Group Efforts, Part Seven: Meet IDC's 619 Data Quality Peer Group

00:00:01.52 You're listening to A Date with Data with your host, Amy Bitterman.

00:00:07.34 AMY BITTERMAN: Hey, it's Amy, and I'm so excited to be hosting A Date with Data. I'll be chatting with state and district special education staff who just like you are dealing with IDEA data every day.

00:00:19.50 A Date with Data is brought to you by the IDEA Data Center.

00:00:24.41 AMY BITTERMAN: Hello, this is Amy with the IDEA Data Center and you're listening to A Date With Data, a show for those who love IDEA data. Today we're continuing to highlight IDCs peer groups. These groups are facilitated by IDC TA providers to bring state role groups together to discuss and collaborate on the data quality issues that are of greatest importance in states. On this episode, I am joined by Tony Ruggiero and Christina MacDonald, who facilitate the 619 Data Quality Peer Group. Welcome to both of you. I'm so excited to hear more about this group and what's been going on.

00:01:01.55 CHRISTINA MACDONALD: Thank you for having us, Amy. Tony and I are thrilled to be here.

00:01:05.66 AMY BITTERMAN: Great. So let's dive in. To start off, can you just tell us about the peer group for those who may not be familiar with IDCs peer groups with the 619 Peer Group, let us know who takes part usually in your group, what is the structure or the format like, and what are some of the topics that you cover?

00:01:26.70 CHRISTINA MACDONALD: Absolutely. So the 619 Data Quality Peer Group is really a collaborative peer network and learning community. It's a place for 619 coordinators, data managers, and others within the state agency who work closely with 619 can come together and resource each other. It's a place where participants can come to get ideas and build connections. Because IDEA is IDEA across all age groups, but 619 is IDEA in a very unique context. It has a lot of nuance to it that's often unfamiliar to other state staff, and at the state level, you may only have one or perhaps two people who work on 619. So it can be very isolating.

00:02:06.45 AMY BITTERMAN: Yes.

00:02:06.71 CHRISTINA MACDONALD: Which has a very significant impact on the data. So our goal is to create a place where participants can come together and co-navigate that 619 space, and build their understanding for how quality data can be used, not only for reporting and the MapR but also to support preschool special education more broadly. And part of that co-navigation process is really how the group is structured.

00:02:29.94 AMY BITTERMAN: Mm-hmm.

00:02:30.34 CHRISTINA MACDONALD: The content is very audience-driven. So the topics that we're talking about are grounded in the needs and interests of participants and what they've identified they want to talk about. So Tony and I act as facilitators, but there's such a wealth of knowledge and experience in the room much more than Tony and I could ever bring ourselves. So the goal has really been to create a space to tap into that collective wisdom and be able to build each other up. Participants will work together to solve problems, learning from each other how they've approached different challenges, sharing some of the places where they've been really successful and strategies that worked, but also where they've kind of stumbled and some of the pitfalls to watch out for when you are working your way through it. They really inspire each other, they share different approaches and techniques as well as some of the resources that they've tripped across that are really valuable to them. And some of the tools that they've developed themselves in their states to be able to help other states. It really, without understanding, it has been an amazing experience to work with this group. And Tony and I are really looking forward to getting back together with everyone this fall. We take a summer break just because of everybody's vacation schedules and stuff, but we normally meet every other month on the second Tuesday at two o'clock Eastern.

00:03:53.89 AMY BITTERMAN: Great.

00:03:54.82 TONY RUGGIERO: And Christina mentioned that we are facilitators that is truly what we're doing. The 619 group has taken ownership and the way they support each other and share information has been a wonderful experience and great to see.

00:04:17.68 AMY BITTERMAN: Yes. That's really what you hope for with these groups, right? Is that it's driven by them like you're there to kind of support and navigate and the logistics, but it's really that platform for them to come together and focus in on what's important to them and hear from each other, and we're there to really just ensure that they have that space for that to happen. So it's great to hear that that's kind of where it's evolved to. Can you talk about some of the common themes that you're currently hearing from states during these calls?

00:04:52.54 TONY RUGGIERO: Yes. Some of the common themes have been about inclusion, turnover, the importance of early childhood and connecting to K–12, getting the messaging out there as it relates to the importance of early childhood, or elevating the importance of early childhood. And in doing so, there's been discussion about how the states have been working in teams to elevate the importance of early childhood. So at the beginning, in July of 2023, we asked the states what they would like to focus on in the next five years. What is their most pressing concern? And they stated that they would like to do more to get preschool children with disabilities in inclusive environments.

00:06:00.76 AMY BITTERMAN: Mm-hmm.

00:06:01.54 TONY RUGGIERO: And some of our states have said that they are seeing a decline of children with disabilities in inclusive environments and or haven't moved the needle as much as they would have liked to see. And so that's been a big part of our discussions throughout the data quality peer group. And part of that too is stressing the importance of early childhood and the work and making those connections not only to the K–12 world but also making connections with other early childhood programs. So 619 being connected to Head Start or high-quality childcare centers is key to helping to provide more opportunities for kiddos to be in those inclusive environments. And along with bringing the importance or messaging the importance of early childhood, we've had discussions around using data. And we had Missouri and Illinois talk about their data dashboards and the amazing work they're doing with those dashboards that include the 619 data to put 619 at the forefront of the work. And part of this story is not just having the dashboards, but part of the Missouri and Illinois stories are the fact that the state data managers and state staff who are working on these for 619, they have learned these skills and trained themselves in using Tableau and Power BI. So they're very inspirational stories as well. And so they were so inspirational that we had our guests from the data quality peer group speak at the Interactive Institute in 2024. So there was a lot of excitement about the work as it relates to the data dashboards. And in New Hampshire, they have their indicator sheets.

