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Plymouth-Canton schools preview public-facing dashboard; board asks for clearer filters, benchmarks and translations

Plymouth-Canton Community Schools Board of Education · December 10, 2025
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

Superintendent Monica Merritt and Qualtrics presented a draft public-facing achievement dashboard focused on state assessments, NWEA MAP, AP pass rates and attendance. Board members and students asked for simpler navigation, benchmarking, multilingual options and clearer definitions before a planned second-semester launch.

Superintendent Monica Merritt introduced a draft public-facing dashboard developed with Qualtrics and CESA 6, saying the tool is intended to display district progress on the district's strategic goals and to go live for the community in the second semester if the board’s feedback is incorporated. "So this evening, I wanna introduce to you, mister Joe Schmidt," Merritt said when introducing Qualtrics' team and the dashboard preview.

Qualtrics' K–12 representative Joe Schmidt described the company’s role and the purpose of the demo: "Qualtrics is a research based experience management focused company that enables organizations to better listen, understand, and act on both the experience and operational data that makes up the district." The dashboard demonstration concentrated on Goal A (achievement), showing M-STEP and MAP trends, PSAT/SAT results, AP pass rates (3+), attendance and chronic-absence measures, course pass rates and graduation trends, with options to disaggregate by school and grade.

Board members and students welcomed the transparency but offered specific design and content requests. Students and trustees asked for clearer navigation (subpages rather than a single long scrolling page), a high-level "gauge" or green/yellow/red benchmark to show whether goals are met, and the ability to compare district metrics with county and state benchmarks. One student suggested highlighting district strengths at the top of each page to make the data more accessible to parents.

The presenters said that public-facing filters would stay high-level (school, grade, year) while a more detailed internal dashboard would include demographic disaggregation for staff use. They also said multiple translations could be offered in the public version. A Qualtrics presenter described the draft site as a "welcome page" and a preview of the district's goals and high-level stats, and said the team will build subpages if the board prefers.

Next steps: Board members who were absent will be asked to submit feedback during the break so staff can finalize it for a prospective January–February public launch window. Superintendent Merritt asked board members to send comments to President Christiansen and to the superintendent’s office; staff will collect feedback and return with revisions.

What remains open: the board requested concrete benchmarking thresholds, examples of other Michigan public dashboards, and confirmation of which metrics will be public vs. internal. The presenters committed to follow-up materials and sample dashboards for the board to review.

The board will receive a revised draft after the break and the district aims to publish the public-facing achievement pillar by the second semester if the board approves the final design.