California School Dashboard Navigator

Welcome to the California Department of Education’s California School Dashboard Navigator Site! This Navigator How-To Guide will help familiarize you with the site.

The Dashboard Navigator is organized into four sections:

• State Indicator Selection section (six boxes located at top right corner)
• The Filter Schools Section (left pane)
• The Map Section (middle pane)
• The Dashboard Section (right of the Map Section)

Note that while this application is available for all web browsers, we have found that optimal performance typically occurs with Google Chrome. Additionally, when you first open the application, you may need to change your computer’s default display resolution settings (i.e. in some cases that will be either 1920 X 1080 or 1680 X 1050.)

Select aspects of the state indicators of interest

Step 1: Select a State Indicator (top right corner)

At the top right corner of the site, select one of the six available state indicators that you would like to see data for.

• Only one state indicator at a time can be selected.
• The box color of selected indicator is blue

Step 2: Filter Schools (left pane)

The filter section allows you to view data at three different levels and gives you the option to focus on a selected student group at any of the three levels: Statewide, County level, and District level.

• The default is the statewide display. To access statewide data at any time, select “None” in the ‘County’ and “School District” drop down menus and select the student group of interest.
• To display county level data, use the ‘County’ drop down menu and select a specific county (Note: data for all districts in the county will be displayed).
• To select a specific school district, use the ‘School District’ drop down menu.
• The student group default is “All” students, but data is available for 13 student groups. *Please note that you can only select one student group at a time.
• If you select a student group or specific county or district and switch indicators, those filters will remain in place. In order to clear the filters and revert to information for “All” students throughout the state, select ‘None’ under the County and District drop down menus and ‘All’ under the ‘Student Group’ drop down menu. 

To view more detailed information about a particular school, click on the dot representing that school. If you have trouble clicking on a particular school’s dot, zoom further into the map.

Analyze results for your selection

Map Data (middle pane)

Once you have made your state indicator and school selections, the map section reflects the selected schools with their performance colors.

• There are two tools available in the top right-hand corner of the map section you can use to navigate and explore results. The tools allow you to further refine the results:
  
  
  • Search: select the magnifying glass icon to search for a specific school or district by typing in the address.
  • Home: select the home icon to revert to the statewide view for a given map. Selecting the home icon does not clear your chosen filters.
    
    
• Use the plus and minus buttons in the right bottom corner of the map section in order to zoom in to get a closer look at a certain area or zoom out for a broader view.

Analyze Dashboard

The right-hand section of the site displays various data associated with each Dashboard indicator. These data (numbers and colors) change as different state indicators and filters are selected:

• The school count and enrollment are displayed for selected schools in the top two boxes.
• Performance Color: provides the number of schools in each performance color for the selected schools 
  • Detailed information on the various performance colors can be found on the California School Dashboard and System of Support web page.
• School Level: provides the numbers of schools by type (elementary, middle, high/secondary, all grade levels)
• Charter Status: provides the number of charter schools in the selected group of schools
• DASS: provides the number that are designated Dashboard Alternative School Status (DASS) in the selected group schools.
• To view only one type of school, select type by clicking in the pie chart.  For example, click on the pie slice (purple) that represent ‘High Schools’ to view high schools only.  To view only Charter schools, click on the ‘Charter’ color pie slice in the Charter/Non-Charter pie chart.  To view only DASS schools, click on the ‘DASS’ colored pie slice in the DASS/Non-DASS pie chart.