At a recent Edsby customer conference in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, educators shared tips on how three aspects of Edsby are making a positive impact on student achievement

School districts in Saskatchewan, where 80% of the province’s students are managed on Edsby, have found value using Edsby to find and safely share information across various internal roles for student success.

Here’s what they told each other at a recent Edsby customer conference about three areas of the product that help them do this.

1. Panorama and observations

The Edsby Panorama view is a single page view of everything having to do with a specific child’s education. It also gives educators a way to record and share private observations on a student. All of a student’s current teachers are presented with these observations automatically.

“We use the Edsby Panorama and observations to track which administrators are working with which students and which counselors, and everyone stays updated,” said Hiedi Bodnarchuk, Vice Principal at Bishop James Mahoney in the Greater Saskatoon Catholic School Division in Saskatchewan.

“For example, if I support a student in a class, or with a social issue, I would record ‘met with student,’ and add details and message pertinent teachers if necessary, right within this confidential area of Edsby. Teachers who support those students will also record if they called home or such. I can go review these observations and see who’s been working with that student and doing what. It’s all in one spot.”

2. Monitor groups

Edsby monitor groups can allow the confidential management of students to achieve specific results.

“We’re using monitor groups to track different groups of students to support our Following Their Voices work here in Saskatchewan, and manage FNMI (First Nations, Métis and Inuit) students for whom special funding is available,” said Patricia Bibby, High School Learning Consultant on the Inclusive Learning Team at Saskatchewan Rivers Public School Division.

“Whether it’s a mentor accessing that group, guidance personnel, a teacher assigned to that group, or an administrator, monitor groups are great. Students don’t even know that they’re there; they can’t see the group. The conversations had within that group are private, and all stakeholders have access to important metrics, such as academic achievement (incl. formative learning evidence as well as summative records), attendance data, current expected location based on schedule and more.”

Graydon King, Educational Technology Consultant at Lloydminster Public School Division, also saw benefit in using monitor groups to identify and manage students with at risk attendance or academic scores. But his district found even more value in another aspect of Edsby.

“We added Edsby Analytics to put me out of the job I was doing helping at-risk kids,” he said.

3. Edsby Analytics

Edsby’s optional Analytics system gives educators ways to find patterns and outliers in data captured within Edsby or elsewhere.

“The analytics piece really caught my eye. I was part of a pilot of another system that we just couldn’t get to work. With Edsby, we like that we can filter and determine say, how grade nine female First Nations students that are left handed are doing compared to others, for instance. You’ve got the demographic information there. You can drill in. And it’s expandable,” said King.

King found the analytics information even more meaningful than the risk factors such as attendance and grades available in Edsby’s standard Zoom reports.

The educators made their comments in a session at Edsbyfest Saskatoon in May, 2023 titled “Student Success Framework,” a group exploration of how Edsby is making a positive impact on system wide improvement in each district and how information is shared across various roles for student success.