In recent years the Metropolitan School District of Wayne Township in Indianapolis has been awash in data. In attempts to improve levels of student achievement, the authors collected all manner of statistical details about students and schools and attempted to perform data analysis as part of the school improvement process. The authors were never quite sure we were collecting the necessary data, had no appropriate storage system to house the vast amount of information and had no acceptable way to connect their data sets to determine relationships and trends. Further, data were not easily readable and usable by staff, parents and students. Without a functional data system, the authors were unable to use their data to make the instructional and program decisions necessary to raise student achievement. The authors explain their attempts in detail in this article.