Shelby County Schools Partners with BrightBytes® to Employ End-to-End Data Solution, Leverage Research-Based Predictive Analytics to Create Positive Student Trajectories

MEMPHIS, Tennessee, Oct. 2, 2018 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Shelby County Schools (SCS) and BrightBytes, an education data solution organization, today, announced a three-year partnership to support the District's efforts to leverage data to prepare all students for success in learning, leadership, and life. The partnership brings together the industry's only end-to-end data management through analytics solution, and a large District with a vision to provide educators with high-quality actionable data to inform student learning and drive educator's instructional and support decisions.

The largest District in Tennessee, Shelby County Schools stands out for its commitment to improving the quality of public education for over 100,000 students. In 2015, the District launched their extensive Destination 2025 plan with ambitious goals to have 80% of seniors on track to learn in a postsecondary classroom or enter the workforce straight out of high school; 90% of students earn their high school diploma on time; and every student enroll in a postsecondary opportunity college or career-ready by 2025. In Spring 2018, SCS leaders looked to BrightBytes to provide a data-driven approach to ensure that all efforts and resources support the goals outlined in Destination 2025.

Shelby County Schools will employ the full BrightBytes product suite. The comprehensive adoption includes the organization's data integration platform, DataSense, an IPaaS solution that will capture, clean, and translate all siloed, incommunicable data and house it within a secure centralized location for bidirectional flows for reporting and analysis. Chris Graves, the District's senior manager for decision analytics and information management, believes that by providing accessible data in a single location, educators will be able to solve a number of previous data challenges, brought on by the number and complexity of the systems within the District. In the past, educators had to rely on data from multiple, disparate sources, and spent vast amounts of time compiling information rather than focusing on student learning. Centralized high-quality data will help educators track student data easily and ensure each student is on a continued path toward success. "The reason we're attempting to integrate our data, make it easy for end-users to understand, and providing support on continuous improvement processes is so that every educator in our system is better meeting the needs of our students. Our hope is that by making these investments, our students are much more ready to compete for jobs and much better prepared to be active citizens in our republic," said Bradley Leon, Shelby County Schools Chief of Strategy and Performance Management.

The District also has adopted the BrightBytes Clarity data analytics platform to translate complex data into fast actions that improve student learning. The widespread buy-in of both the BrightBytes' 21st Century Learning suite and the Early Insights suite will allow educators to leverage advanced data analytics, such as predictive analytics, machine learning, and psychometrics, to support work around specific areas, like ensuring students graduate on time and are prepared for the rigors of postsecondary environments, and to inform technology initiatives that drive student learning safely. This analysis is delivered across easy-to-understand visualizations and intuitive dashboards so educators can take a proactive approach to creating a positive student trajectory. "This new platform will provide real-time data on the performance of our students allowing teachers, principals, and administrators to be more prescriptive at identifying the necessary supports. This will correlate directly to increased student achievement of every scholar in our care at SCS. This type of knowledge is a game changer for our entire community as we produce successful and responsible citizens to help Shelby County thrive in the future," said Brian Stockton, Shelby County Schools Chief of Staff.

Over the last several weeks, BrightBytes and SCS have been collaborating during training sessions, engagement activities, and professional learning opportunities to ensure implementation is seamless for the upcoming school year. The engagement approach is very interactive, and focuses on going into each school, and providing guidance to teachers and administrators to ensure they have critical information at their fingertips. To date, the training teams have delivered nearly 60 sessions to approximately 2,000 school personnel over the course of July and August, with many more scheduled in the coming months. Traci Burgess, CEO of BrightBytes, said, "It's inspiring to see a district as large and diverse as Shelby County Schools have so much buy in across the entire organization, especially for such a wide product offering. We believe that by collaboratively addressing everything from data integration to analytics, SCS will be able to successfully use data to drive learning and leverage quantifiable metrics to support initiatives for improved student outcomes. The District is setting an incredible example for other large districts to follow."

About Shelby County Schools
Shelby County Schools (SCS) is the largest district in Tennessee and one of the 25 largest public school systems in America. We serve over 100,000 students across 160+ schools and are the second largest employer in the Memphis area with nearly 12,000 employees. We are committed to improving the quality of public education in our community and equipping our students to succeed in college and careers. By 2025, 80 percent of seniors will be on track to learn in a postsecondary classroom or enter the workforce straight out of high school; 90 percent of students will earn their high school diploma on time; and every student will enroll in a postsecondary opportunity college or career-ready.

About BrightBytes
BrightBytes, the leading end-to-end data management solution for education organizations, provides educators with the power to turn big data into big benefits for students. With the data integration platform, DataSense,™ BrightBytes enables educators to cleanse, integrate, and bi-directionally manage complex data from multiple systems. The decision support platform, Clarity®, then analyzes and organizes meaningful data across research-based frameworks to deliver visualized, actionable information that drives student learning.

SOURCE BrightBytes