Chandler Unified showcases balanced-assessment framework and Tableau dashboards to board

Dr. Fletcher, superintendent of Chandler Unified School District #80, told the school board at a study session that the district is using a balanced-assessment framework and Tableau visualizations to connect classroom checks to course- and district-level decisions. "All assessment has a purpose. That is it," said Dino Katsiras, the district's assistant director of assessment, explaining the framework's aim to align day-to-day checks, formative and summative measures and programmatic diagnostics.

The district research team, led by Dr. Kenton Woods, described the technical rollout. Woods said Tableau draws data primarily from Infinite Campus, updates overnight and provides leaders and educators with hundreds of ready-made views. "We have about 1,100 different data visualizations across 275 workbooks and 50 projects," he said, noting statewide assessment files for 2025 were not yet available.

Principals and teachers gave concrete examples of how they use the dashboards. Amanda Cook, principal of Bogle Junior High School, described a "student success indicator" view that integrates attendance, behavior and course performance to flag students for study-skills support and to monitor progress; she said one student moved from "extreme" risk in grades to steady improvement after targeted interventions.

At Conley Elementary, Principal Lisa Shore said the school uses exported lists to identify chronically absent students before conferences, segments the lists by subgroup and boundary status, and assigns "attendance heroes" — staff members who build relationships with selected students. Shore said the school narrowly missed an "A" rating in a prior year "by point 04%" and has used attendance work to lower its absence rate.

Third-grade teacher Lauren Mosier described classroom tracking on a teacher view: at the time of her presentation, 36.8% of her students were in moderate or extreme attendance categories compared with school and district figures she cited (school 38.7%, district 32%). She reported a 4.2% absence rate over the prior 20 school days and an average of 1.6 tardies per student; classroom incentives and daily tracking aim for a 96% on-time target.

Teachers also showed how the dashboards bring disparate records together. A history teacher said dashboards let him pull ACT scores, AzELLA and gradebook details into one live view to spot early trends and act during parent or team meetings. Emma Straz, a math teacher, demonstrated a student-level "baseball-card" view that includes health screenings, program enrollments (CTE, athletics), English‑language status and out-of-boundary flags — information she said is hard to gather quickly in Infinite Campus alone.

During Q&A, board member Mr. Roars expressed concern about disaggregating data by ethnicity; presenters replied that subgroup reporting is required by state and federal law and that disaggregation is used to ensure equity and targeted supports rather than to stereotype students. Mrs. Mendoza challenged staff to reduce attendance to 4% or lower and offered to "dress as the goose" at a future board meeting if the district meets the goal by the May checkpoint.

The presenters said counselors and site staff have access to student success indicators, can set weekly alerts for risk-level changes and collaborate with social workers and families to implement plans such as the attendance-heroes approach. Dr. Fletcher and the board closed the study session with thanks to the research, assessment and school staff for building usable visualizations and supports.

The board did not take formal action during the meeting; presenters offered to schedule deeper walkthroughs of Tableau views for board members who requested them.