Case Study: Tacoma Public Schools streamlines reading assessments and improves student insights with Microsoft Power Apps

Assistant principal builds Power Platform solution to improve reading assessments

Lauren Taylor, Assistant Principal at Manitou Park Elementary in Tacoma Public Schools, needed a better way to capture and use Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA2) data. The district was recording only a single digital score while the richer, paper-based assessment details were inaccessible, time-consuming to retrieve, and made it hard to target instruction or group students effectively. Tacoma Public Schools sought a digital solution to record detailed reading-level information and make it available to teachers, interventionists, and administrators.

Using Microsoft Power Apps and the broader Power Platform (PowerApps, Power BI, and Microsoft Flow) with SharePoint Online and Microsoft Teams, Lauren built a mobile DRA app that captures detailed assessment data, a Flow that pushes list items into Power BI, and dashboards embedded in Teams. The Microsoft Power Apps solution, rolled out in November 2018 and currently in use at Manitou Park, has given teachers and interventionists faster access to student data (less time gathering data, more time using it), enabled better student grouping and targeted instruction, and provided administrators with building-level insights — with potential to scale district-wide.

Tacoma Public Schools

Lauren Taylor

Assistant Principal