Iowa’s Pleasant Valley School District faced a challenge familiar to many educators: mountains of student data, but limited insight into what it all meant.
Ranked in the top 15% of districts statewide, Pleasant Valley knew it was succeeding – but it wanted to understand exactly why and how to do even better.
The answer came through SAS EVAAS, a predictive analytics platform that transformed raw numbers into a strategic roadmap for student success. Under the district’s leadership, the district now sets a benchmark for data-driven educational excellence.
“I can comfortably look anyone in the eye and say that EVAAS adds value to data analysis,” reflects Tony Hiatt, Director of Elementary Education. “We need to get better at the finer-grain aspects of it, drilling down to the student or the group of students, so that we can really start to use those projections and close gaps for kids.”
This is the third blog in a series about how schools are using EVAAS to improve academic success.
Meet the school district
- Pleasant Valley educators have historically struggled with manually analyzing student performance data, which left them with no clear insights into whether students were truly progressing.
- A growing population of English language learners – now the district’s fastest-growing student group – demanded targeted academic support strategies to help students learn and grow.
- Rising numbers of low-income students created achievement gaps that required tailored approaches and intervention to prevent students from falling behind.
How SAS® EVAAS helped
- EVAAS revealed a hidden pattern: students thrived in elementary schools, faced challenges in middle school and rebounded in high school, pinpointing exactly where to focus improvement efforts for maximum impact.
- Visual comparisons across Iowa districts instantly showed Pleasant Valley where they stood among similar schools, turning competitive benchmarking from guesswork into clear strategic intelligence.
- The platform validated successful programs like the English Language Arts/Reading curriculum while flagging areas needing attention, helping educators celebrate wins and tackle challenges with confidence backed by data.
What happened next
- The district’s science educators implemented targeted curriculum updates, including a trial of new instructional practices, robotics and computer science standards, directly addressing gaps identified through EVAAS analytics.
- Diagnostic reporting will be examined further to track English Language Learners and special education students, enabling administrators to align curriculum with teaching methods for measurable improvement.
- EVAAS insights will drive Pleasant Valley’s five-year strategic plan and Professional Learning Communities, creating a sustainable framework for continuous improvement and collaborative learning.
Pleasant Valley School District proves what’s possible when schools pair a clear vision with innovative analytics. By transforming overwhelming student academic data into useful insights, SAS EVAAS empowered educators to celebrate successes, address challenges strategically and better support every student’s unique growth trajectory.
With expanded diagnostic reporting and strategic alignment planned, Pleasant Valley continues to set the standard for data-driven educational excellence.
How EVAAS helps educators, families and policymakers
The Education Visualization and Analytics Solution (EVAAS) from SAS provides educators with powerful and ready-to-use insights that transform educational decision-making at every level:
- For educators: EVAAS delivers comprehensive reporting tools that empower teachers to evaluate and improve academic growth trends, personalize learning pathways and optimize curriculum design to help students meet goals.
- For principals: EVAAS helps school leaders evaluate academic program effectiveness, identify trends across student groups, support professional development planning, and make data-driven student scheduling and placement decisions.
- For policymakers: Decision makers use EVAAS analytics to measure the impact of educational initiatives, allocate resources effectively and implement data-driven policies and programs that benefit students, schools and communities.