00:08:52.38 AMY BITTERMAN: Great. It's a real opportunity to elevate what the successes have been, and hopefully, other states can see that and talk to the states that have been doing it and get those ideas and support. It's a really great benefit of these groups.

00:09:12.93 TONY RUGGIERO: Yes, indeed.

00:09:15.30 AMY BITTERMAN: Do you have any tips or recommendations related to 619 data that you can share that states might benefit from knowing about?

00:09:25.77 CHRISTINA MACDONALD: Absolutely. I think one of the big ones Tony, hit on a little bit that has come out of this group, is just the value in that partnership between the data manager and the 619 coordinator. They have such different skill sets and different perspectives on the data that taking the time to come together and learn about each other's work, and to look at the same data set together side by side, to really build it. It really builds both of their skill sets up so that they can use the data more effectively, more efficiently. They can get a lot more accuracy with the data because there's an understanding of what the data means and practicality, and it also helps them to be able to elevate the data beyond the APR to actually being able to use it meaningfully in the work of 619 and advancing the preschool special education field in terms of quality and inclusion and programming. Another one that has come up as Tony mentioned, this connection to the rest of IDEA, there's so much that we have in common, there's also nuances that we can teach each other about. And building that connection across the agency, but also with those partner agencies, especially in cases where 619 might be located with Part C under that same roof. Having those connections across agencies where we're looking at the data together, where we're talking about what that data means together, what does inclusion in early childhood mean for inclusion in K–12? Because we know a lot of these trends and patterns begin in that early childhood realm. And understanding the importance of that long-term impact of what we're seeing happen in early childhood, and having those conversations about how this really is one system, one P21 system, and how we can better work together to communicate that to each other and to the field.

00:11:46.74 The other piece that I think has come up really strongly amongst some of our participants is really that need for data accuracy, and really working with the LEAs as well as at the state level around this, again, that usefulness of the data to do more to support the field. When folks view data as useful, then they spend more time and attention to how it's collected and you see the accuracy improve. So working with LEAs not just about data integrity, but how to use the data for their own root cause analysis and their problem solving which then feeds into them improving the data that's going in so that they're making better decisions that are better informed, and can really make the changes really at those really strong lever points to help the work to move forward. I think those are some of the really important tips and things that have come out of some of these conversations.

00:12:50.69 AMY BITTERMAN: Yes. It sounds like there's a lot you're covering, it's not just the data collection and quality piece, it's even moving beyond that to use the data to make change and improvements in the field like you said, it sounds like you're really getting at as well which is wonderful.

00:13:12.84 TONY RUGGIERO: Yes. And Amy, we also learned from the states that the topics they want to cover and we have been covering are using 619 data beyond federal reporting as Christina mentioned, linking preschool data to K–12 data, they want to engage stakeholders with preschool data or do that more and they want to build and sustain data literacy efforts. So going back to what Christina mentioned in terms of the LEAs being able to read, understand, and use that data to make informed decisions, the states also are wanting to do that as well. That way they can support and model that work, that data literacy effort to LEAs.

00:14:14.18 AMY BITTERMAN: Yes.

00:14:14.44 CHRISTINA MACDONALD: And piggybacking on that understanding and sharing the importance of that data with other efforts within the agency around monitoring and TA and how that can really impact the work going on in those areas, really recognizing the value of the data that's being collected for the APR beyond just the check the box we submitted it to OSEP, but it really has value for us and really helping us across the agency to do our work better.

00:14:46.16 AMY BITTERMAN: Yes. Really emphasizing that early childhood shouldn't be siloed, it needs to be something that everyone is involved in and understands and is part of. And with that would really encourage new 619 coordinators, but that's what is nice about this group is that it's just not for 619 coordinators, you really want the data managers and others to be part of this conversation so that they can, like you said at the beginning, hear from each other what they're doing and really learn even what's happening within their own state that they may not be aware of or be part of. So thank you both so much. This was great. I'm excited, I want to join the peer group, I wish I could. But if you are interested in being part of the peer group, again, not just for 619 coordinators, although if you're a new or a seasoned 619 coordinator, this is definitely the place for you. Please, reach out to your state liaison for IDC or you can email ideadata@westat.com. Thank you very much for being on, really appreciate it.

00:15:55.77 CHRISTINA MACDONALD: Thank you for having us.

00:15:57.36 TONY RUGGIERO: Thank you for having us.

00:15:58.62 AMY BITTERMAN: Sure.

00:16:00.87 To access podcast resources, submit questions related to today's episode or if you have ideas for future topics, we'd love to hear from you. The links are in the episode content or connect with us via the podcast page on the IDC website @IDEA.org