It’s been a busy 3 months for the Data Team, learning about Eastside Pathways, meeting with the partners and teams, digging around in various data sources, and trying to get up to speed as quickly as possible. Having just attended the first Strive Data Managers Meeting last month, we appreciate the strong partnership we have with the Bellevue School District and the opportunity this gives us to align with their focus areas to help our students. Our belief is that data should be useful, to help focus and inform our collective efforts, and to help us understand if what we are doing is having an impact.
To that end, we are focused on three main areas of work:
The Baseline Report for the Community Scorecard
This is the high-level plan for our community based effort, a set of goals, outcomes and measurable indicators that we will use to guide our work and measure our progress. For example, one of the goals is “Every child is prepared for academic and work success” and one of its key indicators is “The percentage of 3rdgraders meeting grade level reading standards.” The Baseline Report gives us the starting point.
Supporting the data needs of the Campaign for Grade Level Reading (CGLR) Initiative
The starting work effort to “move the needle” on the 3rdgrade level reading indicator is CGLR. With summer underway, the first data need will be trying to quantify the impact of 3 summer programs (Lake Hills Summer School, Bellevue Family YMCA Reading Rangers, and Boys and Girls Club of Bellevue-Eastside Terrace) on reducing Summer Reading Loss. Our plan is to compare the End-of-Year and Beginning-of-Year reading percentiles for each program. The Lake Hills and YMCA groups will also have Beginning-of-Summer-Program and End-of-Summer-Program testing results for comparison.
Building the capacity of the Eastside Pathways partnership
The current effort is focused on understanding FERPA, the federal law protecting the privacy of student educational information, and getting the required legal agreements in place to access the data needed from the Bellevue School District. Partners who support our students and families outside of the classroom are interested in understanding how their efforts can help “move the needle,” and supporting their needs to access and understand their participants’ school information is an important part of this capacity building.
Article submitted by Rayna Liekweg, Outcomes and Accountability Officer, Eastside Pathways.