What to Put in a Community Progress Report — and What to Leave Out
March 10, 2027
Monday’s piece on the community progress report ended with a challenge: your board has done the work, and the community doesn’t know because nobody has shown them. The template gave you the structure. But structure is the easy part.
The hard part is deciding what data to include.
I’ve watched a board’s communications director produce a beautiful progress report — clean design, clear tables, careful language — that said nothing. Every status indicator was green. Every trajectory was on pace. Every goal was trending in the right direction.
The community read it and knew immediately it wasn’t true. The board lost credibility, not because the data was wrong, but because the board pretended everything was fine when it wasn’t.
I’ve watched another board produce a progress report that was brutally honest — two of three goals were yellow, one was red, the narrative sections named the specific challenges — and receive more trust from the community than the board had received in years.
The difference wasn’t the data. The difference was the board’s willingness to share the full picture.
What belongs in the report
The progress report should include three categories of information. Every item in the report should fall into one of these categories.
Category 1: Data the board has already reviewed. If the board has seen the data, discussed it, and recorded a governance decision, it belongs in the progress report. The February data review produced a recorded outcome for each goal. The March budget alignment review produced a recorded outcome. Those are the data points that belong in the report.
The rule is straightforward: the board should not include data that the board hasn’t reviewed. If the superintendent produces a mid-month assessment that the board hasn’t discussed in a meeting, it doesn’t go in the progress report. The progress report is the board’s document, not the superintendent’s document. It contains data the board has governed on.
Category 2: Board decisions connected to the data. The goal status table shows where the data stands. The decision log shows what the board did about it. Both sections are necessary. The status table without the decision log tells the community “here’s where we are.” The status table with the decision log tells the community “here’s where we are, here’s what we’re doing about it, and here’s why.”
The decision log is what distinguishes a progress report from a newsletter. A newsletter reports information. A progress report reports governance.
Category 3: What the board will do next. The community needs to see the forward timeline. Not a list of meeting dates. A statement of governance decisions the board will make in the next quarter. “In April the board will approve the final budget, hold the public hearing, and conduct the mid-year governance check-in. In May the board will run the second full data review. In June the board will complete the superintendent evaluation and publish the year-end goal progress update.”
The community sees the board has a plan. Not just a history.
What to leave out
Three categories of information do not belong in the community progress report.
1. Data the board hasn’t discussed. This is the most common mistake. A well-intentioned board member or communications director adds a data point because it’s available and interesting. The board hasn’t reviewed it, discussed it, or made a decision about it. The progress report includes the data because it rounds out the picture.
The problem: the community assumes the board has reviewed and approved every data point in the report. When an unfamiliar data point appears — something the board has never discussed — the community assumes the board is monitoring it. When the board later takes a position that contradicts the data point, the board looks inconsistent.
The rule: if the board hasn’t governed on the data, the data doesn’t appear in the board’s report.
2. Staff performance evaluations. The progress report covers student outcomes, board decisions, and the budget. It does not cover individual staff performance, teacher evaluations, or principal assessments. Those belong in the superintendent’s personnel management process. Including them in the board’s progress report blurs the line between governance and administration.
3. Speculative projections. The progress report contains current data and the board’s planned actions. It does not contain projections about future data that haven’t been validated. “We expect to see a 10-point gain by June” is speculative. “The trajectory requires a 10-point gain, and the board has directed the superintendent to return in April with an updated analysis of whether the current interventions are producing the necessary growth” is factual.
The distinction matters. The community can trust the factual statement. The speculative statement looks like a promise the board may not be able to keep.
How to handle uncomfortable data
This is the question I get most often from boards about the progress report: what do we do when the data isn’t good?
My answer is straightforward: share it anyway. But share it with context.
Here’s the template I recommend for an uncomfortable data point.
“The data on Goal 2 — Grade 8 Algebra I readiness — shows 67% proficiency, which is below the 72% trajectory target. The board reviewed this data in February and recorded the following decision: adjust the approach. The superintendent has been directed to return at the April data review with an analysis of intervention fidelity and a recommendation for adjusting intensity. The board remains committed to the 72% target and will evaluate progress at the April review.”
This does three things. It shares the honest data point. It shows the community that the board is aware and has taken action. And it establishes the timeline for follow-up so the community knows when to expect an update.
The community that receives this information before the budget public hearing walks into the hearing knowing the board is aware of the challenges and actively working on them. The community that receives no information walks into the hearing with questions the board can’t answer in the time available.
Frequency and format
A community progress report should be published quarterly. The March report covers January through March. The June report covers the full semester. The September report covers summer and the start of the new school year. The December report covers the fall semester.
The format should be consistent so the community knows where to look and what to expect. Consistent format is more important than perfect format. A two-page PDF that the community can download and read in five minutes is more valuable than an interactive dashboard that requires a login.
I’ve watched a board publish a quarterly progress report for two consecutive years. In the first year, the report was basic — goal status table and a few bullet points. In the second year, the board added the budget alignment summary and the decision log. The community didn’t complain about the first year’s simplicity. The community appreciated that the board showed up and communicated consistently.
The most important thing about the progress report is not how polished it looks. It’s that the board publishes it at all.
Timing for the March report
If your board wants the community to arrive at the April budget hearing informed and prepared, the March progress report should be published at least two weeks before the hearing. That gives the community time to read it, ask questions, and bring informed comments to the hearing.
If your board publishes the progress report the week before the hearing — or the day of the hearing — the community doesn’t have time to process it. The hearing becomes the community’s first opportunity to react, rather than an opportunity to build on information they’ve already received.
The March piece on the progress report is March 10. The budget hearing is in April. That gives your board three to four weeks to prepare, publish, and distribute the report before the hearing. That’s enough time to do it well.
Your free CTA: Reply to this email with the keyword Frame and I’ll send you the Progress Report Data Selection Guide — a one-page framework with the three categories of content to include, the three categories to exclude, and the uncomfortable data template for presenting challenging results with context and credibility.
Your paid CTA: I offer a Progress Report Production Support package — a two-session engagement where I review your board’s first progress report, provide feedback on data selection and framing, and help your board establish the quarterly publication cadence. Reply to this email for pricing and availability.
This continues the March Governance to Impact arc. Next Monday: connecting budget alignment to community trust — the mid-arc bridge that shows how transparent budgeting builds the trust your board needs for the April adoption. Subscribe at effectiveschoolboards.com to continue the series.
Backlinks: The data inclusion rules in this piece operationalize the progress monitoring framework from Feb 3 — only data the board has reviewed and made a decision on belongs in the board’s report. The uncomfortable-data template builds on the “stay the course / adjust / escalate” decision structure. The quarterly cadence recommendation extends the governance calendar concept from Jan 6 and the January-to-June roadmap from Jan 27.