WSIPC Awarded Gates Foundation Grant to Expand FOYOST (Follow Your Students) Statewide!
WSIPC Awarded Gates Foundation Grant to Expand FOYOST Statewide!
We are proud to announce that WSIPC has been awarded a grant from the Gates Foundation to lead the statewide implementation of the FOYOST (Follow Your Students) project—a powerful tool that helps Washington’s K-12 school districts track and improve student postsecondary success outcomes.
Originally developed by Degrees of Change, FOYOST transforms complex National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) data into easy-to-use, equity-focused dashboards. These dashboards allow school and district leaders to analyze college enrollment, persistence, and completion trends across student subgroups, supporting more informed, data-driven decisions.
Through this grant, WSIPC will ensure that all 295 public school districts in Washington—regardless of their size or resource levels—have access to FOYOST. The platform will be provided at no cost to districts in the first year of the project, with a clear and equitable sustainability model introduced in subsequent years. Our goal is to remove cost and technical barriers so every district can use FOYOST to improve outcomes for historically underserved students.
Key components of the FOYOST initiative include:
- Equitable Access: Ensuring that at least 75% of districts serving high populations of underserved students become active users.
- Data-Driven Strategy: Supporting district leaders in embedding student outcomes data into strategic planning and continuous improvement.
- Sustainability Planning: Creating a tiered pricing model and shared infrastructure to ensure long-term affordability and impact.
- Collaborative Governance: Partnering with the Washington Association of Educational Service Districts (AESD), Degrees of Change, and regional districts to support adoption, training, and innovation.
- Broader Impact: A parallel project will also evaluate technology solutions to improve the state’s dual credit infrastructure for Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs in collaboration with the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC).
FOYOST is a proven tool with a strong foundation in Microsoft Power BI and Azure cloud services and has already demonstrated success with early adopters. With this support from the Gates Foundation, WSIPC will scale FOYOST into a sustainable, statewide solution that empowers districts to act on postsecondary outcomes data—closing opportunity gaps and improving student futures.
We will share more details as the project progresses.
WSIPC is a non-profit public agency that provides technology solutions, services, and support to K-12 schools. WSIPC’s purpose is to help schools do more with every dollar and to empower them with the tools to work smarter. To learn how your district can become part of the WSIPC Cooperative, contact us at info@wsipc.org or 425.349.6600.
WSIPC. Inspired by education. Empowered by technology.TM