Data was posted everywhere around Madison Elementary School’s gym today.
On the walls. On the tables. And on the white boards.
Today was the third day of a three-day data retreat for Warsaw Community Schools. More than 120 teachers and administrators from every school in the district and the central office gathered to pore over all kinds of data.
According to Tom Kline, former WCS chief accountability officer and recently named Madison principal, “the focus of the retreat is to improve student learning through the use of data.”
Dr. Judy K. Sargent, School Improvement Services director, from Green Bay, Wis., moderated the retreat.
“It’s hugely important,” she said. “This is our third day of the corporation data retreat.”
All schools are represented at the retreat, with the mission to analyze all their data from not just the past year but also the past several years to look at trends. The retreat will help each school in the corporation be data-driven and use the data to improve themselves and help students, she said.
Sargent said WCS has been phenomenal to work with and the schools are learning to use sets of data they had but didn’t know how to use before. The retreat, she said, is providing them with tools to use that data.
She said they are taking what they learn to create school improvement goals, and with each goal are drafting strategies on how to achieve them.
“It’s been a pure delight,” Sargent said of working with WCS. The school corporation is phenomenal with great educators, she said.
“To see this level of professionalism and sincerity in their work doesn’t exist everywhere,” Sargent said.
The school district is strong on the internal accountability side and supports that, she said. External factors are rough on schools right now, but when a school is strong internally like WCS is, she said they can take on the external.
This past year, according to a press release provided, each of the Warsaw Community Schools has improved student learning through the use of Professional Learning Communities by asking four critical questions:
1. What do we want students to learn? 2. How do we know when they have learned it? 3. What do we do if they have not learned it? 4. What do we do if they already know it?
Retrieving and analyzing student data shows which students need further assistance, a new approach to learning, or enrichment to inspire them to higher levels, according to the release.
