EDLEAP

Now that you have your vision for what student achievement looks like, we’ll need to identify and defining what metrics you can measure for growth.

Identify Growth Metrics

Identifying is pretty easy. You may write statements like 95% of students will have at least a 90% attendance rate upon graduation. This is great! Now we need to identify where this data lives and define what this metric means.

Identify Relevant Data Systems

Where does the relevant data exist in your district? Your Student Information System (SIS) houses a lot of your student data including things like attendance, grades, courses, discipline, demographic information, etc. Assessment files come from ACT and other periodic assessment suites, which is perfect as long as you know how to access those files.

If there is data that you don’t currently have a system for:

• Look for platforms that are already collecting that information. We want to minimize the impact of collecting and using this data.
• If no other platforms are collecting that information, get it into your SIS if possible. Your SIS is already setup to manage student data and distribute it to the appropriate people and systems.
• A last resort if it doesn’t make sense to store that data in your SIS, then create a new system that can be easily maintained.

As educators we love to build new systems, forms, and spreadsheets, but if our goal is systemic growth in student achievement then we can’t always focus on building new systems.

Defining Growth Metrics

Each metric is usually more complicated than it looks. It is important for districts to establish and communicate how metrics are calculated in a consistent way across each district.

For example:

Attendance is calculated from each student’s total days present divided by total possible days.

A full day present includes any day where a student is in attendance for at least 66% of the day. A half day present includes any day where a student is in attendance between 33% and 66%, and a student is not counted as present if they are in school for less than 33% of the school day.

Absence codes, defined in our SIS and assigned by administrative assistants, include Excused, Unexcused, and Exempt. Exempt absences decrease the total number of days/periods possible AND total number of days/periods in attendance.

Now, not everyone needs to know how to define the codes, but building leaders should have at least a basic idea of how a 90% attendance rate is calculated. Otherwise, there will be no confidence in the data. Lastly, consistency is key. If the backend of your SIS isn’t consistent between buildings, you will never be able to make informed decisions on that data because people aren’t talking the same language.

This was just an example for attendance, but this complexity exists for discipline, grades, courses, demographics, interventions, etc.

Cleaning Your Data

Cleaning your data refers to making sure that your systems are putting out exactly what your team thinks they should be.

1. Get a small team together made up of Data / Technology Staff who understand how things can be coded and administrative staff who understand how they need to input data.
2. Create a spreadsheet for each area (attendance, discipline, etc.) that has data which impacts your metrics so you can work together to define what each code means.
3. Think about how you want the data to be visualized when you’re reporting on it. Eliminate redundant and meaningless codes.
4. Bring that spreadsheet to your larger administrative team and explain the changes being proposed. Be ready for pushback.
5. After everyone is relatively happy, make the proposed changes to your codes.
6. Continue to communicate the need for clean data as new staff come in and when possible, limit the number of people who can make changes to these areas of your SIS.

This is a complicated process and can be very individualized for each district. Reach out if you would like us to share our spreadsheet codes with you and your district.

Reporting on Your Metrics

Now that you’ve identified where your data lives and have cleaned it up, you’re able to see a clear picture of how your district is performing. There are a few approaches you can take when reporting on your data.

1. Running reports from your SIS
   • Pros: It shouldn’t cost anything
   • Cons: It is a manual process of downloading, analyzing, and compiling data
2. Exporting Data from your SIS and Building Spreadsheets
   • Pros: Again, it shouldn’t cost anything. You can build anything you can dream up and some of the analysis could be pre-defined saving you time.
   • Cons: It is still a manual process of downloading and importing data into spreadsheets. Also, you will run into situations where you want to change one aspect of how data is being aggregated or compiled that wasn’t a part of your original design and it will take days to update.
3. Using a Data Warehouse
   • Pros: This is automated to the greatest extent possible. There are common dashboards established so that everyone is seeing the same data, just through their lens. You also have the ability to easily disaggregate data.
   • Cons: They do cost money. New dashboards or changes to existing ones could take more time than if you build it on your own.

If you have the means to use a Data Warehouse, we recommend using one. Some states, like Wisconsin, have consortiums that help with the overall cost and allows everyone in the consortium to benefit from what other districts have built.