Schenectady board previews districtwide rollout of EduCLIMBER data dashboard
Loading...
Summary
At an Aug. 27 work session, Schenectady City School District leaders introduced EduCLIMBER as a replacement for Schoolzilla, outlined a yearlong selection process and a 2–3 year implementation and training plan, and discussed data ingestion from Infinite Campus, parent access, user permissions and data-privacy safeguards.
Schenectady City School District leaders introduced a new districtwide data visualization platform, EduCLIMBER, at the board of education work session on Aug. 27, 2025, saying the tool will replace the district’s current platform, Schoolzilla, and support more timely, centralized access to student, attendance and assessment data.
The presentation, led by Assistant Superintendent Tyrone O'Meary and Chief Academic Officer Tia Cornell, said EduCLIMBER will ingest data from the district’s student information system, Infinite Campus, and other sources to create dashboards for district leaders, school staff and, in selected views, families and community members. Natalie Cable, manager of data and reporting, said the district’s goals are “that every student's progress is visible, measurable, and meaningfully supported.”
The system is intended to support ongoing efforts such as MTSS (multi-tiered systems of support), to reduce delayed or siloed information, and to provide customizable views for principals, teachers, counselors and parents. Nathan Barrow, account executive for assessment and analytics at Renaissance (the vendor behind EduCLIMBER), said the platform offers a highly granular student profile that he described as the “back of an all star card view.” He and district staff demonstrated sample achievement dashboards, subgroup filters and drill-downs to individual students.
District staff described a yearlong selection process that began with a rubric and a broad stakeholder committee. Tracy Angelini, director of planning and accountability, said the committee evaluated 19 vendor solutions and narrowed the selection through a rubric built around four core categories that were prioritized in stakeholder feedback: secure data handling and compliance with Education Law 2-d; ease of use; consolidation of district data in a central location; and fidelity/consistency of data collection. Angelini said a final selection committee of about eight participants recommended EduCLIMBER and the district has begun onboarding and data-ingestion work.
On the technical and rollout timeline, staff said an onboarding kickoff took place in July and the district has already begun transferring historical data from Infinite Campus into EduCLIMBER. District staff said an attendance-and-behavior workshop — described as a 90-minute configuration session — has taken place as part of a staged onboarding. The district expects a two- to three-year implementation plan that includes phased technical rollout and targeted professional development for administrators, teachers and other stakeholders.
Officials emphasized data privacy and security. Cable and other staff said compliance with New York Education Law 2-d was treated as a nonnegotiable requirement in the vendor review. Nathan Barrow said Renaissance holds SOC 2 security certification; district staff also said they will work with the regional education technology cooperative NERIC and the BOCES purchasing channels for procurement and support.
Board members asked several operational questions and district staff provided the following clarifications during the session: - Data ingestion and history: staff said historical data from Infinite Campus is already being transferred and that current-year rosters will continue to populate as they are finalized. - Parent and public access: staff said district- or building-level dashboards and custom “smart forms” can be made public-facing or pushed to parents, translated into multiple languages and automated for alerts such as early-warning attendance notifications. How much and which fields parents will be able to see will be configured by role-based permissions. - User permissions and inputs: staff said EduCLIMBER supports role-based access (teacher, administrator, community member) and that Infinite Campus will remain the district’s primary student information system; EduCLIMBER will visualize and aggregate data from it. The district’s data team will manage user provisioning and troubleshooting, with technical support available from NERIC and Renaissance. - Athletics and extracurricular notifications: staff said EduCLIMBER can use tags (for example, varsity basketball) and threshold monitors to generate automated lists (for coaches) tied to academic eligibility; staff said they would follow up with the athletic office about whether and how those coach notifications are forwarded to parents. - State reporting: staff said the district will continue to extract and upload required state reporting files from Infinite Campus to NYSED, but EduCLIMBER may allow staff to surface and catch data discrepancies earlier in the local workflow.
Board members asked about cost and procurement. Staff said the product was procured through BOCES purchasing and that EduCLIMBER scored highest on the district rubric; staff did not provide a contract dollar amount during the presentation and said pricing details would be presented later. Staff also said the district’s senior data analyst would write scripts and automate much of the data-transfer work to minimize manual uploads.
The board paused the presentation to reserve follow-up questions and to follow the board’s policy that limits board members to three questions each in the first round. Staff said they will return with updates to the executive leadership team (ELT) and will seek formal board approval at the next public meeting, because the product is being purchased via BOCES.
The presentation reflected a shift the district said it wants to make from scattered, delayed data to a single, shared data environment intended to speed intervention, aid teacher collaboration and increase transparency for families. Staff emphasized that effective use will require time for training and changes to building- and district-level workflows. The district described a staged rollout and ongoing training plan to support principals, teachers and support staff.
Votes at a glance: At the start of the work session the board adopted the agenda for Aug. 27, 2025, “as presented,” and later approved the consent agenda items 3a–3j. At the end of the meeting the board voted to enter executive session to discuss the superintendent’s evaluation and contract; board members announced no further action would be taken afterward. Specific dollar amounts and public-facing start dates for the EduCLIMBER deployment were not specified during the presentation.
