Facilitator: LaWanda Burwell
Roberto Flores, Jr., Curriculum Management System Coordinator, Northside Independent School District
Moving past district-wide data access to district-wide data use
Serving over 88,500 students, Northside ISD has been a SchoolNet client leveraging the Account, Align, Assess and Outreach modules since the fall of 2005, with initial implementation beginning in April of 2004. Northside’s teachers and administrators have been trained to use SchoolNet to disaggregate test scores, focus on the specific areas where students are struggling, and generate individualized action plans. Implementation and rollout of the Curriculum Management System was an evolutionary process that has lead to the development of the Data Coach/Leader College. Because of this professional development, the district’s focus is now on the “Now what” and not the path.
Facilitator: Mike Hickey
Myra Burden, Project Manager, MIS
Kathy Shelton, Training Coordinator
Implementation Journey: From a Cohesive Data Framework to Increased Student Achievement
In an effort to develop a more cohesive data framework resulting in improved data driven decisions, school improvement strategies, and increased student achievement, DeKalb County Schools is in the midst of an exciting implementation journey of the SchoolNet “Instructional Data Management System (IDMS)”. DeKalb County Schools is a highly diverse and highly transient school district, 3rd in size in the State of Georgia.
This session will illustrate DeKalb’s implementation journey to date, highlighting key areas relative to data silos, student performance, and instructional infrastructure, which incited the need for an instructional data management system.
Facilitator: Jim Wyckoff
Kipp Bentley, Director of Educational Technology
Megan Marquez, Performance Management Project Lead
Matt Spencer, Sr. IT Lead
Connie Casson, Deputy of Strategy
T. Jason Martinez, Director of Strategy
Assesssing to Action: School Performance Framework – An Introduction
In an effort to evaluate district, school and student performance, the Denver Public School District created a unique and useful tool, the School Performance Framework. The School Performance Framework (SPF) is used to evaluate school performance in terms of student achievement and overall organizational strength via a variety of longitudinal measures. SPF determines individual school accreditation, as reported to the Colorado Department of Education, assists the District in evaluation of school performance, as it relates to increased student academic performance, and assists in using performance data for teacher and principal compensation. The SPF’s uniqueness is in the fact the SPF examines student growth. The examination of growth over status provides teachers, school and district administrators actionable data to aid system wide continual improvement.
Virginia Beach City Public Schools
Facilitator: Steve Gibson
Christine Caskey, Ed.D. Assistant Superintendent, Department of Curriculum and Instruction
Jared Cotton, Ed.D. Assistant Superintendent, Department of Research, Evaluation, and Assessment
Esther Monclova-Johnson. Ph. D., Director of Equity Affairs
Frances Knight Thompson, M.S. Ed., Guidance Department Chair, Kemps Landing Magnet School
The Journey: A School System’s Efforts to Improve the Academic Achievement of African American Males
Race and Equity in Education: School districts across the country have acknowledged the myriad challenges American schools face in meeting the academic needs of African American male students. Share in Virginia Beach City Public Schools’ journey to address the complex issue of race and equity in education for this population of students. Discover the distinctive perspectives of the African American male students in this district. Examine the strategies employed by the district to promote teacher reflection and encourage courageous conversations to bring about systemic change. Understand actions that must take place to lay the groundwork for change for African American male students.
Facilitator: Patrick Meyer
Phillip Dibartolo, Director, Instructional Management Program and Academic Communication Tool
John Connolly, Director, Curriculum & Instructional Management System
Online Gradebook and Instructional Management System - how the two come together to inform targeted instruction?
Experience the journey that Chicago Public Schools has taken to implement an online Gradebook as well as a Curriculum & Instructional Management system (CIM). Participants will learn how CPS:
- used strategic partnerships to create and deliver the content for both of the systems, and leveraged instructional trainers as key to the implementation process.
- administrators and teachers use the online Gradebook and the Curriulum Instructional Management System to inform decisions
- technology leaders support school improvement through the creation of learning communities rooted in the analysis of data
- has implemented their program including how participants were selected, professional development models are deployed, essential questions are addressed, participant requirements are established, surveys and communications are utilized, and professional learning communities are created
Albemarle County Public Schools (1:15pm - 2:30pm)
Facilitator: Glen Bull
Dr. Luvelle Brown, Chief Information Officer
Dr. Bruce Benson, Assistant Superintendent for Student Learning
Mr. Matt Landahl, Principal Greer Elementary School
Re-Imagining Curriculum, Assessment, and Teacher Performance Appraisal
Albemarle County Public Schools has embarked on an ambitious journey to implement a concept-centered, standards-based curriculum. Central to this effort is the Division’s ability to provide multi-level tools that connect high-quality assessment and instruction resources to the division’s curricular
framework. Hear how this Division has used Schoolnet and other information management technologies to unify instructional management, information management and communications, allowing stakeholders to formulate actionable plans that inform instruction and improve student achievement through data-driven decision making.
