Data DialogueIn an effort to continuously improve the quality of education for students in the Northeast BOCES region of Colorado, Lone Star school district has been engaging in a “data dialogue”. This process, which engages community stakeholders at every step, helps our school district improve student growth outcomes to better equip them for life after their K-12 education is complete.
The purposes of the data dialogue process are to 1) help to replace “hunches” and “feelings” with data-driven decisions, 2) examine patterns and trends of performance indicators, and 3) tenerate “root-cause” discussions that move from identifying symptoms to possible causes of student performance. Each participant in the process has an equal voice, and the stakeholders involved include the District Accountability Committee (DAC), district staff, students, families, and our Board of Education (BOE). Through the process, these stakeholders of Lone Star School District have made a shared meaning of the data, which includes student performance, academics, behavior, attendance, etc. The process begins with district staff analyzing school-level data within their buildings and Professional Learning Communities (PLCs). From there, the data dialogue process is vetted through the DAC who brings it forward to the BOE for final approval. During the data dialogue process, we have also been partnering with a national education provider, Generation Schools Network (GSN), to help guide our conversations and thinking. The valuable aspect of a third-party provider is that there is less familiarity with our school district, which improves our ability to review the data objectively. GSN has helped guide us through the following Phases of the Data Dialogue Process:
One of the key things it’s important for parents and families to understand is that student data is always anonymous. Our data dialogue process never puts the blame on students or teachers. Our top priority is the safety, wellbeing, and growth of our students, and we look forward to the improvements our district will see as a result of this process. If you have any questions, please contact Mike Bowers at [email protected]. |