics for academic excellence include MCA/summative measures, ACT composite and AP exam outcomes, graduation rates, and formative measures such as FastBridge screening and interim growth metrics. Dr. Zumbusch and Dr. Thomas said school-level metrics would be aligned to site improvement plans and that the district will be careful about how side-by-side school comparisons are displayed so the public understands context.

Staff showed mock-ups for a "stoplight" visual to highlight change over time and proposed an internal instructional-rounds protocol and coaching system to monitor the quality of Tier 1 instruction. The district plans to work with a vendor (Aubrey) to develop visualizations and aims to roll the dashboard out this fall with separate internal and external views.

Board members asked how school-level metrics would be selected and whether the system would add workload for teachers; staff said metrics would largely be drawn from existing, automated data sources and internal dashboards intended to streamline reporting for teachers, not add manual tasks.

No vote was taken; staff were directed to continue developing the dashboards and bring refined proposals to the board in the coming months.