Clark University Clark Digital Commons School of Professional Studies Master’s Papers 5-2018 Leicester Public Schools Information and Data Portal: Research and Recommendations Yue Cen Clark University, [email protected] Natalie Bonetti Clark University, [email protected] Rashida Buchanan Clark University, [email protected] Sathark Jain Clark University, [email protected] Yuwei Wong Clark University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at:https://commons.clarku.edu/sps_masters_papers Part of theBusiness and Corporate Communications Commons,Family, Life Course, and Society Commons,Health Policy Commons,Human Resources Management Commons, Information Security Commons,Management Information Systems Commons,Marketing Commons,Nonprofit Administration and Management Commons,Public Administration Commons,Public Health Commons,Social Media Commons, and theSociology of Culture Commons Recommended Citation Cen, Yue; Bonetti, Natalie; Buchanan, Rashida; Jain, Sathark; and Wong, Yuwei, "Leicester Public Schools Information and Data Portal: Research and Recommendations" (2018).School of Professional Studies. 23. https://commons.clarku.edu/sps_masters_papers/23 This Capstone is brought to you for free and open access by the Master’s Papers at Clark Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in School of Professional Studies by an authorized administrator of Clark Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected], [email protected]. Leicester Public Schools Information and Data Portal: Research and Recommendations Praburam Balakrishnan, Natalie Bonetti, Rashida Buchanan, Yue Cen, Sathark Jain, Yuwei Wang School of Professional Studies Clark University Abstract LEICESTER PUBLIC SCHOOLS INFORMATION AND DATA PORTAL 1 The purpose of this project is to develop a strategy for the creation of a multifaceted portal to help with the organization and dissemination of information about the Leicester public school district. The functionality of this portal is to provide comparative financial, demographic, and academic data to other relative school districts in the area, both for the parents’ and for the city’s reference. It will be an examination into the best practices for creating a portal, both technological and aesthetic recommendations, as well as research into the value the publication of this data would provide for the parents of current and prospective students as well as the district and the greater town. As for a basic overview, this project will examine four comparable Massachusetts districts’ data, Milbury, Abington, Avon, and Uxbridge, and construct some visual representations of comparable statistics. The key areas to be compared are: for financial, the total budget, per pupil expenditure, and Chapter 70 money; for academic, MCAS percentage proficient and advanced, SAT scores, and number of AP tests taken; and for demographic, graduation rate, attendance rate, and dropout rate. The secondary part of the project is a best practices recommendation which will be comprised of two parts: technological tools and aesthetics/usability, which will be supported with a discussion about the value this type of portal would have for a school district. Keywords: educational database, student research, Massachusetts schools Acknowledgements LEICESTER PUBLIC SCHOOLS INFORMATION AND DATA PORTAL 2 Jeffrey Berthiuame, project sponsor Richard M. Aroian, adviser Mary Piecewise, SPS program lead Table of Contents Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Chapter 1: Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 LEICESTER PUBLIC SCHOOLS INFORMATION AND DATA PORTAL 3 Chapter 2: Literature Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Chapter 3: Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Chapter 4: Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24 Chapter 5: Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43 Chapter 6: Final Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Chapter 7: Reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Chapter 8: Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Executive Summary This project is a final semester component for the graduates of the Clark University School of Professional Studies. The team members involved come from each of the three LEICESTER PUBLIC SCHOOLS INFORMATION AND DATA PORTAL 4 programs of study: Masters of Professional Communication, Masters of Public Administration, and Masters of Information and Technology. Each group project is in partnership with an assigned client, in the case of this project, the Leicester Public School District, who come up with a set of deliverables for their teams to work on for a semester and report back on. The educational purpose of this project was to serve as a real world example of the kind of teamwork that might need to be done in the public sector in order to prepare students for life after completion of the graduate program. Originally, when the team met with the client, the project deliverable was intended to be a populated student data portal that would include current school data for three fields: academic performance, financial budgeting, and demographic statistics. However, due to constraints on time and resources, the team worked with our client representative and our advisor to create a list of deliverables that would provide value to the client, while at the same time, a learning opportunity for the team. As a result, the new parameters of the project consisted of a basic search into the current issues relating to student data and school websites to provide general background information, a survey of the current IT tools available to build the sort of portal that Leicester was intending, a comparative look at four other schools’ websites to provide aesthetic recommendations to improve the look of the Leicester Public Schools’ website, and finally an analysis of Leicester’s data incorporative of the three fields mentioned in comparison to four other schools to help advise on Leicester’s comparative strengths and weaknesses as a district. An account of the general findings of the report are as follows. When conducting research on current topics regarding student data, there were two main areas examined: the first was the federal laws in place to protect children’s privacy and the second was parent’s reactions toward schools posting this information in order to compare schools’ performance. When LEICESTER PUBLIC SCHOOLS INFORMATION AND DATA PORTAL 5 researching school websites, there were two main findings, both in reference to people with disabilities: the first was that websites that use font sizes or color combinations that are hard to read can be found as discriminatory and the second was that disability should be considered in school demographic research as a facet of diversity. For IT recommendations, it was found that for the user