Enhancing Data Use throughout the School Year

The purpose of this competitive funding opportunity was to provide supplementary support to school districts to improve district data practices for using early warning data alongside other resources in a thoughtful cycle of inquiry throughout the school year. The intent is to improve the likelihood that students will receive appropriate supports and that, over time, district performance on key academic milestones will increase.

Data Showcase (May 2019)

At the end-of-grant Data Showcase, teams reflected on implementation and shared examples of their work in the form of tools, resources, artifacts, lessons and impacts, presented in links below. These are not comprehensive and do not capture the full extent of districts' grant activities; they offer glimpses of the successes, challenges and overall progress in bringing the complex projects to life.

District Showcase materials:

Brookline used the grant to establish an Early Warning Data Team and developed routines and resources for identifying, supporting and monitoring 9th graders. This was led by Matt DuBois, School Psychologist at Brookline High School.

• Intervention and Support Resources

• Positive Relationships

• Showcase Project

• Sleep

• Final Poster

At Gardner, they aimed to improve data meetings and use of the cycle, with a focus on a positive behavior intervention system (PBIS) incentive structures for 8/9th grade students. The work was led by Karen McCrillis, School Counselor.

• Showcase Project

Boston Prep Charter's project was to use the postsecondary EWIS to support students in HS currently, with a focus on postsecondary readiness; they also saw it as a way to inform supports for former students and graduates, which is part of the school's scope. The work has been led by Graham VanderZanden, Director of Strategic Projects.

• Showcase Project

Westfield used the grant to take the strong process in place at the elementary level to extend and adapt it to the high school level through the use of a monitoring dashboard and structured data teams. This work has been led by Denise Ruszala, Director of Assessment and Accountability.

• Showcase

• Final Poster

• Example Part 1

• Examples Part 2

Weymouth used the grant to automate the creation of data workbooks, which had been done very manually in Excel in the past; and they are taking the use of these district-wide, with a middle school focus. The work is led by Pamela Stazesky, Data & Assessment Strategy Manager.

• Showcase

In Brockton, the focus of the grant has been to extend a local warning and monitoring system to include middle school, and to support middle school teams in using it. The work is led by Ethan Cancell, Executive Director of Research, Accountability and Assessment.

• Showcase

Holyoke used the grant to develop a dashboard with their SIS and train middle school educators in how to use it. This work is led by Jenny Malave, Data Strategist for the district.

• Problem Solving Process

• Final Project

Bellingham used professional development and stipends to deepen the use of a cycle of inquiry in the high school and middle school using a new dashboard to monitor students. Bellingham's work has been led by Carolyn Rafferty, Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment.

• Showcase

• Summaries

Beverly scaled elementary success to the middle school and supported students through the elementary/middle transition by developing common language, aligning protocol and building a longitudinal dashboard. The work has been led by Suzanne Charochak, Assistant Superintendent.

• Showcase

• Data Meetings

• Agenda

North Adams used the grant to solidify an infrastructure for data use as embedded practice across the district so it became 'how we do business' at NAPS. This was led by Kim Roberts-Morandi, Director of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment.

Last Updated: March 6, 2020