School District 27 – Cariboo-Chilcotin

Building a Secure, District-Wide Data Foundation for Student Success.

About the Client

School District 27 – Cariboo-Chilcotin (SD27) is a public K–12 school district in British Columbia serving a geographically diverse region. The district supports students across all schools and works closely with educators, principals, Indigenous education partners, and district teams to improve student achievement, attendance, and overall outcomes.

SD27 relies on a combination of provincial and district systems, including MyEd BC for student information and Atrieve for human resources, payroll, and financial operations.

For Sean Cameron, Director of Instruction for Learning and Innovation, the district’s approach to data and analytics reflects a long-term leadership focus. Over more than 15 years working across multiple school districts, he had explored different reporting approaches, developing a clear vision for a secure, enterprise-grade data solution that could truly support educators and students.

Project Managed by:

• 
  MSP Corp West
  
• British Columbia

The Challenge

Like many school districts, SD27 had access to large volumes of student, staff, and financial data, but that data lived in multiple systems and was difficult to use effectively.

While the district had already invested in reporting tools, its earlier solution was not a formal data warehouse. Data was processed through disconnected scripts and exports. This made it challenging to:

• Ensure data was always current and accurate
• Preserve historical information for year-over-year analysis
• Confidently report on attendance, achievement, and staffing trends
• Reduce manual effort and risk in payroll reconciliation
• Provide secure, role-appropriate access to sensitive information

As district leaders and educators increasingly relied on data to support students, these limitations made it difficult to move from reactive reporting to proactive, informed decision-making.

The Solution

MSP Corp partnered with SD27 to design and implement a modern, secure data platform built on Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics.

The solution unified student, staff, and financial data into a centralized Azure-based data warehouse. This created a single, trusted source of information for the district. Data from MyEd BC and Atrieve is automatically ingested, validated, and transformed into curated datasets that support reliable reporting and analytics.

Using Power BI, district leaders, principals, teachers, and support teams can now access interactive dashboards and reports tailored to their role and school. Robust security controls ensure users only see the data they are authorized to access, helping protect sensitive student and staff information.

A core requirement for SD27 was enterprise-grade security they could trust. Rather than building custom scripts internally or hiring specialized data engineers, the district chose to partner with MSP Corp for a professionally architected solution with built-in validation, automated alerts, and role-based access controls. This approach protects sensitive information while keeping data accessible to authorized users, allowing district staff to focus on extracting insights rather than maintaining complex infrastructure.

Beyond reporting, the data warehouse now serves as the foundation for downstream systems and integrations, enabling SD27 to streamline processes and support future innovation.

Results

• Improved Confidence in Data

  District staff can rely on reports knowing they are built on current, validated data. Automated checks and alerts help identify issues early, reducing the risk of working from outdated information.

• Faster, More Meaningful Insights

  What once took hours or days to compile can now be explored in minutes. Educators and leaders can quickly analyze attendance, achievement, and trends over time, supporting more informed conversations and planning.

• Reduced Manual Effort

  Payroll and staffing teams spend less time performing manual cross-checks and data corrections. Automated validation allows staff to focus on higher-value work rather than repetitive verification tasks.

• Stronger Student-Focused Support

  The new platform supports early identification of at-risk students and enables staff to track progress over time. By making relevant information easier to access, SD27 can move from reactive responses to proactive support.

• Cost-Effective Access to Enterprise Expertise

  The district avoided the cost and complexity of hiring specialized data architecture staff internally, gaining ongoing access to enterprise-level expertise instead. This freed internal teams to focus on reporting, analysis, and student support rather than maintaining technical infrastructure.

• A Foundation for the Future

  The data warehouse now powers additional Power Apps and integrations, positioning the district to continue expanding its analytics, automation, and digital workflows.

“We could try to do this ourselves, and other districts might feel the same way, but you won’t achieve the same level of quality. Partnering with MSP Corp allowed us to translate our wonderings and hopes into something that was actually put into code and built at a very high level, with enterprise security, proper data checks, and alerts. The sophistication and quality of the solution are beyond what we would have ever been able to achieve on our own.”
Sean Cameron
Director of Instruction, Learning & Innovation, SD27