Our Clients

Eighty school districts in California are using the Online Assessment Reporting System (OARS) to report and analyze local and state assessments. They include some of the largest districts in the state (and some of the smallest, too). Both urban and rural districts are using the software to monitor the progress of their students and help teachers improve instruction.

Case Study: Paramount Unified School District

Very rarely does a district come through a Coordinated Compliance Review (CCR) audit by the California Department of Education without any compliance items, but our District yesterday finished the 2004 audit with only three items of non-compliance, all in one program. Seven other programs had no items of non-compliance.

The chief reviewer noted that, in her memory, before our District, no one had ever come through the English Learner portion of the CCR without an item of non-compliance. We were pleased that the work of our instructional programs was validated by the state in this rigorous review process. A large part of that success is due to the great strides we have made in ELD (English Language Development) with our EL students, plus their academic advancement in their core subjects.

And behind that, as our teachers were able to articulate, is all the good data that they have on their students' performance so that they can differentiate instruction. The CCR team made this very clear, singling out our ability to differentiate instruction and the multitude of good information we were able to provide teachers.

In several places throughout the CCR's Notification of Findings, the reviewers noted: "The Coordinator of Research and Evaluation is commended for the comprehensive data/information system that is used universally throughout the district by principals and site staff to guide planning for prevention and intervention strategies. Both teachers and parents are provided this information in a format that is easily understood and usable."

In another place they state: "CDE commends Paramount Unified School District (PUSD) for the development and implementation of 'systems' that together assemble a solid structure to meet the educational needs of the district's English Learners. These systems include: A system for coherent data collection and management to track the acheivement of the district's English learners...."

The data we presented to our auditors is principally that which we organize through OARS or through MS Access reports we generate independently of OARS. We all feel very gratified by everything we have done, all the choices we have made for instructional programs, assessments, and software to support the data generated. We feel that all of our hard work has been validated. OARS has been a critical partner in our success.

Jim Parker
Coordinator, Research and Evaluation
Paramount Unified School District *