The Hechinger Study is a national nonprofit newsroom that reports on one topic: educational activity. Sign up for our weekly newsletters to get stories like this delivered direct to your inbox.

Editor'south note: This story led off this week'southward Futurity of Learning newsletter, which is delivered free to subscribers' inboxes every Wednesday with trends and top stories near education innovation. Subscribe today!

If a educatee's family gets evicted, her teachers may never know. If a student's parents initiate a divorce, if someone dies or goes to jail, if a caregiver loses a task – all these things affect a pupil'due south ability to focus on school, become homework washed and fifty-fifty prove up to form. Yet if students aren't forthcoming with the information, schools can miss the signs. Teachers may see a child acting out and accost the behavior problem without earthworks deeper. Absences may pile up without anyone figuring out what'south causing them.

In Kansas City, a new citywide partnership aims to meliorate the capacity of both schools and nonprofits to serve students well. The school district has long shared some of its student information with trusted community partners, just now those data-sharing agreements are getting turbocharged, thanks to new software designed to create a holistic view of individual children past bringing together information and insights from all the organizations that serve them. Kansas City is the first community to attempt out Apricot 360, a platform adult past the software company Social Solutions and made more than affordable by a $59 million commitment from the Ballmer Grouping, a nonprofit focused on improving economical mobility.

Once all the right data-sharing agreements are in identify, Apricot 360 will automatically integrate data from the Kansas Metropolis Public Schools and nonprofits like the Local Investment Commission (LINC), which operates earlier- and after-school programs along with specialized support services for foster and court-involved youth. As well offer a more effective platform to runway their own programs and their bear on, the partnership means each bureau has access to extra data about students that can assist them tailor their services. If a student is struggling in math class and her grades reflect that, an after-schoolhouse program leader tin offer more support even before it'southward requested. If a student consistently shows up to afterward-school programs but non to school, educators will have a style to have notation.

"Are our interventions working? Are some working improve than others? Are some working in tandem?"

Brent Schondelmeyer, deputy managing director of community appointment for LINC, said information sharing can exist challenging considering everyone stores their data differently. Information technology takes a lot of time to make sense of another organization's information. Apricot 360, he said, will allow anybody to spend a lot more fourth dimension serving kids rather than assembling data.

And he expects the sheer power of the technology to brand people more ambitious about how they serve kids.

"In some sense, the opportunity here is that we have means to do better and we can practice better," Schondelmeyer said. "It used to be I couldn't do this considering the technology didn't let information technology." Now, he said, he and his colleagues have to catch upwardly with the engineering.

The citywide partnership is in its earliest stages and the schools and nonprofits are still deciding what data to share. In some cases, there are upstanding questions about what is correct to share. LINC, for example, collects data about who is on food stamps or receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. There volition have to be discussions most who really needs what information. Schondelmeyer, though, sees great potential in the ability to pay attention to new data, connecting information technology for the beginning time to the educational accomplishment of students.

Social Solutions has a team of information scientists gear up to spot trends in the data and build out the predictive power of the tool. Eventually, their insights will help identify students who are at risk and recommend interventions.

Mike Reynolds, the chief enquiry and accountability officeholder at Kansas Metropolis Public Schools, said the new software volition too assist the district determine whether it's getting a return on investment for certain initiatives. This year, for example, the district poured money into supporting students' social and emotional needs. The data-tracking capabilities of Apricot 360, even without the citywide partnership, expand the district's capacity to assess its own internal programs. And with the partnership, information technology'll give the district a better sense of which out-of-school programs are the most effective, he said.

"Are our interventions working? Are some working better than others? Are some working in tandem? Are certain providers having a greater impact on certain segments of the community than others?" Reynolds mused. All of these questions, he hopes, can be answered past the new software ane day.

This story nigh school and student data was produced by The Hechinger Written report, a nonprofit, independent news system focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign upward for the Hechinger newsletter.

The Hechinger Written report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. Merely that doesn't mean it'southward costless to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed virtually pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help u.s.a. go along doing that.

Join u.s.a. today.

Tara García Mathewson is a reporter covering inequality and innovation in 1000-12 education, nationally, and she oversees coverage for Hechinger en Español as the languages editor. She has been writing...