As School District 27 (SD 27) rolls out a new system to manage and utilize data, education coordinators from Williams Lake First Nation (WLFN) are excited about the opportunities it presents.
“All these children, they all have the ability to be successful,” said Norma Sure, the education director at WLFN. She and Leah Briault, the nation's education coordinator, oversee the education of all children from WLFN, whether they live on or off reserve or attend school near or far.
They do so through the Local Education Agreement (LEA) which is meant to affirm First Nations’ rights to control and make decisions over the education they receive. However, since the LEA’s implementation, barriers to student information have made it difficult for them to make the changes they want to see in their children's education.
Knowing how all their students are performing, attending, behaving and what kind of support they are receiving is essential for Sure and Briault to do their job.
“How do you move forward when you don’t actually know what’s going on,” said Sure.
She and Briault meet monthly with SD 27 leadership to discuss next steps, but so often the meetings are spent catching up rather than moving forward. Their experience accessing student information through the ministry-wide MyEducation platform was even described as “painful” by Grant Gustafson, director of instruction for SD 27's Indigenous Education department, during the district’s Feb. 24 board of education meeting.
Throughout the 2024-2025 school year, anticipation has been growing as Sean Cameron, director of instruction for learning and innovation, worked to secure a new and improved system for district staff to access and interpret student data. The Cariboo Information Management System (CIMS) processes all data within the district, from payroll to student registration, into a format which is not only legible, but usable too.
“It allows you to have informed conversations,” Cameron told Efteen as he explained how the system can produce visual, interactive reports which can be expanded to see changes over time, or narrowed down to identify how specific demographics are faring.
While setting up CIMS was an expensive bill for the district, it’s a cheaper option for a more modern, efficient and interactive system than what the district was previously using.
Costs for the district’s previous system, used between 2011 and 2021, amounted to about $430,000. Annual subscription costs were set to increase by three to five per cent annually as of 2022, and the district was charged extra if it wanted to have more reports produced from the data.
CIMS had an initial cost of $120,000 for development and the ongoing costs are about $250 per month. Annual costs are expected to be three to four thousand dollars but will decrease as system development stabilizes.
CIMS is now being introduced to all staff, providing district leaders, principals, teachers and LEA teams access to fresh and contextualized data about the students relevant to their role, and it runs daily data checks to ensure everything lines up.
The system is also able to notify users on concerns such as students approaching a failing grade, allowing staff to “catch the students where they’re at and catch them early,” Gustafson said.
For Briault and Sure, this means their work won’t constantly be reactive; they will be notified when a student under their watch is, for instance, about to pass a critical point in absenteeism, allowing them to act before it’s too late for the student.
There are still gaps, Briault said, but the new data management system speaks to how districts and LEA coordinators want to work together. Sure and Briault got to share their thoughts on what’s needed so the system can be helpful for their job, leading to improvements which they expect will enhance their ability to be aware and prepared when it comes to discussing solutions.
“We get to lead the conversation, we get to ask the questions,” Briault said when explaining how CIMS will impact their meetings with district leaders.
Catherine Groundwater, the educational services coordinator for Esk’etemc First Nation, has also been heavily involved in sharing her ideas and feedback so the system can reflect the needs of students from Esk’et. While she said accessing MyEducation wasn’t much of a problem for her, CIMS will mean she has a much easier time accessing everything in one place.
“That’s the beauty of CIMS,” she said, appreciating how the system is updated every night and so is sure to provide accurate, reliable information.
Her colleague Calvin Dubray, who is the education director for Esk'etemc, said Cameron did an excellent job securing the system and working with different parties to ensure it meets their needs.
"The CIMS project is a great example of when we work together, good things can happen all in the best interest of our students" he wrote to Black Press.
A journal function is also included in the system so staff can write notes about a student such as what their interests, strengths and career goals are, or notes following a call with the student’s caregivers to keep track of interventions.
“What that means is you have a story of a kid instead of just a statistic,” said Gerald Morton, a retired director from the ministry of education and child care’s analytics branch. Since his retirement, Morton has been supporting Cameron as CIMS is similar to what he’s always dreamt of developing for school districts across B.C.
“This is what I had been working on for 20 years,” Morton said, adding that CIMS puts SD 27 among the top three districts in B.C. when it comes to integrating data into instruction.
Briault and Sure were also very excited about the system’s potential for focusing on positive reinforcement.
“It speaks to the success rather than the failures,” Briault said.
Along with allowing staff to easily identify who needs additional support, CIMS presents opportunities to celebrate student successes, milestones or improvements by easily identifying these moments in a student's journey.
Crystal Dawn Langton, principal of 100 Mile Elementary, and Craig Munroe, principal of 150 Mile Elementary, both appreciate how CIMS is helping them focus on improving student attendance.
Langton said the system saves her time and frustration when looking for students’ attendance history and progress.
“If we can navigate the obstacles that prevent them from consistent attendance and increase their time with us, we increase their changes of success overall,” she wrote to Black Press.
Munroe said he refers to CIMS frequently to look at data which was historically difficult to access. Along with being able to track a student’s reading and writing performance through their entire education journey, the system also helps him know when a student has or has not yet been supported as needed.
“Staff can easily document services and supports provided and this allows for us to develop more impactful and targeted support plans,” Munroe wrote to Black Press.
“We're not looking to change the data just to have better numbers,” Cameron said to Black Press. “It's about changing the underlying cause.”
The system continues to be improved and is now accessible to all staff including human resources and payroll teams who said it means they spend less time manually verifying data because CIMS flags errors early on.
Cameron is now hosting training sessions to ensure staff know how to navigate the system and can use it effectively.
