District outlines multi‑year purchases for Panorama, Instructure and i‑Ready to streamline data and interventions

Cabarrus County Schools staff presented a proposal on May 5 to buy multi‑year licenses for three assessment and student‑support platforms — Panorama (student wellness, MTSS dashboard and pathways), Instructure/MasteryConnect (benchmark assessments and item bank) and i‑Ready (diagnostic and individualized instructional pathways). The proposal aims to centralize data, accelerate teacher decision‑making, and align early‑warning and intervention systems across the district.

District presenters described how Panorama’s student‑wellness survey and playbook help schools screen for social‑emotional needs and provide intervention resources; Panorama Pathways supports graduation tracking and post‑secondary planning; and Panorama Success produces a single MTSS dashboard for attendance, behavior, benchmark and diagnostic data. Principals from Concord High (Adam Auerbach with assistant principal Jeremy Hatchen), Has#rs Road Middle (assistant principal Tish Williams) and Bogart Elementary (principal Dawn Rainey) described how the tools have helped their schools identify students with low sense of belonging, target tiered interventions and free teachers’ time for instruction.

District staff said consolidating purchases would yield cost savings versus individual school purchases and allow the district to use existing state and federal instructional funding sources (Title IV, disadvantaged student funding, literacy intervention funds) for the contracts. Staff emphasized that Panorama survey participation is voluntary and parents may opt students out; school leaders said participation rates were typically above 90% where implemented and that the platforms allow confidentiality controls so only appropriate staff see student‑level responses.

Principals gave examples of results: Concord reported increasing its sense‑of‑belonging metric by 5% after targeted interventions; Has#rs Road reported substantial growth for students assigned to Tier 2 interventions; Bogart Elementary said teachers used MasteryConnect and i‑Ready diagnostics to craft small‑group instruction and reported performance above projections. Board members asked about data privacy, funding sources and whether the tools add work for teachers; staff replied that contracts include confidentiality protections, funds are from targeted state and federal allocations, and district leaders said the platforms reduce manual data work for teachers.

Board members expressed general support and asked staff to bring formal procurement and contract documents through the normal approval process. The item was informational at the meeting and no board vote was taken.