Delaware’s Data Dialogue, Part 2: From Data Retreats to Lasting Results

00:00:04.25 >> For the IDEA Data Center, I'm Amy Bitterman, and this is A Date with Data. Every month I sit down with data polity influencers from around the country to share their stories about special education data and the work they do to improve outcomes for children with disabilities. Hello and welcome to A Date with Data. On this episode we're joined by Dale Matusevich, Robert Sabolcik, and Barbara Mazza from the Delaware Department of Education. We are so excited to talk to them about how Delaware is working to strengthen the capacity of local education agencies to collect, analyze, report and use high-quality IDEA data. This is Part 2 of our conversation with Delaware. Please check out Part 1 if you haven't already. You've mentioned now I know these data retreats a few times. Can you say a little bit more about those retreats? Is it something where multiple districts come together, and then those month meetings were sort of happening kind of after that initial retreat? Just interested in hearing more about how the retreats works.

00:01:05.90 >> So, Barb, you want to take this one? You've been the lead on this and pulling this together for us as an Exceptional Children Resources team and working more closely with the team from IDC.

00:01:18.85 >> Sure, yeah, the team from IDC have been working with us side-by-side. Our goal with the data retreats was really to give LEAs a chance to be away from the distractions, to bring a multidisciplinary team so it wasn't just the special ... so they can focus on the data, and like Dale shared, Bob was there, and IDC did some training for us and professional learning with them around what is a root cause analysis.

00:01:45.89 >> Mm-hmm.

00:01:46.26 >> How do you analyze data? How do you analyze data when you're looking at multiple sources of data?

00:01:52.06 >> Mm-hmm.

00:01:52.68 >> And they really use the I do, we do, you do model, so they explained what it was, and they modeled with them with the group how to look at data, and then the LEAs were able to have time to look at their data as a group. And so we grouped them by their determinations, so the group that came in-person were LEAs that were in needs intervention or needs substantial intervention. Then we grouped the needs assistance year two together and then meets requires and needs assistance year one, and if they wanted to come, that was fine. And we did the same information but kind of at a different depth.

00:02:33.60 >> Mm-hmm.

00:02:34.08 >> And so when they left the two-day data retreat, they left with a plan, an implementation plan where they had activities that they were going to work on, and then that gave us the information to kind of guide those conversations when we met with them monthly.

00:02:49.63 >> Okay.

00:02:50.01 >> And I know one of the things Dale has mentioned before is that at the end of the first day, we saw LEAs kind of calling other people in their LEA saying, we need you here tomorrow to help us look through this data.

00:03:04.17 >> Yeah.

00:03:04.82 >> So they were able, pull together school climate people, discipline people, and that kind of helped them, and I think us modeling at the department really helps them move forward in that because in some LEAs, the special ed director may have a strong voice, may not have a strong voice, so it kind of gave them that support, and we were all there to answer questions and to support their discussion.

00:03:29.77 >> So, Barb, you mentioned before some of the improvements that you've seen as a result maybe of the work you've been doing with the districts. Are there any other celebrations or successes that you'd like to share kind of as a result of this great work that you've been doing?

00:03:46.36 >> Dale, I think I'll let you talk a little bit maybe about Colonial, that shared.

00:03:51.03 >> Yeah, so we've had a number of districts. As Barb said, we had one district that over the data metrics improved in 50 percent of the data metrics that we're looking at across our determinations. So that was a huge success because that was one of our LEAs that typically takes a lot of heat, if you will, and kind of stakeholders and everything always have their eyes on them. So it's going to be information that they're going to be able to take back as well, provide to their board, provide during public meetings that they have to say look at the improvements that we're doing. But our one nonnegotiable coming into this work and building their continuous improvement plans was around indicator three and the proficiency in ELA and math.

00:04:47.59 >> Mm-hmm.

00:04:48.25 >> So that was the one nonnegotiable, and I think our approach was, we need to kind of streamline our continuous improvement process a little bit because before we were really asking them to ... Here are all the targets that you missed across your determination. Build an action plan around all these targets that you didn't meet.

