Westat has been awarded a 5-year contract to provide place-based technical assistance for the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) Promise Neighborhoods (PN) and Full-Service Community Schools (FSCS) programs. This represents an expansion of place-based training and technical assistance services, which were previously focused on PN grantees. The project will modernize and streamline data collection, management, analysis, and reporting to better support grantees and federal oversight of both programs.
Partnering with the Urban Institute, AEM Corporation, MAYA Consulting, and QIP-AEM, Westat will develop the Promise & Community Data Portal, an innovative, user-centered system designed to replace fragmented and burdensome legacy tools. The portal integrates Qualtrics for data collection with Microsoft 365 tools for secure storage, analytics, and reporting, enabling efficient, scalable, and compliant workflows.
Drawing on more than a decade of experience supporting PN and FSCS data requirements, Westat brings deep technical expertise and strong relationships with grantees. The new approach is expected to reduce administrative burden, strengthen data quality, enable real-time monitoring, and support cross-cohort analysis, advancing evidence-based decision-making across both programs.