SY22 Student Programs Analysis
SY22 Student Programs Analysis
District-wide analysis.
Led a comprehensive review of after-school participation across CPS for SY23 planning.
Actionable impact.
Recommendations resulted in higher participation and improved scheduling.
Data-driven strategy.
Used SQL and Power BI to find enrollment, engagement, and retention trends.
The Challenge: Programming Without Clear Direction.
As the SY23 school year approached, leadership at School A wanted to better understand how students engaged with programming during the previous year. The goal was to uncover meaningful patterns that could guide resource allocation and planning moving forward.
Key questions surfaced quickly: Which grade levels are most engaged in programming? Are there specific times during the year when enrollment spikes? Which program categories consistently draw students in?
Throughout the year, student participation is influenced by factors like holidays, sports seasons, and competing extracurricular activities. By looking back at SY22 data, I aimed to highlight these patterns and provide clear, actionable insights that could help leadership design programming more strategically for SY23.
My Analytical Approach: Building Structure from Scattered Data
Note: The data presented in this dashboard has been modified to protect the confidentiality of Chicago Public Schools’ student programming data. Due to the sensitivity of the original dataset, the corresponding SQL scripts used for data extraction cannot be shared.
I committed to analyzing the complete student programming dataset from SY22. While some program data was readily accessible through existing reports, the challenge was creating a comprehensive view across all programming categories and grade levels throughout the entire school year.
My solution: I developed SQL scripts to extract participation data directly from the SSMS server, ensuring complete coverage of all student programming activities rather than relying on incomplete summary reports.
Data Standardization Process
To enable meaningful analysis across different program types, I created a unified dataset by standardizing participation metrics. I used Power BI for visualization and pattern analysis, applying DAX measures to correct data inconsistencies like grade level ordering and calculating meaningful attendance rates across programs.
Break through discoveries.
3 major discoveries
The analysis revealed three breakthrough insights that completely shifted leadership's understanding of student engagement patterns. Grade level participation showed clear concentration among younger students, with first and second graders demonstrating the highest consistent participation rates across all program categories. Program category preferences revealed that enrichment activities consistently outperformed other offerings throughout the year, suggesting students gravitated toward creative and exploratory content over structured academic support. Seasonal timing patterns showed peak enrollment in February 2022, directly correlating with the end of sports seasons when students had increased availability and coordinators expanded program offerings to meet demand.
Strategic Implementation: From Insights to Action
From Data to Action
Looking back at the data, a few clear opportunities stood out that shaped my recommendations for the upcoming year. The February enrollment spike, for example, lined up with the end of sports seasons showing how external factors shape when students are most available. By adjusting program schedules around these natural rhythms, leadership could better meet students where they are.
Enrichment activities also proved to be a consistent favorite, so recommending a 20% increase in those offerings wasn’t just about meeting demand, it was about investing in programming that builds lasting engagement for the school. At the same time, the data showed that while first and second graders participated at the highest levels, older students were harder to engage. Many students face competing responsibilities such as jobs, sports, or other extracurricular activities that create barriers to participation. For these students, I recommend going beyond attendance tracking by gathering direct feedback to better understand their needs and design programs that align with their interests.
To make these insights truly actionable, I built an interactive Power BI dashboard that tracks participation by grade level, program type, and time of year. Instead of relying on scattered reports, leadership now had a real-time view of trends and benchmarks to be able to turn reflection into strategy.
Measurable Impact
Concrete Results and Strategic Value
The insights from this analysis gave leadership a clearer path forward for SY23, providing evidence to guide resource allocation based on grade-level participation, highlighting enrichment as a consistently high-engagement category, and identifying the timing patterns that drive enrollment peaks. Programming decisions were no longer built on assumptions but grounded in how students actually engaged throughout the year. Beyond immediate planning benefits, this analysis created lasting strategic value by transforming the approach from intuition-based programming to data-driven decision making, establishing a sustainable analytics framework that supports ongoing optimization through quarterly participation reviews and program experimentation.
Technical Skills and Key Learnings
Technical Proficiency and Analytical Growth
This project demonstrated my ability to overcome significant data-fragmentation challenges by developing complex SQL queries to produce participation coverage that standard reports could not deliver, while ensuring student confidentiality. I implemented a straightforward analytical approach using Power BI and DAX measures, which was effective in uncovering clear, actionable patterns through standardized participation metrics that enabled meaningful comparisons across programs and revealed optimization opportunities. The Power BI dashboard showcased my proficiency with business intelligence tools by building a sustainable reporting infrastructure and creating an interactive framework that now serves as a strategic foundation for ongoing program planning and stakeholder communication.
District-wide analysis.
Led a comprehensive review of after-school participation across CPS for SY23 planning.
Actionable impact.
Recommendations resulted in higher participation and improved scheduling.
Data-driven strategy.
Used SQL and Power BI to find enrollment, engagement, and retention trends.
District-wide analysis.
Led a comprehensive review of after-school participation across CPS for SY23 planning.
Actionable impact.
Recommendations resulted in higher participation and improved scheduling.
Data-driven strategy.
Used SQL and Power BI to find enrollment, engagement, and retention trends.
District-wide analysis.
Led a comprehensive review of after-school participation across CPS for SY23 planning.
Actionable impact.
Recommendations resulted in higher participation and improved scheduling.
Data-driven strategy.
Used SQL and Power BI to find enrollment, engagement, and retention trends.
