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Using Data In Public Education Leadership · At the Table

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to At the Table, a podcast by the Ohio Leadership Advisory Council.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Dr.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Elizabeth Lawley, co-director of OLAC.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: This is the space where Ohio education leaders come together to explore timely and relevant topics shaping leadership, learning, and school improvement across the state.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Whether you're a superintendent, principal, coach, or classroom teacher, there's a seat for you here.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get started.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Today's podcast features Dr.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Jim Gay, longtime superintendent and OLAC project coordinator.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: And we're going to be talking about assessment tools.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Dr.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Gay, whenever you started out as an administrator, we were working diligently back in that time period, trying to make sure that we were doing data teams and assessments and making sure we were making the right decisions.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Can you talk a little bit about the struggle to be able to make the right decisions because we didn't necessarily have the right tools at the time when both you and I started our administrative careers?
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was certainly different.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Things have changed quite a bit.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: I was an administrator starting in 93, and this doesn't have anything to do with assessment initially, but when teachers wanted help in a particular area based on uh feedback either they got from their classroom students or feedback from me, uh they'd say, Well, where can I get help in this particular area?
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: And we would go to our uh teacher library, which was four or five books on top of the microwave, to see what was in those books to help.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: If that information was not there, I would travel down to the University of Dayton and get information.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh pull it from the library and then bring it back.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: And when that was uh probably about a 45-minute drive to get down there.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: But uh that necessarily didn't have anything to do with assessment.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: In terms of assessment pieces uh for uh related to the functioning of our teams when we were creating teams, you know, we would uh do things like informal surveys, uh informally ask people what they needed, uh, and just through conversation, uh we'd try to find out what was missing.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Now, that wasn't a very effective way to do things because some people were reluctant to tell you, others were uh not reluctant to tell you, and they'd tell you quite a bit of things, uh, some of which was not accurate, but we didn't really have a formal way to gather data.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we would do surveys, but they were surveys that uh we created on our own.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: So we really didn't have uh many tools.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: Then the OLAC website came out, and uh the first tools that came, we that came out that we used uh at the district level, we had a tool from Moving Your Numbers, which was a district guide uh you could download and you could give it to people.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: It was a paper, paper, pencil guide, uh you would uh survey, I mean, and you would bring those surveys back, uh collate them, uh, get the averages, and then that was kind of one way to gather data, which was better than what we were using before.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh at the building level, there was also a uh paper pencil.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't, it was online, but it wasn't, it wasn't in a format that you could distribute, a BLT assessment.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: It was quite different than the assessment we have now.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: One, it was online, and two, it did not have some of the uh tools and resources that the that the new assessments have.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: So didn't have much in the beginning.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: Then we had a couple paper-pencil uh guides that we could uh distribute, and uh now we're transitioning to the guides that the assessment guides we have now.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: I remember as a young administrator with so much data coming at us all the time.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was just uh constant data flow to us, and I and I just remember how inefficient I was as an administrator because I didn't have good tools to help me figure out what data was important, uh, to figure out really was my building team, uh, we call it a consensus team before OLAC came out.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Was my consensus team really making the right decisions based upon the right data, making sure that we were moving the building where we needed to move the building?
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then whenever I was in the curriculum office, you know, we had money coming at us, different grants that you could write, um, different uh grants that you could apply for at the State Department level, that sort of thing.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I never had a way to really, as a curriculum person, really judge whether or not that grant was truly as effective as it should be.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: And if we wanted to sustain it with district money, if I could argue that.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I and I think those types of tools are very necessary and needed in a an environment whenever you're trying to make data decisions, uh, decisions based on the data that you have at hand.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: But if you don't have quality data and you don't have quality tools to make sure that you're inputting that data in the right way, then you kind of just run around and and spend lots of money, lots of time, effort, and energy, and not really see those results.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that in in OLAC, um there are several assessment tools besides the um assessment modules that we have for teachers uh um and administrators.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: We have some uh classroom-based assessment modules that are uh very good uh that people can use.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um there are there are some assessments that districts can use and then buildings can use.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Could you talk about each one of those assessments and and kind of give us the rundown of what those are for?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, how do we use them?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Why would we want to use them?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there are three nice assessments that we have on the OLAC website now, and uh they're a lot more friendlier in terms of us gathering data.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the three are uh there's uh what we call the OSAT, the Ohio Sustainability Assessment Tool.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: And basically that's that's used for uh uh grant purposes.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: Typically, a district will get a grant coming in, and um, it'll be a multiple-year grant, maybe three or four years.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: And if you think that the uh grant is making a difference, you want to find a way to keep it going after the money's gone because the money does go away.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you do want to keep those practices going if that it does help kids and it helps faculty and staff do a better job with kids.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: So we do have the the OSAT.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that is an uh online tool.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's a survey.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: I believe there's about 40 questions in the survey, and it's based on a uh sustainability tool created by the University of Washington at St.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: Louis.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: It targets eight key areas for sustainability, uh including partnerships, communication, building networks.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: There are eight areas, but uh there are 40 questions that divided over the eight areas.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: So, what you would do as an administrator of a or of that particular grant is you would send this tool to the folks who are uh working with you on the grant.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: They would fill out the tool online, you get the information back, and then you get a score in each of those eight areas.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, what you can do after you're getting after you get that information is you can find out the areas that you're doing well in, look at the areas you're not doing so well in, and over a period of time try to build those areas you're not doing well in.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: So, what happens if you do that?
