BY KARISSA MILLER
The Iredell-Statesville Schools Board of Education voted to approve a new data software management tool that will help district administrators and principals take steps towards closing learning gaps earlier this week.
The software platform Hoonuit (pronounced “Who Knew It”) will allow district officials to integrate the system’s existing data sources and consolidate the information into a single, online reporting dashboard.
During the Committee of the Whole meeting last week, the school board questioned whether the district needed more data-analyzing software if administrators were good at creating spreadsheets themselves.
Superintendent Jeff James said that Hoonuit will provide detailed reports and can target specific results that the district is unable to currently generate.
“Hoonuit is an analytics and data management tool that will connect all of our student information data from PowerSchool to create dashboards that will allow our district and school administrators to ‘see’ every piece of data for every student,” I-SS Director of Accountability, Testing and Student Information Laura Elliott explained,
According to Elliot, it will include membership, attendance, discipline, teacher grades, historical grades and state and national assessments.
One concern mentioned by school board member Bill Howell was giving everyone at a school the authority to access data.
Elliot said that the district’s leadership team can restrict the user access. She said that a teacher, for example, could be given access that may pertain to their given classroom or grade level. Another big benefit is it allows each principal the ability to respond to what’s happening with their students in real-time, she said.
“Students can get the extra support they need, whether it’s enrollment in specific classes, assigning a mentor to them, or triggering conversations with district admin about trends and accountability,” she added.
The school board approved purchasing Hoonuit’s three modules – Student Essentials, Advanced Student Suite and Student Readiness. The associated costs are:
• Training/Implementation $51,000, plus Year 1 Deployment $59,898.16
• Ongoing Annual Fee for Year 2 and beyond $89,500
Data housed in the three modules include:
• Essentials – All student data (enrollment, attendance, discipline, academics, grades, assessments)
• Early Warning – Data for At-Risk, Trends, Interventions, Outcomes and Reporting
• Student Success – Data for Readiness, Graduation, College Predictions, Post-Secondary