Creating a Data Driven Decision-Making Culture Presented by Williamsport Area School District Jodi Harris, Director of Educational Data Analysis April 2008

Williamsport ASD Profile oWASD enrollment - 5,800, 30% Minority, 55% ECD, 23% Special Needs o10 school buildings – 6 EL, 3 MS, 1 HS o2007 AYP subgroups – 10 schools with ECD student subgroups, 6 schools with IEP student subgroups and 6 schools with African-American student subgroups o Phase II PVAAS Pilot

WASD EL PSSA Math 2002 – 2004 includes grade 5, 2005 includes grades 3 & 5, 2006 – 2007 includes grades 3 - 5

WASD MS PSSA Math 2002 – 2005 includes grade 8, 2006 – 2007 includes grades 6-8

WASD EL PSSA Reading 2002 – 2004 includes grade 5, 2005 includes grades 3 & 5, 2006 – 2007 includes grades 3 - 5

WASD MS PSSA Reading 2002 – 2005 includes grade 8, 2006 – 2007 includes grades 6-8

“Like pushing on a giant, heavy flywheel, it takes a lot of effort to get the thing moving at all, but with persistent pushing in a consistent direction over a long period of time, the flywheel builds momentum, eventually hitting a point of breakthrough.” - Collins, J. Good to Great. New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers; Inc., 2001.

Step 1: Commit to Using Data Fall 2003 – Consultant works with schools to create Comprehensive School Review documents (CSR) Spring 2004 – WASD enters Phase II PVAAS Pilot Summer 2004 – Director of Educational Data hired

Helpful Hint # 1: Provide support to make data more accessible for the people who need to use it!

Step 2: Develop a Plan Fall 2004 – Data Director meets with CSR teams… “What data do you need?” Fall 2004 – WASD team attends Battelle for Kids Value- Added Conference in Columbus, OH Spring 2005 – PVAAS Professional Development Plan created

Principal Assistant Principal IST Teacher DVAS 3 additional teachers Building Data Team Superintendent Assistant Superintendent Data Director Curriculum Supervisors Director of Special Education Psychologist Union representative DVAS District Data Team

Principal/Assistant Principal IST Teacher EL – at least one primary and one intermediate teacher MS & HS – at least two teachers from different grades Building Data Team Membership

Guidance Counselor Special Education Title 1 Reading Specialist Literacy Coaches Building Data Team Membership – Additional Membership

Technical expertise should not drive data team membership! Helpful Hint #2:

 September 2005 – 1 day PVAAS training session with District Data Team membership, including building teacher representatives  October 2005 – 1 day training session with building data teams including PVAAS, PSSA results and 4Sight results  December 2005 – Superintendent met with each building data teams Step 3: Professional Development

Helpful Hint # 3: Building administrators need to understand PVAAS before training teachers!

PVAAS Questions Did the curriculum “fit” the students? Does the grade level curriculum (or delivery of the curriculum) allow for students starting behind to catch up with others? Did the instructional strategies work? If value-added was “below” than the strategies used did not meet the needs of your students. Did all students have an opportunity to make progress from where they started?

Helpful Hint # 4: A set of data may help generate questions, but you must look to other data sources to find the answers.

“The data team generated and shared a presentation on the use of data which resulted in teachers being more receptive to PVAAS. Teachers then became eager to proceed with using real-time data, such as 4Sight, as a tool to reflect on their own instructional practices.” – Bruce Elliot, WASD Principal

Fall 2006 – Data Director led 1 day data team sessions to review achievement, growth, and process data Fall 2006 – PVAAS student projections shared at parent teacher conferences December Superintendent met with building data teams Spring Sight Protocol established for school year including inservice time set aside for data analysis, goal setting, and using data to determine instructional priorities Step 4: Keep Moving Forward

PVAAS PD Plan – What Worked? The DVAS concept helped build data leaders. The inclusion of IST teachers helped prepare buildings for RTI. The inclusion of primary teachers brought data “down” to kindergarten level teachers. The PD plan helped establish strong support from the teacher union leadership.

PVAAS PD Plan – Revisions District Data Team will meet only as needed. High school data team has unique training considerations. Secondary building data teams benefit from Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies representation. Special Education representation is now present on every building data team. Data teams now present summary to entire faculty.

Principals – PSSA Results (including demographics, classroom teacher, course grades, EAP tutoring hours, 4Sight results, attendance) for prior students and incoming students. Teachers – PSSA Results by Classroom (grades 3-8 & 11) and Classroom Composite Report (grades 1- 8)(including PSSA results by reporting category, EAP tutoring hours, interventions, demographic information) Data, Data Everywhere….

PSSA results correlation to attendance, course grades, course type, academic track, etc… 9 th Grade Academy selection protocol Course scheduling protocol – 4Sight results/course grades Graduation Rate – credits earned in 9 th grade, course grade distributions, number of students failing multiple courses, etc…. High School Data Analysis

“The results came first; the buy in came next. Data-driven instruction does not require buy-in, it creates it.” - Paul Bambrick-Santoyo, “Data in the Driver’s Seat,” Educational Leadership, December 2007/January 2008, P.46

“When you let the flywheel do the talking, you don’t need to fervently communicate your goals. People can just extrapolate from the momentum of the flywheel for themselves: ‘Hey, if we just keep doing this, look at where we can go!’ As people decide among themselves to turn the fact of potential into the fact of results, the goal almost sets itself.” - Collins, J. Good to Great. New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers; Inc., 2001.

Contact Information: Jodi Harris, Director of Educational Data Analysis Williamsport Area School District 201 West Third Street Williamsport, PA (570) ext