BURLINGTON, MA, May 10, 2004— The School District of Palm Beach County has implemented an enterprise business intelligence (EBI) solution from Cognos (NASDAQ: COGN; TSX; CSN) the world leader in EBI and corporate performance management solutions, to help improve student performance management. Over 1000 administrators, guidance counselors, area and central-office staff use Cognos BI to analyze and report on student performance data.

With 160 schools and more than 166,000 students in K-12 education, Palm Beach County was looking for increased visibility into large volumes of student data. Using the Cognos EBI solution, school staff has the opportunity to trend and analyze data, enabling them to recognize problem areas before the end of the semester and before the student is in danger of failing. With Cognos BI, staff has the ability to drill-down to the individual class or student level to benchmark performance against other students and against other schools. Earlier recognition of performance indicators enables staff to intervene and take proactive corrective measures to help struggling students.

"Working closely with the Cognos Professional Services team, Palm Beach County has implemented a solution that has, quite frankly, completely changed the way that we monitor and impact student performance," said Marc Baron, School District of Palm Beach County. "The ability to identify and track leading and lagging performance indicators enables us to better predict a student's performance level and make better decisions about how we can help those who are struggling. The combination of increased visibility, powerful analytics, and information access will ensure that our staff is informed and prepared at the stage when they can make the maximum impact."

"Cognos provides K-12 educators with complete and continuous visibility into student, classroom, and school performance," said Terence Atkinson, director of public sector solutions, Cognos. "By understand the contributing factors to improving student performance, K-12 organizations are able to invest in the areas that will help students most, and enable them to build an organization and curriculum that effectively delivers on performance obligations. And, most importantly, assures that no child is left behind."

To learn more about how the School District of Palm Beach County is using Cognos EBI to improve student performance management, please join Marc Baron and Kathy Gemberling of School District of Palm Beach County and Terence Atkinson of Cognos on May 12 at 12:00 p.m. EST for a web seminar on "The Importance of Data-Driven Decision Making for K-12 Schools".

To register, please visit http://www.cognos.com/na/palmbeach/.