00:05:11.80 >> Mm-hmm.

00:05:12.82 >> And we know that across the indicators that we're reporting on, they all interact with each other, so one influences all of the others as we're going into the work. So our focus here was to prioritize for them in their continuous improvement plans, take your top three. Where do you really want to take a look at and see some of the things that are happening? So we have one LEA, Colonial, that was focusing on indicator three because that was a nonnegotiable, but they also looked at their early childhood programming because as part of their determinations for us, a lot of our districts are hit hard, of course, with indicator three, but then also they're the ones that are providing our early childhood programs, so that's also a big hit that they take as well. And they really brought a team across the district together that wasn't just early childhood folks, but it was looking at curriculum folks and discipline folks and really looking at numbers across a number of not only the early childhood indicators but also the other Indicators and what impact that was having. They looked at least restrictive environment, and where are children being instructed and looking at those foundational skills and what curriculum are we using within those programs? What is the instruction that's happening there? And really looking at are we preparing those students and those early childhood folks to enter into the K-12 system with all of those foundational skills that are needed. So they were already seeing a difference in their LRE numbers within this as well as looking at the instruction in the curricula that were being used across those programs, and it's really had them open their eyes to insuring that they kind of have the pulse of what's happening in all of these areas, and it's bringing, again, that multidisciplinary team together to be able to look at that and examine what is actually going on in these different environments.

00:07:43.17 >> And taking a really, it sounds like, comprehensive approach, not sort of narrowing in on one area or sort of making an assumption that we know this is a problem, and we need to address it but looking across and seeing what's really ... Like you said, all of it impacts each other.

00:08:00.73 >> Yeah, and a big one for us, too, is we had an additional LEA that is working in another initiative with us that's part of their continuous improvement plan around looking specifically at LRE, especially for students who are complex disabilities, and moving them into less restrictive environments and just within ... We had the data retreat in early December.

00:08:30.29 >> Mm-hmm.

00:08:31.10 >> We hit the March, April, May testing window for them, and we understand it's a very small sample size that we're using, so it's a very small in size, under 10, so we do understand that. But they were able to move from a set of students from a more restrict environment into a lesser restrictive environment where they were getting better access to the general education curriculum, and through that proficiency level they went from a level one to a level three, becoming proficient for those students, and for that building it was like a 500 or 600 percent jump in their proficiency rate for that group of students.

00:09:26.95 >> Wow.

00:09:27.22 >> Which is kind of unheard of in a 6-month time frame.

00:09:32.30 >> Yeah.

00:09:33.42 >> So that shows us, and, again, we understand it was a very small sample size, but that begins to show us that, hey, if we're looking at this and being very intentional with this work, not only looking at what instruction is being provided to students but also where is that instruction being provided? Ensuring that they do have access to the general education curriculum, we are now seeing the results of that and what impact it can have on student outcomes.

00:10:07.95 >> Yeah, that's amazing. Well, all of these stories you've shared have been so exciting to hear about, and I'm sure other states will learn a lot, too, so thank you so much for being on and sharing your experiences about how you've been supporting districts to improve their data, and it's so great to hear about the progress that they've made, and I know that I've picked up a lot from what you've shared, so thank you so much for being on.

00:10:35.81 >> Thank you for having us on and allowing us to share our work. Just one final note is that this hasn't been a fast process. We've really taken our time to build those relationships across the department. That took us about a year, really, to kind of look at that and then together developing the process for how we would move forward and then engaging the LEAs, but it was totally worth the time invested.

00:10:58.83 >> Yeah, thank you very much for having us on.

00:11:03.78 >> A Date with Data is produced by the IDEA Data Center, which is funded by the US Department of Education. Have a story about special education data that you'd like to share? We'd love to hear from you. Reach out to us at ideadata@westat.com. To learn more about our center and our work, visit us at ideadata.org.