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: If you're able to make those connections and build uh build capacity in the areas that you're not doing well in, the chances of keeping that grant going after the money's gone increase.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: And you, as a former superintendent, and I was I'm a former superintendent, we're always tight on money.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um so the chances of a grant going forward uh aren't as great if that groundwork hasn't been done ahead of time.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: So the sustainability tool is a nice way to get that work done ahead of time.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we recommend that you send it out the first year of your grant, and then the second, the third, and the fourth, and and kind of look for trends in terms of what's what are you doing well in?
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: What areas maybe you haven't thought about in terms of sustainability to shore up?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: So if you do find the grant to be effective, uh, how can you keep it going?
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Would that interfere with having to have a, you know, some grants require you to have an outside evaluator.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: Would that in any way interfere with hiring that outside evaluator?
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: Not at all.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: This is really just building the internal capacity and the connections internally, really, to work with central office to see if there's ways to get funding either from the central office to keep the grant going or if there's networks outside uh and other agencies that you can tap to keep the grant going.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: So it doesn't uh have anything to do with the external evaluator at all.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so that that's the first tool, the sustainability tool.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: And again, that's for focusing on grants.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we do have uh uh two other online tools, um, and one of them is called the SIPPR, the systemic improvement I think processes review.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but the SIPR is uh has been put together for your DLT district uh leadership team.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you might call it something else, but it's it's created for uh a review of district level processes that are geared towards school improvement.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: Again, it's an online assessment.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: There are about 32 questions or 35 questions uh on this online assessment.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and what that does is uh it assesses uh how the districts do it in four discrete areas.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: Questions are interspersed within the survey, uh, and then once folks fill out that survey, the administrator who's assigned it gets those results back.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: The results are compiled automatically, and then the administrator gets a document that shows how the district is faring in those four key areas.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a nice comparison score that they get.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: They get a comparison score that's ranked in quadrants, and the quadrants were based on 74 districts who took this CIPR earlier, a couple years ago.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: And these districts had uh heavy SST support before that they took the survey.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: So their scores were were quite high.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: But you'll get scores in uh those four areas, and then you use you should use those scores for a benchmark.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: You shouldn't worry if your scores were in the first or second quadrant.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: What they are is just a starting score for you and they're they're a benchmark.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh then uh also in that report, you'll get a practice profile for each of the areas that gives you good information about uh what are acceptable practices in terms of what's happening in the district and acceptable scale.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: And the other nice thing you get with the SIPR is resources that you can use to uh strengthen uh each of those areas.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: And what we recommend is uh, first of all, that districts do give the SIPAR, uh give it to be give it at the beginning of the year and use it as a benchmark.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh find maybe one or two areas that you'd like to work on.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: Either they could be areas that you're doing well that you want to even do better in, or areas that you would like to strengthen.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: But select one or two areas, look at the resources that are suggested, and work with your uh DLT uh to uh improve in those areas or strengthen those areas, and then give the CIPR again at the end of the year.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's one nice way to uh show uh progress outside of assessment scores on uh pupil assessments or benchmarks.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's one nice way to find out are we making good progress in our DLT in terms of the processes we have in place that research uh makes a difference for the capacity of staff to reach kids and for student outcomes as well.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: So uh the CIPR is the second assessment that we have in place, and that's been there uh two or three years we've had it.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um again, uh another thing about the SIPPR and all the assessments that's nice is once you get that report, uh then you can distribute the report as you see fit.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: Typically, this districts will uh send the SIPR out to folks who are on the DLT, and they may have board members that you know, the board that they want to know, uh the board may want to know what's the progress of your DLT, but you as the administrator can decide uh who gets the report.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: The third report or the third assessment that we have on uh that's the new assessment, is designed for principals, and that's a BLT assessment for your building leadership team.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's uh the same type of assessment in terms of it being a quick online assessment.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: It targets three discrete areas that uh principals need to pay attention to in terms of the function of their BLT.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: Same number of questions approximately.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: What the principal does is assign their BLT members, there's an invitation portion uh to each of those assessments.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: They would uh email uh the uh BLT members.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: The BLT members would get a notification that this assessment is is coming your way.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: They would complete the assessment, and then the head of the BLT would get the results back.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like the SIPPR, uh you will get a score in terms of how you're doing in the three areas, a practice profile, and then you'll also get uh suggestions, uh OLAC resources that you can go to to improve in particular areas.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like the SIPR as well and the OSAT, the sustainability tool, we recommend that you give it at the beginning of the year and check the results and get it at the end of the year.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: Giving it at the beginning of the year, both for for all three uh assessments, is a really nice way to get conversation started, targeted conversation for each of those teams, where the team as a group can kind of decide collaboratively, okay, here are the results and where do we want to go?
