Putting information that people want in a place where they can easily find it is the idea behind Cincinnati Public Schools' newest electronic tool. The Building Futures Dashboard launched on October 29, 2008.
Like the dashboard in your car — which, at a glance, gives vital information about such things as your car's speed and the status of your gas tank — CPS' Dashboard provides anyone with a computer unprecedented access to details about the district and individual schools.
With just a few clicks of the computer mouse, now the public can find data that has been readily available to staff for several years, such as up-to-date enrollment figures, financial and budgetary information, and student academic performance. Also available on the Building Futures Dashboard is a scorecard that tracks the district's progress on the strategic plan's revised goals.
The Dashboard is filled with charts and graphs and is easy to navigate. With a few clicks of a mouse, for example, a parent can find the percentage of highly qualified teachers at their child's school, a community partner can track the district's progress on its strategic plan, and a taxpayer can find out how money is being spent - day by day - both centrally and at individual schools.
The public Building Futures Dashboard represents CPS' desire to be more open and transparent, and to promote a collaborative culture between CPS and the community, said Interim Superintendent Mary Ronan.
The development of the public Dashboard was an outgrowth of an internal dashboard that has been used by CPS staff to guide progress for five years.
"We've been using dashboards to manage internal operations since October 2003," said Jennifer M. Wagner, Interim Chief Information Officer. "It started at the executive level, then moved into the schools and to teachers. Dashboard use has really blossomed as we realized what it could do."
An innovative move among school districts nationwide, CPS' development of the public Dashboard was supported as part of the work of the Performance Management Implementation Team. The team is a group of CPS staff and external partners convened by the educational partnership Strive to implement recommendations from the 2007 review of CPS' central operations by McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm.
CPS' staff and the community were asked this summer to help shape the public Dashboard by participating in an online survey that asked them to rank what information they wanted to see.
Additional information will be added to the Dashboard in future phases.
"Although enrollment and financial data are now updated nightly, our ultimate goal is to be more 'real time' with more data," Wagner said.
The Dashboard was praised in a recent look at the district's operations by the Ohio Department of Education (ODE).