Metis Associates built a comprehensive data dashboard to empower administrators and site coordinators to identify at-risk students and drive targeted interventions.
Meeting the Complex Needs of Paterson’s Students
Paterson Public Schools (PPS) serves one of New Jersey’s most diverse and economically challenged communities. The school district recognizes that academic success requires more than classroom instruction—it demands coordinated wraparound services addressing students’ academic, social, emotional, and health needs. In 2010, recognizing the powerful impact that the evidence-based community school model can have on improving student outcomes, the district launched its community schools initiative.
The challenge facing Paterson administrators and site coordinators at the district’s 13 community schools was multifaceted: How could they effectively monitor the impact of community school offerings across diverse student populations? How could they identify students at risk of chronic absenteeism, academic failure, or disciplinary challenges before problems became entrenched? And how could they ensure that limited resources reached the students and families with the greatest need?
While data were available through the district’s reporting system, looking across multiple spreadsheets to find information on specific students or groups was clunky and time consuming. Further, traditional annual evaluation reports, while valuable, didn’t provide PPS administrators with the timely and customizable insights necessary for responsive program management. School staff needed immediate access to integrated data spanning attendance, behavior, academic performance, and demographics—all presented in a format that didn’t require technical expertise to interpret.
Designing a Dashboard for Actionable Insights
Metis Associates partnered with PPS to develop a comprehensive Tableau-based data dashboard that transforms complex student information into intuitive, actionable visualizations. Through quarterly uploads based on data from the district’s student information systems, the dashboard integrates multiple data streams that would otherwise remain siloed, including:
- Student demographics (enrollment, race/ethnicity, gender, ELL status, special education, free/reduced lunch eligibility)
- Academic performance (standardized state assessment scores, math and ELA course grades)
- Attendance patterns (daily absences, attendance rates, chronic absenteeism indicators)
- Behavioral data (in-school and out-of-school suspensions)
The dashboard offers two complementary viewing options. The aggregated view presents collective data in consolidated formats, enabling administrators to identify trends, compare subgroups, and evaluate program effectiveness at the school or district level. The individual student view provides granular, student-specific analytics spanning multiple academic years, with searchable records by name or student ID—critical for developing personalized intervention strategies.
A key innovation is the dashboard’s three-tier color-coded risk assessment framework, which automatically flags students who may benefit from targeted support using green, yellow, or red text:
- Attendance Risk: Low (0-9 absences) | Moderate (10-17 absences) | High (18+ absences)
- Behavioral Risk: Low (0-4 suspensions) | Moderate (5-10 suspensions) | High (11+ suspensions)
Academic Risk is also monitored to indicate whether students have one or more failing grades.
Users can apply sophisticated filters and breakdowns to disaggregate data by school, grade level, school type (grant vs. non-grant community schools), gender, race/ethnicity, ELL status, special education status, and socioeconomic indicators. This flexibility allows site coordinators to answer specific questions like: “Are 9th-grade ELL students at my school experiencing higher suspension rates than non-ELL students?” or “Which students earned failing grades in math and have chronic attendance issues?”
Metis also developed a comprehensive training program and detailed user manual to ensure all staff could leverage the dashboard’s capabilities effectively, regardless of their prior data experience. After drafting a manual that captured the dashboard’s purpose, functionality, applications, and data privacy provisions, Metis staff met with district leaders to gather feedback before finalizing the document and designing the training. In September 2025, three Metis researchers presented to all grant site coordinators, introducing them to the interface and leading interactive “scavenger hunt” activities to help them navigate the dashboard and find specific data points.
Empowering Educators with Data-Driven Decision Making
The Paterson community schools dashboard has fundamentally transformed how school staff approach student support. Rather than waiting for quarterly or annual reports, administrators now review data on an ongoing basis to assess progress towards initiative objectives, identify service gaps, and refine outreach strategies.
Practical applications include:
- Proactive Intervention: Site coordinators can use the individual student view to compile comprehensive profiles before parent conferences or meetings with guidance counselors, arriving prepared with data on attendance, grades, suspensions, and assessment performance
- Targeted Resource Allocation: When budget funds become available for specific interventions (such as ELA tutoring), staff can quickly generate lists of eligible students based on multiple criteria—ensuring resources reach those who need them most
- Service Monitoring: Breakdowns by demographic subgroups reveal disparities in outcomes, enabling staff to address inequities and ensure wraparound services reach all student populations proportionally
- Cross-Sector Collaboration: The “Overall Student Risk Level” view integrates all risk factors in one comprehensive display, facilitating conversations between educators, social workers, community partners, and families about holistic student support
By making complex evaluation findings comprehensible through intuitive visualizations, the dashboard has democratized data access—empowering non-researchers to leverage evidence in their daily work. This shift represents more than improved reporting; it represents a fundamental change in organizational culture toward continuous, data-informed improvement in service of Paterson’s students and families.
Paterson’s story shows how the right dashboard can turn raw evaluation data into everyday decision-making for site coordinators and administrators. Learn more about our work with Full-Service Community Schools or our program evaluation services.