Data Analytics & Reporting

Schoolzilla Launches District Progress Monitoring Tool on K–12 Data Platform

• By Sri Ravipati
• 02/01/17

Schoolzilla has launched a new tool on its data platform that helps school leaders easily track district performance indicators.

According to a company announcement, the Mosaic platform features a simple, user-centered design that “makes it easy to flip through different views of your metric data to get those critical answers.” For example, the tool allows users to compare current data to a previous year’s data. They can sort through results by subgroups, like gender and race, to see if data varies across demographic groups. Districts can also determine which schools are progressing on certain indicators and which need more support.

Additionally, Schoolzilla has launched the Mosaic District Progress Monitoring (DPM) tool, which provides real-time data on key metrics, enabling teams to intervene immediately whenever students or schools fall off track. The dashboard is highly customizable as well. A Mosaic extension, for example, allows users “to create, save and link custom deep-dive report to their Mosaic dashboards,” the announcement said.

Schoolzilla, based in Oakland, CA, assists school districts in aggregating student and district information. For the last year and a half, the company has been beta testing its Mosaic platform with several school districts: Alameda Unified School District (CA), Novato Unified School District (CA), Lawrence Public Schools (MA) and St. Louis Public Schools (MO).

The latter district lost its accreditation due to consistently poor student achievement and budget shortfalls. St. Louis Public Schools (SLPS) worked to regain full accreditation, but district leaders recognized that their data tools were not providing “the right data on the right timeline,” according to a Schoolzilla case study. SLPS had a data culture in place and systems to look at data horizontally, but siloed information caused district officials to “spend a lot of time and energy to get pretty basic information,” Colette Owens, director of academic strategy and special projects, said in the case study.  

The district selected Schoolzilla and launched its dashboard system for the 2015-16 school year. SLPS received full accreditation on Jan. 10, 2017.

“We are absolutely thrilled to have Schoolzilla as a partner in our district’s transformation. Their commitment to making sure we have the information necessary to make sustainable change for our kids is not only powerful but inspiring,” said SLPS Deputy Superintendent of Academics David Hardy in a statement.

To learn more about the Mosaic District Progress Monitoring tool, watch the video here. Further information is available on the Schoolzilla site.