Once the data analyst position posted online on November 11 is filled, the hire, who will organize and interpret Parker’s data, will find himself or herself doing something almost unprecedented here — actually examining the information the school collects about itself. He or she will attempt to find patterns in data from all over the school, possibly including grades and test scores, extracurricular involvement, and demographics.

That’s why many hope this move represents a first step in the process of changing Parker from a school that accumulates data to a school that uses data. Among those who feel way is Chief Advancement Officer Gina Rodriguez, who runs the Admission, Development, and Communications Offices, and to whom the data analyst will report — though he or she will work with departments all over the school.

“Everyone operates right now by trying make decisions based upon data, Rodriguez said. “The question right now is how we are going to address that within the school.”

Parker already keeps a substantial amount of data to analyze. But, like many other schools, Parker hasn’t done much with that data yet.

The data Parker keeps was collected haphazardly—in recent years, each department has put its data in a different place. The registrar uses Blackbaud, College Counseling Naviance, Development Raiser’s Edge, and Admissions Ravenna.

Plus there are many other useful numbers hiding outside of the big databases—like those the Head of the Middle School keeps on student participation in extracurriculars, or those in the recent Dean’s Office survey about the ways in which students use the spaces in the school.  

Of the school’s status with regard to data use, Director of Design and Innovation Martin Moran said, “I would say we’re around the same as our peer institutions.”

But he added that schools in general are lagging, relatively speaking.  “I think education as a whole is well behind the rest of industries,” he said. “I don’t think you’ll find a lot of schools that are doing amazing in this area.”

If Parker is to become an exception to this rule, the data analyst will have to—as his or her first order of business—make the process of dealing with the various data-management systems used by the different departments simpler, Director of Technology Peter Evans said.

Evans oversees the current system, in which all the databases are supposed to feed into Blackbaud, but he acknowledges the present arrangement is flawed, noting that even changes as simple as a new email address often end up having to be manually re-entered into each database.

Evans said, “One thing we talk about when we talk about adding efficiency is getting all that data to talk together nicely.”

The first person to really examine any of Parker’s data, Brian Zimmerman, didn’t have to work with multiple databases—he dealt exclusively with Development Office data. But the work Zimmerman did for that office—like building a real-time dashboard for the fundraisers—got the conversation about data started, according to Director of Communications Nick Saracino.  Zimmerman worked at Parker August 2014 to June 2015 in a position the new data analyst will replace.  He now works at Road ID.

“Data tells a story,” Rodriguez said, “and what he tried to do was actually build trend information through the application, use, and manipulation of data.”

Zimmerman would have fit right in at Phillips Academy Andover, the 237-year-old Boston-area boarding school at which Head of the Upper School Peter Neissa worked until this year. Andover, Neissa said, embraced data.

“They began collecting data for real in 2004,” Neisa said, “and it was stored in four different databases, and so it was difficult to get it all, and it wasn’t until they hired the Director of Information Technology that all of a sudden it became very useful.”  Andover hired their IT director in 2009.

Neissa used the data available at Andover to help him maintain the highest average AP score in the school.

“It wasn’t because I was better or something like that—the issue is I was able to identify who were the ones who were not performing,” Neissa said. “Within the three sections I was teaching, I was able to zero in on the group not performing well on the AP. Once I got there, I was then able to tailor how to bring them up to speed.”  

Neissa, as one might expect, looks favorably upon the hiring of a full-time data analyst. But he suspects that it is just a first step.

“We’re heading down that road—no ifs, ands, or buts,” Neissa said. “I don’t think there’s a teacher here who does not want to see data.”