interface, the best programs to use are HTML, AngularJS, CSS, and JavaScript. For the application itself, Apache tomcat is best suited for the application server and Java is best for the application layer. The database should be created with MySQL. When comparing Leicester to other schools, finding were grouped into two areas: website aesthetic recommendations for the website and comparative research of Leicester’s performance. The team made aesthetic website recommendations for five main areas, the homepage, the dropdown menu, hyperlinks, sliders, and the main content of the pages. These recommendations were based on the Milbury, Abington and Avon webpages’ success and usability. For performance data, there were areas of both positive trends and areas for improvement. Comparatively, Leicester performed well in the SAT, but needs improvement in overall MCAS performance and helping disadvantaged students perform at a similar level to the rest of the students. This could be improved through a closer teacher to student ratio (which has been declining over the past five years). As a final recommendation, the team hopes that the research provided here can be of use in several aspects of the creation of a portal for the Leicester Public School District. Aside from the list of IT recommendations that have already been stated and the aesthetic areas already pointed out as target spots for improvement, the team did create a short list of possible recommendations based on the school performance data analysis: since Avon and Uxbridge have demonstrated strengths to contrast areas where Leicester has weaknesses, the team suggests that LEICESTER PUBLIC SCHOOLS INFORMATION AND DATA PORTAL 6 Leicester partner with them in the area of helping their disadvantaged students’ achievement and the student to teacher ratios and since female students did not perform as well as males on the math SAT, the team advises that Leicester administer the SMARS test to determine if the students have math anxiety. Leicester Public Schools Information and Data Portal: Research and Recommendations Nestled between Worcester, Paxton, Spencer, and Auburn, the town of Leicester boasts of a population of 11,000 people, 1,900 of those being school age children (Town of Leicester, (n.d)). The town has a close connection with its rich industrial past, made evident by an historic district. It prides itself on being the perfect location for families who work in Worcester or other nearby cities to raise their families. Because of this, Leicester understands how the value of a competitive school district can aid in creating a multifaceted hometown well-suited to serving its residents in the ways that they need. Its mission statement reflects this view: “Recognized by the LEICESTER PUBLIC SCHOOLS INFORMATION AND DATA PORTAL 7 community as its greatest asset, the Leicester schools engage every child in rigorous and student- centered learning in a safe and technology-rich environment” (Leicester Public Schools, (n.d.)). There are four schools that make up the school district: two elementary schools, Leicester Memorial Elementary School and Leicester Primary School; Leicester Middle School; and Leicester High School. In order to measure community viewpoints about school-related topics, director of technology for the school department and vice chairman of the Middle School Building Committee Jeff Berthiuame created a “thought exchange” poll (the second of which was conducted this past year) and published the results (Gonsalves, Nov. 2017). Based on the study, the participants felt most strongly about future planning, technology, and learning facility, expressing the belief that “schoolchildren deserve upgraded, modern facilities for learning at a time when the town is getting a renovated library and new fire station” (Gonsalves, Nov. 2017). Based on the results of this study, the residents of Leicester value the school system for what it can do for the town as a whole and take great stock in the belief that through helping future generations enhance their education a town can provide long term benefits for future generations to experience. The school district has been experiencing recent changes over the past few years in an effort to make some targeted performance improvements. In 2017, Leicester implemented a three year action plan to improve the district performance. The five identified areas for improvement are: targeted reading proficiency by grade three, enhanced tech literacy, greater success in algebra, zero suspensions, and increased graduation rates. The three strategies through which the district plans to implement to achieve their goals are by “engaging instruction and effective interventions grounded in rigorous curriculum, develop[ing] staff skills through effective LEICESTER PUBLIC SCHOOLS INFORMATION AND DATA PORTAL 8 feedback and training, [and] improv[ing] infrastructure and resources” (Leicester Public Schools, 2017, p. 3). The district’s plan to create a portal featuring such information as demographic, academic, and financial data would directly tie in with this project because some of these areas would see improvement if success was achieved. For example, high school graduation statistics are already slated for display in the portal, but the number of suspensions might also be considered for publishing in this section as well. As one of the three strategies being implemented, the district asserts that they plan to improve infrastructure and resources; the publishing of this portal would help with proving “sufficient allocation of financial resources” through improving ease of access to financial budgeting information (Leicester Public Schools, 2017, p. 3). Therefore, the creation of a school information portal would support this existing plan for achievement that the district has recently put forth. Additionally, in terms of change, the district is also in the process of renovating their middle school. The original probe into alternative options for the 1961 middle school began under former superintendent of schools Judy Paolucci (Gonsalves, May 2017). The Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) approved the project in December (O’Connell, 2017), making it eligible for state reimbursement of roughly 59% of the total project cost (Gonsalves, May 2017). In fact, up to $750,000 of the $28.7 million operating budget for fiscal year 2018 was appropriated for a feasibility study for future middle school construction and renovations (Gonsalves, May 2017). The final change the district experienced in recent years was a high turnover in superintendents. Former Superintendent Paolucci left Leicester after four and a half years. Marilyn Tencza, former director of curriculum in Leicester for several years and superintendent of schools in North Brookfield took over for Michael Wood, director of student services, who