How Darlington County Schools Revolutionized ROI with Level Data

With a mission of building successful students through positive, rigorous, and innovative educational experiences, Darlington County School District, located in Darlington, South Carolina, is proud to serve more than 10,000 students in 23 schools and Adult Education programs.

Benjamin Brown, Chief Technology Officer at Darlington County Schools, has worked in K-12 for more than 25 years in many roles from teacher to school level administrator to district level administrator in both North and South Carolina. He has an abundance of experience as a seasoned technology leader in the district.

The Challenge

Darlington County Schools faced challenges in optimizing their budgeting and resource allocation to maximize academic success. Many academic applications were acquired across the district with no process for evaluating implementation or impact. Traditional tools were insufficient for evaluating the efficacy of educational programs and making data-driven adjustments. Benjamin noted, “From a CTO perspective, we looked at all applications we purchased and had to determine if they were effective and benefited us from an instructional standpoint; ROI, both Return on Instruction and Return on Investment.

After learning about Return on Instruction (ROI), by Level Data, Benjamin recognized the district could immediately “dive into the achievement piece, the return on instruction, which is what we are here for, to educate students and empower them.” They had struggled to understand return on investment in the past due to the sheer number of instructional applications, the various departments that had procured the products, and the fact that they didn’t have a cross-functional team to collaborate on the big picture.

“The district needed something to guide them and give them rich data to make the best decisions. Now with ROI, we have the data and know what to do with it. This is a place everyone from my team can go in and grab what they need to achieve our goals and our student goals.”

The Solution

ROI’s ability to analyze expenditure and instructional data and correlate it to academic outcomes turned out to be just what the Darlington County School District needed to allocate resources strategically. The real-time reports and analytics empowered the district to evaluate the effectiveness of academic resources, while its ease of implementation lent itself to a seamless process. Benjamin reflected, “As educators, sometimes promises are made by some vendors and they don’t come through for us. Level Data told us they would pick up some of the heavy lifting, which they did. This is one of the easiest implementation processes I’ve been through in my 25 years in public education.”

Results

The implementation of ROI showcased the transformative potential of data-driven budgeting for Darlington County Schools and led to significant improvements overall. Already, this has allowed quick insight into all the applications being used across the district as they are now able to allocate resources more effectively, maximizing the impact on student success.

Using ROI’s reports, they have also been able to improve academic outcomes by evaluating the efficacy of educational programs and making data-driven adjustments. And finally, they have empowered the districts’ educators and administrators by equipping them with data to make informed decisions, fostering a culture of continuous improvement.

By leveraging ROI’s analytics and optimization features, Darlington County School District was able to navigate budgetary challenges more effectively and ultimately enhance student success.

To learn more about how your district may benefit by partnering with Level Data, reach out to us today.