Wayne County Community Schools

Clear Impact Unlimited Suite Case Study

The Power of Cross-Nesting for More Centralized, Organized & Accessible Data

Key Story Highlights

Wayne County Community Schools (WCCS) manages 50+ grants requiring unique reporting metrics, timelines, and systems.
Clear Impact Scorecard has allowed WCCS to link data to schools, partners, and specific grants—reducing redundancy and simplifying grant reporting.
The Compyle integration was a significant reason WCCS upgraded from the basic Scorecard plan to the Unlimited Clear Impact Suite.
Compyle allows WCCS to directly link survey responses to schools and programs, eliminating extra data processing steps and making it easier for community school coordinators to access their reports.
With Clear Impact Suite, WCCS is streamlining its data collection and reporting processes, improving efficiency, and supporting data-driven decision-making.
For WCCS, a major benefit of Clear Impact Suite is the ability to cross-nest data (link data points and measures to multiple entities simultaneously), which has helped make data entry, management, evaluation, and reporting less overwhelming and more manageable.
WCCS anticipates that once more data is in the system, it will help them better advocate for funding, increase investment in their programs, and improve collaboration.

About Wayne County Community Schools

Wayne County Community Schools (WCCS) is a countywide initiative in North-Western New York committed to developing collaborative programs centered at schools that support young people and families in learning, growing, and thriving.

With 11 school districts, WCCS employs the Full Service Community Schools (FSCS) framework to drive effective change within schools and the broader community. They were awarded a Federal FSCS grant in 2022, with an expected total funding of $15,000,000 over a 5-year lifespan. Jay Roscup, Community Schools Director of Wayne County Consortium at Sodus Central School District, leads the initiative.

WCCS oversees over 50 grants, requiring extensive coordination and data management to meet various reporting and evaluation requirements.

The initiative partners with mental health organizations, workforce development programs, and higher education institutions to provide support services for students and families.

To achieve its mission, WCCS partners with various local institutions and agencies, including:

Wayne Behavioral Health Network – Provides mental health satellite clinics in every school building.
Family Counseling Services of the Finger Lakes – Offers counseling and advocacy services.
Delphi Rise – Provides substance abuse prevention counseling and prevention curriculum.
Peaceful Schools – An educational consulting agency that provides community school coordinators, social-emotional learning curriculum, mental health programs, and training.
Wayne Maximizing Out-of-School Time (MOST) – Network of youth advocates focused on After-School and Extended Learning and Enrichment Opportunities
Wayne County Sheriff’s Department – Collaborates with schools on various initiatives.
Syracuse University – Provides WCCS with leadership support, community school coordination, data management, reporting, evaluation, and other resources.

One initiative that the Wayne County Evaluation Team (a grant-enabled team supported by Syracuse University) is particularly proud of is the Evalumetrics Youth Survey. Conducted every two years since 2013, this survey collects data from students in grades six, eight, ten, and twelve to assess risk and protective factors, including substance use, school and community engagement, and overall well-being.

“This survey provides the most comprehensive data for Wayne County that is used in grants, current reports, and general evaluation,” said Ripley Hoffman, Community Schools Project Manager at Syracuse University. “It allows us to track long-term trends and adjust our programming to serve students better.” The 2025 survey edition is underway, and the team is eager to analyze the findings to refine their support efforts further.

The Challenge — Disorganized and Disjointed Data Over 50+ Grants

Before implementing Clear Impact Scorecard in 2023, Wayne County Community Schools faced significant challenges in managing data across its multiple grants, schools, and partner organizations.

This problem is intensified since each of WCCS’s grants has unique reporting requirements, frequencies, data collection methods, and required reporting platforms.

According to Ryan D. Heath, Associate Professor at Syracuse University School of Social Work and Wayne County Evaluation Team member, “data of various kinds was spread out across all the different partners. Different districts had different data and used different systems for that data. Likewise, partner agencies would have different data and different systems. The big challenge is trying to get all those different pieces of data from different partners and disjointed systems together to report them for some of the big funding streams like community schools.”

The disjointed and disorganized nature of data across partners created several problems. Despite data demonstrating improvement in student outcomes, it has been difficult to aggregate, report, and communicate that data efficiently and effectively.

Manually correcting data disorganization has also caused significant time constraints, making it difficult for the Evaluation Team to focus on the larger evaluation and research questions around Wayne County. Instead of being driven primarily by grant reporting deadlines, WCCS needed a data management solution to help them be more proactive about data collection and evaluation.

Why WCCS Adopted Clear Impact Scorecard & Initial Results

To address these challenges, WCCS adopted Clear Impact Scorecard in Fall 2023, coinciding with the formation of the Wayne County Community Schools Evaluation Team. This new team was created to establish a more structured approach to managing data across the county’s many grants and initiatives.

Around the same time, the US Department of Education adopted the Scorecard as the Full Service Community Schools initiative’s official performance measurement system. Now, all federally funded community schools must complete grant reporting with Scorecard.

With Scorecard, WCCS has been able to centralize and organize its data, making information more easily accessible and reducing duplication of efforts.

One of the most significant benefits of Scorecard was its ability to organize measures at multiple levels—including individual school buildings and partners, school districts, and grants. The “nested” structure of Scorecards (AKA data reporting dashboards) made tracking outcomes in each school and across the entire county easier.

