Positive outcomes for K-12 kids often come down to the data. The act of educating students relies on analyzing vast amounts of information—whether to forecast future enrollment and build plans to meet population-based needs or monitoring real-time progress trends to adjust learning plans and improve projected outcomes throughout the academic year.
Prince William County Public Schools (PWCS), one of the largest school divisions in the United States, met this challenge head-on with real-time analytics solutions powered by Strategy One. The district’s embrace of data, and success in democratizing it across stakeholder groups, has transformed how they measure, monitor, and modify their approach to enhance educational achievements for the 90,000+ students they serve.
The Challenge
Public school districts across the U.S. serve a variety of stakeholders. Their mission is student success, and to empower it, they’re accountable to parents and guardians, educators and administrators, communities and counties, and even the state and federal government.
Educators and other key constituencies must have timely, transparent access to insights to identify trends and tackle challenges that might impede student success. Like many K-12 school systems, PWCS struggled to surface and unify information that lives in siloed systems. Further, data consistency and access challenges that made stakeholder and governmental reporting processes daunting.
Everything that we do must be backed by data analytics.
Strategy One ensures that everyone can leverage the same clean data to make the right decisions for students—and move the needle on strategic goals.
Dr. Charmelle Ackins, Chief Equity Officer
About PWCS
Industry
K-12 Education
Website
https://www.pwcs.edu/
Number of Students
90,000+
Number of Employees
13,000+
About
With over 90,000 students, Prince William County Public Schools (PWCS) is Virginia’s second-largest school division, known for its diversity and strong academic programs.
The Solution
PWCS adopted the Strategy One platform to unify its data ecosystem and modernize its reporting approach. The platform’s native data fabric has enabled information integrity, governance, and scale.
The Strategy platform also serves as the foundation for a suite of solutions for school system data analytics solutions—including a public Progress Monitoring Portal that shares school demographics, student performance, progress to educational goals, and more with various stakeholders.
Under the Hood: Data Analytics at Scale with AWS
Embrace cloud-powered intelligence and data-driven innovation to boost education outcomes. Harness the combined strength of Strategy One and AWS to realize the potential of modern, AI-powered analytics—without the complexity of infrastructure management.
Benefits of Strategy One on AWS include:
- AI-powered insights
- Faster app deployment
- Seamless scalability
- Environment management
- One-click upgrades
- And much more
Plus, as a fully managed service, Strategy One enables team members to free up time to focus on innovation and prioritize the core mission of educational excellence.
Driving Student Success with 360° Data Analytics
The school district’s successful data democratization has helped educators, administrators, and its broader stakeholder community—however PWCS students are the most important benefactors.
In elementary education, the percentage of students reading at the 3rd grade level or higher has significantly increased. The percentage of elementary and middle school students passing state-administered standardized tests in both reading and math has also expanded.
At the high school level, advanced course enrollment has expanded alongside corresponding increases in success metrics, while attrition in advanced courses has decreased. Further, universal K-12 KPIs like student satisfaction with school climate, feeling a sense of belonging, and individual wellness have also risen, while the percentage of student exclusionary discipline has decreased across all groups.