Group Efforts, Part Five: Meet IDC’s Cross-Role 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 >> 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.

00:00:24.57 >> Hello. Welcome to another episode of "A Date With Data." We are continuing our series highlighting all of IDC's data quality peer groups. These groups are facilitated by IDC TA providers, and they bring together groups from states to discuss and collaborate around data-quality issues that are important in the states, and I'm so excited to be joined by the facilitators of our Cross-Role Group, Mary Watson and Susan Hayes. Thank you both so much for joining. And to get us started, if you could just share a little bit about the peer group, who participates. What's the peer group like? This one, I know, is a little different than some of our others in terms of the roles that participate, so if you could just kind of describe to us the peer group.

00:01:17.02 >> The Cross-Role Data Quality Peer Group is designed by IDC to offer state special education staff who work in the special ed departments who have various roles and responsibilities in the agency to come together to discuss shared topics of interest. IDC hosts peer groups for role like the SPP/APR coordinator, data managers, 619 coordinators, SSIP coordinators, but we found that state special ed directors also are very interested in these topics as well as others who may be program staff who do not have a specific title like SSP/APR coordinator, so this Cross-Role Data Quality Peer Group is open to all who work with special education in the special education division program and data folks. A really nice thing we enjoy is that some of our participants in the other role groups sometimes join our Cross-Role Group, and that really helps to broaden the conversation and fill in gaps in our conversation sometimes.

00:02:22.85 >> Yeah, your group, I think, is really unique in that the purpose is to bring together individuals that are in all different roles to be able to hear what's going on in different areas versus all of our other groups, which are pretty specific to a certain role group, so yours has that unique twist. Can you talk about the structure or the format of the group, and what are some of the topics that you cover?

00:02:50.13 >> Thanks, Amy, and hi. This is Susan Hayes. Happy to answer that question. So we really try to partner with our peer-group members to identify topics of interest to them. They could be topics, challenges, questions, so a couple of examples from recent calls that we've hosted of topics we've addressed include calculating and reporting the SPP/APR Equity Indicator, so Indicator 4B, 9 and 10. We've also taken a close look with our Cross-Role Data Quality Peer Group at the new SPP/APR Indicator 18 that states will report on for the first time in February 2025. We've talked about SPP/APR clarification period and the questions they have received from OSEP, how OSEP makes state determination, EDFacts modernization. Our goal ... Regardless of its topic, our goal, as Mary said, is to support states in looking at it from a variety of perspectives, so we try to structure each of our calls to create space for folks in different roles, so for example, as Mary mentioned, it could be a Part B data manager who shares how he or she addresses the issue at hand. We might also have leadership of state special ed directors speak to the topic, an SPP/APR coordinator because the purpose behind our peer group, as Mary already described, is to really shine a light on the value and importance of tackling these data-related challenges, questions, problems of practice from a variety of different lenses and perspectives. We really bring that spirit to our calls.

00:04:23.54 >> Great. You touched on, I know, a few of the areas and topics. It's a broad range that are covered, but what would you say more recently are some of the highlights, the common themes, the hot topics that states are really wanting to discuss during your calls?

00:04:43.10 >> One thing we continue to hear is that many state agencies are siloed and work in different departments, and state staff don't have the opportunities to address current problems of practice like Indicator 18, for example. That's a hot one right now or the new elements in the interaction to the SPP/APR. So these data-focused challenges cross multiple staff within the agency, not just those who are directly working with it or are working with the reporting of it while everybody works with it. Whether it's related to SPP/APR submission or data collection or other reporting issues more broadly, the challenges we discussed in our group are not in the Part B data manager's purview or the SPP/APR coordinator's purview or even the state director's purview to address in isolation. It's really important to have these discussions collaboratively with other members of the team, whether it's in your agency or within our Cross-Role Data Quality Peer Group. We think it's really important that leadership's at the table with these discussions and decision-making as well as staff who are involved in the technical assistance and monitoring, dispute resolution, even fiscal staff sometimes. So the more perspective we have and experiences that come to our conversations, the better. We try to model that on our calls. We structure our discussions and questions sometimes around, how would you do this as the SPP/APR coordinator? What would you want your director to know? And then questions focused toward the director as, what are things you want to be involved with, and where would this be important in your role? So we really try to make it relevant to all who participate, and hopefully they're doing some of those conversations when they leave back in their agency. It's a really rich and inviting time, and often coming out of meetings and other peer-group calls, there'll be a topic that people want to dig a little deeper in like, "We heard this at the IDC Institute, and we want to talk more about it." So we're always polling the participants, "What do you want to talk about next month?"

00:07:00.14 >> Yeah, that's a really great purpose, I think, of the group is to be able to dig in deeper on topics and things that are coming up, things that OSEP is sharing. It's always nice to have those additional opportunities to kind of ask the follow-up questions once information has come out, and things have kind of sunk in, and you've started to think about it. That additional conversation is always great, especially with folks in all different roles to get those different perspectives. Can you share some tips or recommendations related to the group that you think other states might benefit from hearing about? 

00:07:40.11 >> That's a great question, Amy. I think, first and foremost, we would encourage if anyone's listening who is not a member of our Cross-Role Data Quality Peer Group to consider joining us. There may be other folks within your agency who already participate, but come one, come all. Our conversations, as Mary described, really are richer when we have a variety of roles and states represented, so that would be one recommendation is to consider joining our community and being a part of our calls and cross-role conversations. I think another recommendation is if you're not able to participate in our peer group or your state's not able to participate to just take again the spirit behind our group into your work and really championing that kind of collaboration and communication within your own team or even across your agency, so thinking about when you're wrestling with a data-related question or challenge, what other voices and perspectives could you bring to support you in seeking a solution? And that really is sort of the backdrop of all of our conversations within the Cross-Role Data Quality Peer Group, so those would be our recommendations.

00:08:49.52 >> Great, yeah, definitely please reach out to your state liaisons. Check out our website if you would like more information, and please join this group if you're not already part of it. So thank you both so much for sharing this wonderful information about this really great peer group and thank you for being on.

00:09:10.88 >> Thanks, Amy. Glad to be here.

00:09:12.65 >> Thank you, Amy.

00:09:14.59 >> 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 at ideadata.org.