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: So if I'm a principal or I'm a district administrator who wants to use one of these assessment tools, how do I get started on that?
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: What do I need to do?
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there's a landing, we have a mega menu on our website.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: You would just go to the OLAC website, you would go to uh the uh mega menu on the website that's in the upper towards the upper left-hand corner, click on that, and then down towards the right, you'll see assessment tools.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: You click on that button, there'll be three different tools.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, there are hot links for the three different tools.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you would go to the assessment you're interested in, click on that assessment, and then it tells you step by step what to do.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh initially, for all three of them, uh, you would give yourself a team name, um, and then you would also identify the district that you're working in.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: If you're working with the CIPR, it would be just the district.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: If you're working with uh the BLT, it would be the district and the and the school.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: So we you would identify your district in school, and then uh you get a page that prompts you to put in the email addresses of the folks that you would like to get the assessment.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: At this point in time, those don't auto-fill in.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: What you would have to do is fill in the folks' name, the person's name, email address, I mean, comma, and then the second email address, comma.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: After that, there's an invitation button.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: Once you hit invite, the recipients will get two things will happen for the recipients.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: One is they should get an uh email notification that you've been invited to take the assessment.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um and if they're not uh OLAC users, once they click on the assessment, they'd have to create an account.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: If they are OLAC users, they would still would get the invitation via email at the address you sent.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: But they'll also see once they log into OLAC and they go to their dashboard, they'll see that assessment uh invitation on their dashboard.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: Then all they have to do is click and take it.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: Once they've completed it, it's just a four or five uh item likert scale.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: There's a Likert scale for each question.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: Once they fill in the bubbles for each question and hit submit, then add in for and submit it, the information then comes back to the person who sent out the assessment.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: So these assessments are designed for sustainability purposes, mostly for the grant work that a district might be using, uh, for the district level uh team, planning team, and then for a building level team that that helps make the decisions.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: And with with those three things in mind, whenever I have the results from these surveys, the these assessments that are on the OLEC website, then there are resources that show up uh that I can actually quickly click on on the OLEC website.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of a one-stop shop for decision making and then resources that will help with those decisions that we're trying to make.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: For professional development in those target areas that you want to look into further.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just a great resource with everything at your fingertips.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: Excuse me.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: And in terms of uh districts, the the tools are very useful for districts.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if you're a higher ed person and you're working with pre-service principals, it's also a valuable tool for pre-service principals or pre-service superintendents to get a feel for uh the assessment and what it can do for you.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: And if you are in the higher ed area, uh there is a uh when you select district, you can select either higher ed.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, if you're an instructor at the higher ed.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: Also, they're constructed in such a way that let's say you are working in a particular particular district like Tecumseh Local, but this is a practice one that you're doing for a class at an area university.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: You still can call you still can click on your own district.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: The results only come back to you.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: So it will not bother the district level administrator who has that role and responsibility.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: So those results would come back to you.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: So at the higher level, you can use it as well.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just a nice tool uh to show aspiring administrators uh what they can use uh to help them move the work forward in their district or in their buildings.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: I use it with the uh classes I teach as an adjunct.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's a really great resource and and really great information.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um I want to thank you for joining us today, and and I want to thank our audience for joining us at the table.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Dr.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: Elizabeth Lawley, and um, it's been a pleasure to have you with us.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: If you found today's conversation valuable, be sure to subscribe and share with your colleagues.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: For more leadership tools and professional learning resources, visit OhioLeadership.org.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: And until next time, keep leading with purpose.