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Dorchester School District Two, located in Summerville, South Carolina, serves approximately 26,000 students, including 8,500 high schoolers. Facing rapid growth and increasing demands on their school counseling staff, district leaders recognized the need for a streamlined solution to improve graduation tracking, reduce manual processes, and empower staff to dedicate more meaningful time to students.
Enter Panorama Pathways, also known as Palmetto Pathways in South Carolina. The platform provides a comprehensive on-time graduation and CTE (Career and Technical Education) tracking solution. By implementing Panorama Pathways, Dorchester School District Two has made significant strides in supporting student success and preparing them for life beyond high school.
Challenges
- Dorchester had experienced rapid student growth. Complex student support needs strained resources, with counselors spending valuable time on administrative tasks.
- Administrators found that manual audits could lead to data inaccuracies, impacting student progress and limiting time for advising.
- Additionally, Dorchester offered diverse CTE pathways across three high schools, but their team needed a more efficient way to track student progress along each pathway.
Solution
Results
- Counselors have significantly improved access to comprehensive student data. This empowers them to focus on actionable solutions and meaningful student engagement, driving district-wide progress toward targeted graduation rates.
- Enhanced CTE tracking boosts the district’s college and career readiness metrics and overall success.
- With more streamlined administrative processes, the Dorchester counseling team now has more time for student interactions, fostering deeper connections and personalized guidance to ensure students meet their educational goals.
Watch the Full Webinar: Dorchester Shares Their Journey With Panorama Pathways
Challenges
Dorchester School District Two faced a growing set of challenges driven by rapid student population growth and increasing complexity in student support needs. And like many districts across the country, Dorchester had to manage limited resources and time constraints, with counselors frequently burdened by labor-intensive administrative responsibilities.
“Across the country, budgets have been getting tighter. So we needed to identify approaches that would give us the best bang for our buck,” says Jack Mansor, Assistant Director of Federal Programs, Dorchester School District Two. “And we had to find a platform that would make our counselor’s jobs easier—technology that would give them more time to investigate barriers to student progress and find solutions.”
Additionally, manual transcript and schedule audits inevitably left room for error, leading to scheduling issues that impacted student progress.
“We needed to be accountable for posting accurate records for our students,” says Gailia Mercer-Brown, Director of School Counseling at Dorchester School District Two. “So we started a search for a platform that could support that. We also needed to ensure counselors could dedicate time for academic advising and having meaningful conversations with students and parents.”
Compounding these challenges, the district needed to track an expanding array of career and technical education (CTE) pathways, with unique programs offered across three high schools. Keeping pace with evolving student needs while ensuring every graduate met state and district standards required a more efficient approach. Ultimately, Dorchester sought a solution to streamline processes, enhance data visibility, and give staff more time to focus on what mattered most—helping students succeed.
Solution: Panorama Pathways
Panorama Pathways addresses Dorchester’s unique challenges by automating and simplifying graduation and CTE tracking processes. With daily data refreshes and at-a-glance reports, counselors and administrators gain a holistic view of each student’s progress, allowing them to identify and resolve potential issues before they impact student outcomes.
“Panorama Pathways helps us look at data from a holistic perspective,” says Mercer-Brown. “This empowers us to have genuine, authentic conversations with students. And because we’re not dedicating as much time to time-consuming administrative tasks, we can spend time building relationships—which are key to our students’ success.”
Panorama Pathways empowers districts to make decisions with actionable data
Results
For Dorchester, implementing Panorama Pathways marked a pivotal change in how counselors, administrators, and students navigate the road to graduation and beyond. “Panorama Pathways is allowing us to be more action-based—counselors can quickly find the student information they need,” says Mansor. “With the platform, we now have data readily available, and can focus time and resources on finding solutions.”
Mercer-Brown notes that with Panorama Pathways, district administrators can see comprehensive student information at a glance. This enhanced visibility empowers teams to identify and prioritize key areas that students need to focus on, ensuring the district remains on track to meet its targeted graduation rates.
Streamlining CTE Pathways and Enhancing District Accountability
Mansor recognizes a deeper benefit within the district’s complex CTE landscape. With three high schools offering unique CTE programs and career pathways, tracking student progress was challenging. Now, Dorchester can track CTE completions with more fidelity—which supports overall district success.
“We know graduation rate is crucial and we track closely, but we also know that CTE completers are a huge part of that,” says Mansor. “CTE completions boost our college and career readiness statistics, which helps our overall district report card. Panorama Pathways allows us to focus on elements of student success—like CTE pathways—that will help our district continue to improve.”
Empowering Staff to Support Student Success
Both Mansor and Mercer-Brown emphasize that valuing staff and recognizing their dedication is essential. Simplifying and streamlining their processes allows for a stronger focus on student engagement at a personal level.
Mansor notes that rather than spending valuable time sorting through files, with Panorama Pathways, more time can be dedicated to meaningful interactions—meeting with students, building connections, and developing individualized plans to support their progress and success. This shift leads to more impactful student outcomes and fosters a deeper level of support and guidance.
“Ultimately, we want to make sure students meet the profile of a South Carolina graduate, and that they have the skillset they need to achieve their goals,” says Mercer-Brown. “With Panorama Pathways, we can now dedicate more time to students. We can build important relationships and partnerships in a team-based approach, working toward the best interests of our students, families, and communities.”
