ECLC Digs Deep on Data-Driven Decision Making at District Lead Team Meeting

Cultural Proficiency brainstorm on newsprint

Emily Wilson

Earlier this fall, school leaders who are part of the Essex County Learning Community (ECLC) District Lead Team gathered for their quarterly meeting – the first since heading back to school for the 2019–2020 academic year. The District Lead Team (DLT) is comprised of up to seven members from each ECLC district, including teachers and administrators.
 
The DLT meets quarterly to network within and across districts, engage in professional learning focused on district common needs, and advance districts’ action plans. At this most recent DLT meeting, the new school year was top of mind for all, which informed a rich discussion on the day's theme: outside the box-thinking on data-driven decision making. 

To kick off the meeting, district leaders were asked to brainstorm about all the ways they use data to make decisions outside of work – including for their families, their own wellbeing, and other areas of daily life. This got participants thinking holistically about data – recognizing that the data we collect on a day-to-day basis goes a long way in shaping our actions.
 
Throughout the course of the meeting, school leaders were asked to think about all the different types of data they use or could potentially use to drive decision-making.

Participants focused on three core areas of practice, which had previously been identified by our six districts:

1. Cultural Proficiency
2. Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS)
3. Social Emotional Learning

Participants formed small discussion groups and completed a brainstorming activity on the range of data sources that could be utilized to elucidate more concrete information in each of these areas. They also discussed the extent to which they are making use of these sources in their schools. The brainstorm session led to a shared understanding of how to employ data for decision-making  and student learning.
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To close out the meeting, participants were asked to identify a confidence level on a scale from 1 to 4 of how likely they would be to use what they learned in their data-driven decision-making back home in their districts.
 
All participants reported being along the confidence continuum at the 2, 3, or 4 level, and discussed why they had picked their numbers. At the next DLT meeting in December, school leaders will continue to learn about how best to approach and talk about data in their districts. 

 

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