NC families lack key tool for picking schools this year. The state blames a hurricane.

A little over a year ago, North Carolina officials proudly unveiled revamped school report cards that Superintendent Mark Johnson described as “the kind of information (parents) need, in an accessible format we can understand.”

Data about each school’s academic performance, teacher qualifications and school climate can be especially helpful to families deciding whether to apply for magnet, charter or private schools.

But this year’s data won’t be posted until after most such applications close, state officials said this week.

“Because of (school districts) and charter schools that have been impacted by Hurricane Florence, DPI has delayed the release of the 2017-18 NC School Report Cards until later this winter. The timing remains a little uncertain – looks like late February or March,” Todd Silberman, a spokesman for the Department of Public Instruction, said in an email.

Most opt-in schools are taking applications for 2019-20 now, and many will be finished by the end of January. For instance, Jan. 7 is the deadline for the first round of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools “choice lottery.” Wake County Public Schools’ applications for magnet and year-round schools close on Jan. 30, and Durham’s magnet lottery runs through Jan. 31.

The federal Every Student Succeeds Act set a Dec. 31 deadline for posting school report cards, starting with the current year. Silberman said that deadline was waived.

For school-shopping families, that leaves two options: Rely on 2016-17 data in North Carolina’s school report cards, found at ncreportcards.ondemand.sas.com/src, or scour through state and local sites in search of 2017-18 reports.

For instance, test scores, graduation rates and other academic data can be found by downloading spreadsheets from www.ncpublicschools.org/accountability/reporting. Reports on school crime and violence are at www.ncpublicschools.org/research/discipline/reports, but haven’t been updated for 2017-18.

Using some district websites can be challenging as well.

For instance, CMS created a Performance Dashboard (linked at the top of the CMS web page, www.cms.k12.nc.us) that allows school comparisons on enrollment, demographics, graduation rates, test results, chronic absenteeism and suspensions. However, getting all the data for any one school requires several searches.

And while the School Progress Reports linked from a list of CMS resources on individual school website might sound promising, the link goes to reports CMS discontinued in 2012.