“Essentially, we needed a data warehouse that would allow us to link measures [indicators and performance measures] to school buildings, partners, and grants. We needed to be able to clearly see what was going on in each school building. Being able to link measures that easily (without having to reenter the data) has been one of the most helpful features in Scorecard,” said Hoffman.

Additionally, Scorecard provided a clear framework for aligning data collection efforts with the FSCS model, ensuring that all reporting met federal grant requirements. “We were already looking for a way to organize the data from various systems,” noted Heath. “We initially used Scorecard for Full Service Community Schools reporting, and then we expanded it to organize data beyond what was required.”

Finally, the team particularly appreciated Scorecard’s built-in training resources, including video tutorials, which helped reduce the learning curve after adoption.

From Basic to Unlimited: Meeting Additional Data Needs with Clear Impact Compyle

Shortly after implementing Scorecard, WCCS upgraded to the Clear Impact Suite Unlimited plan to include Compyle, Clear Impact’s data collection tool. Given the vast number of partners involved in Wayne County’s community schools, the ability to collect and integrate data from multiple sources became critical.

Before using Compyle, community school coordinators collected data through standalone Google or Microsoft forms, which were manually linked to schools and partners for reporting purposes. This process created additional work and made it difficult for coordinators to access past data entries.

“By using Compyle, we can now directly connect [data] to the schools,” said Heath. “That removed one of those extra steps in the process that we were looking to shorten.”

One of WCCS’s favorite aspects of Compyle has been its integration with Scorecard, allowing data collection and reporting to work in sync without extra manual effort. “We needed a data storage location, which is Scorecard, and a data collection location, which is Compyle,” Hoffman explained.

The ability of both systems to communicate automatically has eliminated redundant data entry and ensured that information is more regularly updated. This integration has been especially useful for tracking school- and partner-specific data without re-entering information multiple times.

The transition from the basic plan to Unlimited was smooth, with support from the Clear Impact team. “We found them really responsive to questions,” Hoffman noted. Additionally, Clear Impact’s staff worked closely with WCCS to ensure they could meet the specific requirements of the FSCS grant, making implementation more manageable and aligned with their needs.

The Results — More Centralized, Organized & Accessible Data

Summary of Key Results:

Improved data organization – The ability to centralize and link data across different “levels” of reporting (schools, districts, grants, etc.) and partners has made reporting more structured and efficient.
Eliminating redundant data collection – Adding Compyle (and Compyle’s integration with Scorecard) has allowed WCCS to eliminate unnecessary steps in data entry and streamline reporting.
Increased access for data contributors – Community school coordinators can now log into the system and view their responses, making data contributions more meaningful.
More systematic data collection – Instead of being driven primarily by grant deadlines, WCCS is now moving toward a more proactive approach to gathering and using data to make better decisions.
Time savings in reporting processes – The batch data upload feature has reduced manual data entry time, making reporting faster and more manageable.
Capacity building for future evaluation and research – With a more structured data system, WCCS anticipates being able to conduct deeper impact analysis and advocate for additional funding.

While WCCS is still in the early stages of fully implementing Clear Impact Suite, the platform has already positively impacted the organization’s workflow. “The process helped us partner with school districts and partner organizations to get this data,” said Hoffman. “We’re reinforcing our relationships and communicating our needs and goals.”

Another key benefit has been the system’s ability to create a structured, centralized approach to data management. Previously, each partner and district had their own data systems, making it difficult to see the whole picture. Scorecard and Compyle have provided a way to bring all that information together in one place, allowing for better cross-agency collaboration and more comprehensive reporting.

Testimonial — The Power of Data Cross-Nesting

Clear Impact Suite’s ability to cross-nest data (or link measures to multiple entities) has made managing data entry, analysis, and reporting easier for members of the WCCS Evaluation Team.

Here’s what two team members had to say about cross-nesting in Suite:

Suite’s ability to link and cross-nest data to different schools, partners, and grants makes adding data to the system less overwhelming. You would think expanding the system and adding more data would make it more overwhelming, but Scorecard’s ability to tag measures, organize them under containers, and add them to multiple scorecards actually makes it easier to manage.

Ripley Hoffman, Communuty Schools Project Manager, Syracuse University

One of the struggles of doing applied research is that you have to work with society as it is structured. So, being able to cross-nest people and activities within multiple institutions gives you leverage to make more nuanced estimations of what may be happening within different institutions—and why. For me, as a researcher, being able to cross-nest the data in Suite is one of the most useful features. It allows us to model what is happening within multiple institutions that cross over but are still distinct from one another.

Ryan D. Heath, Associate Professor, Syracuse University School of Social Work

Understanding the Importance of Data Cross-Nesting for Community Schools

Cross-nesting data means linking and organizing data points in multiple ways to reflect the real-world complexity of an organization’s structure. In the context of Wayne County Community Schools’ use of Clear Impact Suite, this means that a single data point or measure—such as a student receiving services or a measure of program performance—can be associated with multiple entities simultaneously, including:

The school building where the student is enrolled
The partner agency providing the service
The grant funding the initiative

Traditionally, data systems require users to assign a data point to only one category, limiting the ability to analyze how various factors interact. However, cross-nesting allows for multi-dimensional tracking, making it easier to see how programs, funding sources, and locations overlap and influence each other.

See How Clear Impact Suite Can Help Your Community School

Clear Impact Suite is helping Full Service Community Schools like Wayne County Community Schools simplify grant reporting, strengthen partnerships, and improve data-driven decision-making. Want to see how it can help your community school? Learn more here or schedule a demo today.