Early Warning Indicator System EWIS data for the 2026-2027 School year will be available for districts who certified School Safety and Discipline Report (SSDR) and/or Student Course Schedule (SCS) on-time. Students who have data available from the previous school year will be assigned a risk level of High, Moderate or Low on specific academic milestones.
In this preliminary Early Warning Indicator System EWIS run, if there are no or too few students listed in your reports, it may be an issue with your district "claiming" of students for the current school year (see FAQ for help). If all or most of your students have a risk level NA, your district may not have submitted SSDR or SCS on time. Once claimed, students will appear in the report. EWIS will be rerun in mid-September to provide risk data for late SCS/SSDR submissions.
To help district and school staff use this data, staff should feel free to attend as many training sessions as they wish. There is a single registration link for all three meetings, but registrants do not have to attend all three. District and school representatives who register for a session but do not attend will receive a recording and materials of the session. Each session will run from 9:00 to 10:30 a.m., and the sessions are as follows:
These sessions will be held:
Please refer to Understanding the 2027 Early Warning Indicator System EWIS Files for more information about what 2027 files look like.
Massachusetts educators do not have to wait for students to fail to know they are at risk. They can step in sooner with Early Warning Indicator System EWIS.
With the Early Warning Indicator System (EWIS), the state provides tools for districts to identify students who are at risk of not meeting important academic goals to help students get back on track. This comprehensive system spans first grade through high school graduation and beyond.
Grades 1–3: Reading by the end of third grade (3rd grade English Language Arts (ELA) Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System MCAS)
Grades 4–6 Middle school ready (Meeting and Exceeding 6th grade Mathematics and English Language Arts ELA Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System MCAS)
Grades 7–9 High school ready (Passing all ninth grade courses)
Grades 10–12 High school graduation, College Enrollment and College Persistence (4 year high school graduation, immediate college enrollment and persisting in college from first year to second year)
Using the Early Warning Indicator System EWIS tools alongside local context, educators can explore underlying causes leading to academic risk and develop additional supports to meet the unique strengths and needs of their students.
District Analysis & Review Tools (DART): With these tools, users can explore district & school performance over time. In particular, the Success after High School District Analysis and Review Tool DART is a tool showing secondary and postsecondary trends over time.
Using the Free Application for Federal Student Aid FAFSA Completion Reports This guidance document explains several Edwin reports designed for users to examine FAFSA completion status.
The ABCs of Success in High School and Beyond This data story provides information for parents, community members, and educators from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) on how attendance, behavior, and course performance in Massachusetts high schools affect postsecondary outcomes.
Last Updated: August 25, 2026