Learn how Durham Public Schools—a district of 55 schools and over 33,000 students—uses Student Success to develop and implement an MTSS that supports every student.
Challenges
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Durham Public Schools previously partnered with Panorama for Student Surveys. However, they needed a unified data platform to support it to support the implementation of their robust MTSS.
Solutions
Results
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With Student Success, educators and administrators now have have the ability to develop, monitor, and share student data over time in one platform.
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Visible, accessible data fosters conversations around student supports, ensuring students receive the best intervention at the right time.
District leaders and educators in Durham Public Schools, North Carolina, have a vision that every student receives the support they need to succeed in school—and beyond—to live their best lives. Providing that support requires a robust MTSS with a unified data platform to support it.
Durham Public Schools began their partnership with Panorama in 2020 to run student surveys. In 2022 they adopted Panorama Student Success to develop and implement a successful MTSS that supports every student.
The eighth largest school system in North Carolina, Durham Public Schools serves over 33,000 students. They utilize the Panorama platform to realize a shared vision for the district and the success of each of those students.
We sat down with Durham Public Schools leadership to learn their stories. In this video you’ll hear from:
- Dr. LaVerne Mattocks-Perry, Sr. Executive Director of Student Support Services, Durham Public Schools
- Dr. Letisha Judd-Manning, Director of Integrated Academic and Behavior Systems, Durham Public Schools
- Asia Cunningham, Principal, Pearsontown Elementary, Durham Public Schools
- Dr. Al Royster, Executive Director of Research and Accountability, Durham Public Schools
- Nelson Surles, Director of Data Integration and Accountability, Durham Public Schools
Watch the video or read the transcript below to hear how Durham Public Schools uses Panorama Student Success for their MTSS.
Watch: MTSS at Durham Public Schools (NC) with Panorama Student Success
Partnering With Panorama
Dr. LaVerne Mattocks-Perry, Sr. Executive Director of Student Support Services:
"Student success, to me, is when students have options to live their best lives. Our goal, from the time they are pre-K until they matriculate through to 12th grade and graduation, is that when they leave Durham Public Schools, they have not only had the best experience, but they are well-equipped to live longer, fuller lives.”
D. Letisha Judd-Manning, Director of Integrated Academic and Behavior Systems:
“So when it comes to MTSS I think that Panorama is definitely the solution. We have the ability to develop, monitor, and share student data over time in one platform. How powerful is that? Our partnership began initially with the SEL survey, and of course the data that comes from that has been phenomenal for giving educators insight into the thoughts of our students, which is very important. Our students need to be seen, they need to be heard. But then, of course, we found out that Panorama has so much more to offer. I'm super excited and I think our educators are excited about being able to use the data dashboard, being able to use Student Success to better serve every child in DPS.”
District level dashboard in Panorama platform (demo data)
Positive Impacts Across The District
Asia Cunningham, Principal, Pearsontown Elementary:
“The biggest success story is knowing that teachers are buying into a program that we can see the benefits from. Because at the end of the day, teachers don't want just something else on their plate. They want to know, ‘is this a useful tool to me?’ As long as we're uploading the information, we're putting it in front of them, and they're willing to use it, that's a success in itself. What I love about Panorama is a five year at-a-glance at my fingertips. If a kid moved into my school, I could click on that kid and see what they did on mCLASS when they were a first grader. You're now a fourth grader. You weren't proficient then, what were your areas of difficulty? Was it looking at nonsense word fluency? Was it looking at your phonetic awareness? So then we know where to start when you come in and how to support you.” 
Nelson Surles, Director of Data Integration and Accountability:
“We just have so much data that people get lost very quickly. It's hard to hone in on what's important and Panorama helps us do that. The smart groups function really interests me because it's a way to set criteria and constantly have a refreshed data set of students that meet the criteria. I think a lot of times, in education, we identify this group of kids that we're going to watch and whether that group should change or not sometimes doesn't get reevaluated. Folks are so used to seeing data in black and white, I almost want to say it's easy to get bored by the data. But there's something about the colors, and not just the colors, but the research-based aspects that are behind that, that help us remain focused on those students who we need to receive early warnings about.”
Using The Panorama Platform
Dr. LaVerne Mattocks-Perry, Sr. Executive Director of Student Support Services:
“It's very valuable for us to have all the data in one place. Because whether we want to support someone around embedding some different strategies for behavior management, whether we want to support them around improving their systems for interventions, or if we want to talk to them a little bit about core expectations and how you implement a finely tuned cultural framework, we have all the data there that supports that. So that is how I mainly use it: how am I going to be supportive to the school? And I get to have a district level view.”
Dr. Al Royster, Executive Director of Research and Accountability:
“There are so many resources that are research-based and rich in content that you can use in there, like with Playbook. And there are resources that you all provide that if you don't have an answer for something, you don't have to recreate the wheel by trying to create something you can use and then tailor it to your students. So there's a lot of resources in there which I'm excited about, which I didn't have as a teacher.”
Nelson Surles, Director of Data Integration and Accountability:
“Sometimes you want to provide a product to your schools and it just falls flat. They think, oh, this is another thing. And what I've seen with Panorama is that that is no longer an issue. Folks enjoy it. They get curious about data. Something about it draws them in. They ask questions. It's less about something that's being done to them and more about something that is really there to help them.”
The Panorama platform automatically recommends relevant Playbook strategies
The Vision For Durham Public Schools
Dr. LaVerne Mattocks-Perry, Sr. Executive Director of Student Support Services:
“We have a shared vision of what we believe Durham Public Schools can be and how our students can achieve. And it wasn't as difficult as most people would believe to get buy-in. Once we connected the why and the reason for implementing a new system, it was just a matter of people seeing it and understanding how it was going to enhance our ability to support our students. And we've just had excitement around it since then.”
