Enhancing Federal Reporting and Data Management in Early Childhood Education
Federal reporting in early childhood education, especially for programs like Head Start, is critical for monitoring and improving child and family outcomes. Our client, a leading provider of early childhood education and family engagement services, needed a robust solution to meet Program Information Report (PIR) requirements for federal oversight and funding. Their current reporting system faced performance, security, and data management challenges, making it difficult to provide real-time insights and maintain historical data. Neviton Technologies addressed these issues by implementing a powerful data management and reporting solution tailored to federal standards.
Why: Understanding the Need
Our client, a provider of early childhood education and family engagement services under the Head Start program, aims to improve community outcomes through enhanced child and family progress tracking. To meet federal requirements, they need to provide detailed and accurate Program Information Report (PIR) data to the Office of Head Start (OHS). The PIR is crucial for federal oversight, influencing funding, grantee performance, curriculum planning and more. The federal government uses these reports as essential tools for ensuring the effectiveness, accountability, and continuous improvement of these programs in the upcoming years.
However, the client’s existing reporting system faced challenges with real-time data synchronization and performance due to complex SQL Server views, leading to degraded performance, maintenance difficulties, security concerns, and limitations in storing historical data. To tackle these, the client wanted to ensure data integrity and quality, supporting informed decision-making and business intelligence initiatives like PIR reports, ultimately boosting productivity and customer responsiveness.
How: Implementing the Solution
To address the client’s challenges and enhance their reporting capabilities, Neviton implemented a comprehensive data management and reporting solution with a strong focus on federal reporting requirements and performance tracking. Our approach began with maintaining and transforming data from various databases and sources into a structured system called a data warehouse. This data warehouse, designed for query and analysis rather than transaction processing, is populated every 5 minutes using ETL methods, ensuring accurate real-time data and storing historical data without affecting the source database. We optimized complex business logic into SQL stored procedures and jobs for faster report queries, created various reports and dashboards fetching data directly from the data warehouse tables to enhance performance, and incorporated a scheduler to provide timely reports to staff and executives via email. Reports can be downloaded in PDF, DOCX, and XLSX formats for detailed analysis, and queries can be facilitated based on partner grantees. We also created Ad Hoc domains and starter templates for quick, personalized report creation. Our user-friendly application with robust security significantly improved the PIR, MBI, and MBE reports now run with improved performance without impacting the source application and includes standard reports for high-level and detailed views of child eligibility, assessments, healthcare, dental care, family engagement, disabilities, and mental health.
Our federal reporting capabilities are a standout feature
Program Information Report (PIR)
We provide various types of reports for the PIR, including three full reports at program, centre, and classroom levels, each supported by over 50 detailed reports drilling down from each PIR metric. Additionally, we offer six participant-level reports, including a general audit report and others focusing on areas such as child enrolment, child health, child education, family engagement, and peer activity. Accurate PIR reports must be submitted annually to maintain federal government grant eligibility.
Manage By Information (MBI)
Reports track child development across health, education, and family engagement, identifying gaps and ensuring readiness for year-end PIR reports. This involves calculating a range of metrics for each child using data from the source application, helping to identify areas where any level, from individual children to entire centres, may be falling behind. These reports are available at various levels, resulting in around 30+ grouped reports and over 100 detailed reports that drill down into each metric.
Manage By Execution (MBE)
Reports deliver actionable insights based on family engagement activities, helping organizations optimize their efforts. We create program-specific reports to meet state government and partner project requirements
This comprehensive solution ensured our client could meet federal reporting requirements efficiently while enhancing their overall data management and reporting capabilities.
Impact: Measuring the Success
Goal Alignment
Over 100 MBI and 20 to 30 MBE reports ensured no deviations from targets, leading to the best PIR report at the federal level.
Faster Response Times
Achieved an efficiency improvement of 85-95%, reducing disruptions to the core application.
Reduced Report Processing Time
Cut processing time from 5-10 minutes to 10-90 seconds.
Enhanced Decision-Making
Enabled the smooth generation of over 550 reports and dashboards in near real-time.
With enhanced federal reporting capabilities, early childhood education providers can ensure accountability, improve program effectiveness, and drive data-informed decision-making that supports child and family development.
Advancing Early Childhood Education with Data-Driven Insights
At Neviton Technologies, we empower educational organizations to meet federal standards and improve outcomes with data-rich, efficient reporting solutions. Our approach helps clients focus on what truly matters—enhancing child development and family engagement through real-time insights and streamlined data management. Partner with us to elevate your reporting capabilities and ensure impactful, data-driven education.