Cleveland Metroplitan School District
Facilitator: Carol Tomlinson
Eric Gordon, Chief Academic Officer
Karen Thompson, Deputy Chief - Curriculum, Instruction, and Professional Development
Laura Purnell, Ph.D. - Regional Superintendent
Building a District Academic Achievement Model to Scale
The Cleveland Metropolitan School District is a mid-size diverse urban school district in Northeast Ohio. With an enrollment of 50,078 students, CMSD is the second largest district in the State of Ohio. 100% of CMSD students are economically disadvantaged, making Cleveland one of the poorest communities in the country. Some of the effects of this wide-spread poverty include a 33% student mobility rate and a significant (3.6%) homeless student population. CMSD serves a diverse population, including Black, Non-Hispanic (69.8%), White, Non-Hispanic (15.7%), Hispanic (11.4%), Multi-Racial (2.2%), Asian/Pacific Islander (0.6%), and American Indian/Native Alaskan (0.3%) students. 5.3% of our student population are English Language Learners (ELL); our ELL students represent 55 countries and 34 languages with the most prevalent native language spoken being the Puerto-Rican dialect of Spanish. 20% of CMSD’s students are identified as students with learning disabilities. Over the past 10 years the district has experienced dramatic enrollment decline, losing over 30,000 students.
This session will outline a research and evidence based academic achievement model implemented during the 2008-09 school year designed to dramatically improve student achievement for all students by targeting significant but realistic annual improvement gains each year over the next five years that are sufficiently differentiated based upon the individual school building’s current performance. The presenters will share a scaffold used in CMSD which can be applied to other urban districts seeking a research based improvement model that effectively reaches school level practitioners at scale.
Albemarle County Public Schools (2:45pm - 4:00pm)
Facilitator: Luyen Chou
Craig Dommer, Lead Coach and former math specialist
Debora Collins, Director of Elementary Education
Bruce Benson, Assistant Superintendent for Systems Planning and Operations and former Assistant Superintendent for Student Learning
Pam Moran, Superintendent, Albemarle County Public Schools
Robust Math Performance is Not a Game of Chance
This case study will describe how the use of three sources of related math
learning data (learner work samples and performance assessments, NSRE
performance data, and Virginia SOL data) informed strategic and
purposeful changes in math curricula, assessment, and instruction.
Together these areas, today, support a healthy math diet through which
learners develop math skills and fluency, conceptual-understanding, and
multiple problem-solving strategies. This case developed from a
decade-long collection and analysis of math data that suggested K-8
students performed pretty well on what they learned as skills in math,
less well on what they understood conceptually in math, and quite poorly
as math problem-solvers.
Marsha Spanswick, EASy Project Manager
Kathy Kane, Response to Intervention Facilitator
Christine Carlson, Principal Fremont Elementary
Using the Schoolnet to leverage Response to Intervention
This workshop is designed for those schools and districts that are ready to get serious about implementing the three-tiered Response to Intervention design in a district already embracing a continuous improvement approach. We will examine the specifics of a school implementation including the three-tiered model, selecting the appropriate research based interventions and developing the problem solving process in the Plan-Do-Study-Act format. We will explore the most effective and efficient way to examine the relevant data, using our EASy (Schoolnet) System, schedule appropriate interventions within the normal school day, while keeping all stakeholders, especially parents, as an integral part of this process. Participants will engage in authentic dialogue with other colleagues about how to integrate RtI into their current system.
School District of Philadelphia
Facilitator: Ron ThomasDaniel Piotrowski, Director, Office of Performance Targets and Data Analysis
Michael Schlesinger, Executive Director, Office of Accountability and Assessment
Evolving Capacity of Data Use in a Large Urban School District: Developing a School Data Review Process Using a Diverse Array of Indicators
The School District of Philadelphia has a rather long history, i.e., more than 20 years, in the dissemination and use of data to both inform District initiatives and to improve instruction. As the District’s capacity to analyze and disseminate data has increased, new ways and processes have been developed to make this information useful to schools for purposes of planning and accountability. Currently, the District, serving over 170,000 students and spanning over 250 schools, is developing a framework for data use, to be implemented district wide. Relevant to any large or medium-sized district, we will discuss the development of our new multi-faceted accountability system, establishment of various indicators (academic, operational, survey data), the setting of annual targets, performance monitoring and integration of periodic assessment data. In this context, the case study will:
- Describe what has existed in the past and how current work builds on these past efforts
- Discuss the tension between the intersection of annual report indicators and the NCLB accountability system
- Address potential mis-use of results from both the indicators selected for school-level accountability and from formative assessments
- Highlight some internal conflicts regarding use of data on annual reports
- Describe keys to maintaining a balance between using some of the data for informative, formative, and summative purposes.
- Discuss challenges of integrating annual report indicators into the Instructional Management System (IMS-SchoolNet)
Facilitator: Pam Tucker
Stephanie Renfro, Data Coach
Using CFIP and Teacher Collaboration to Improve Student Performance
This session provides information about our collaborative lesson planning and PLC processes and their impact on eliminating the achievement gap for both African American and Special Education students. Coleman Middle School developed collaboration and PLC processes as the primary strategy for turning around our school’s AYP status. Coleman is an urban school with a student population of 615 students – 33% African American and will become a Title 1 School for 09 -10. Come and learn how we learned to use the Classroom Focused Improvement Process to grow a collaborative team that results in improved student performance.
