Growing Pathways for Students

Revolutionizing K-12 Education in South Carolina

GPS serves as South Carolina’s modern, data-driven K-12 decision-support system, aimed at enhancing student outcomes. By seamlessly integrating data from various educational facets - such as academic performance, teacher preparation quality, and financial resources - GPS streamlines analyses and visualizations. This enables informed timely decision-making, promotes transparency, and facilitates collaborative efforts among educators, policymakers, and parents. Ultimately, it supports South Carolina's goal of achieving 75% of students at or above grade level by 2030 and preparing every child to be college, career, or military ready.

From Data to Impact

GPS transforms data into actionable insights through two main components:

Data Analytics Engine

Integrated Data: Connects previously siloed data from multiple systems (such as Student Information Systems (SIS), assessment platforms, and financial systems).
Consistent Data: Utilizes industry Ed-Fi standards for seamless integration, ensuring accurate and timely data exchange.
Security and Local Control: Grants districts their own Operational Data Store (ODS) for secure data access and local governance while contributing to statewide insights.

Visualization and Reporting Platform

Administrator Navigator: Supports strategic planning and accountability for superintendents and principals, featuring metrics on student performance, attendance, educator workforce data, and more.
Teacher Navigator: Provides classroom-level insights with student profile cards, real-time alerts, and assessment dashboards, enhancing instructional planning and intervention.

GPS In Action

Identifying Chronic Absenteeism

Early identification of trends can mitigate long-term effects of poor attendance.

EX: A principal uses GPS to view their students' attendance records, identifying trends in absenteeism that require administrative intervention. This proactive approach ensures timely support for students, fostering academic success.

Podium Chronic Absenteeism District Metrics

Podium Chronic Absenteeism Chronic Absense Rate

Skill Analysis and Differentiation

Student-level and class-level data enable teachers to tailor small group instruction based on demonstrated academic needs.

EX: A teacher analyzes student performance on formative assessments through GPS. By identifying strengths and weaknesses in different competencies, they are able to customize instruction to better meet each student's needs, improving overall class performance.

Recovering Funding Through Accuracy

Data visualization capabilities help administrators quickly identify financial trends and effectively deploy resources for student support.

EX: A school district utilizes GPS to verify student data uploads essential for securing funding. By identifying an issue with their fourth-grade data submission, they were able to recover $150,000 in funding critical for student support.

Average Daily Membership - District and School Reports

What They're Saying

Teacher Navigator... helps me analyze students' strengths and weaknesses based on their academic profile, including current and past data points, which allows me to better plan and inform instruction. Data is easy to analyze due to color coding and visual representations. Demographic and academic data can be examined as a whole class or by individual students.

- South Carolina Teacher

Administrator Navigator... [provides] easy access to data, visually, that can also be drilled down for specific student/school data as needed.

- South Carolina Teacher

I like the ability to compare schools in datapoints, such as chronic absenteeism, that are hard for me to get straight out of [other systems]. I also like that I can filter based on these visuals easily and even get down to student rosters.

- Director of Student Information

Administrator Navigator... is my go-to when our Chief Academic Officer needs to present to the board and needs a data set. This is where I go first to see if there is a chart [or a] table that already has that [data set] put together, and most of the time there is [a set available].

- Director of Instruction & Accountability

Learn More about GPS

GPS Introduction
Overview

GPS Teacher
Navigator

GPS Administrator
Navigator

Have any questions, or want to learn more about GPS? Contact research@ed.sc.gov.

The examples above are drawn from real-life situations.
Names of educators, students, and districts have been changed to ensure privacy.