Data-Driven Leadership
Servicing our North Star Goals
At Muchin College Prep, our goal is to equip students with the tools they need in order to pursue a college education (should they decide to do so). The metrics on the left service that goal and how I measured success in my role as a teacher. In addition, we measured equity in the classroom by looking at the differences between the GPAs for our students who identify as African American and our students who identify as Latine/x, the two dominant demographic of students we served. The goal was to minimize the gap to no more than 0.1
While teaching remotely, I also looked at completion and mastery rates on assignments setting a goal of 85% or higher for each assignment. This data provided insight on which individual students needed more support in class. As a response, I provided individual interventions, additional office hours, and constant communication with key stakeholders in a student's life.
Performance Management
In my current role, I manage 17 teachers of which two are also department leads. I keep a performance management tracker in which I track performance over time. In doing so, I am able to provide targeted support to teachers who need it most. Furthermore, I can collect data on how the teachers I manage are performing within their roles and in accordance with our school’s core values.
When there are numerous core value breaches or severe breaches of expectations, teachers are then escalated to the Principal or Assistant Principal who communicates necessary next steps.
Clarity is key when it comes to performance management. In my first year of being Dean of Instruction, I led an initiative in which it was made clear to instructional staff of expectations of their roles. The document was titled, “The Instructor’s Companion.” It is now used as a reference and resource for instructional staff and is updated each year with any changes in policies.
Artifacts:
The Instructor’s Companion - a guide to Instructional Expectations
Department Data Tracking
Data in instruction serves as a roadmap. It tells the viewer where students are at a certain point in time and also gives them directions on where they need to go. Driving equitable student outcomes lies at the core of my job as an instructional leader and using a data-driven approach gives some real-time insight on whether students are learning.
My expectations for using data as a roadmap are consistent for teachers. Each week, teachers in the departments that I manage update a department data tracker with course metrics that are directly related to our academic north star goals (3.0 or above GPA, 0.1 or less gap in GPA between African American and Latine/x students. The data tracker below serves as a tool to detect trends in GPA data and are an anchor in conversations around student outcomes.
When discussing course data with teachers, I ask three questions:
1) What is the data saying?
2) Why is the data saying this?
3) What are you doing about it?
After answering those questions, teachers will walk away with actionable next steps to improve their outcomes. This process of data analysis typically happens in weekly coaching conversations, data meetings or as needed (to increase urgency when observing low data).
