School Stakeholders Dive into Data; Share Trends and "Bright Spots"

Parents, caregivers, and community members joined SFUSD leaders at the recent data forum.

Wednesday night marked the fourth year that SFUSD, in collaboration with district parent advisory groups, PPS-SF, and other community organizations, has hosted an event aimed at sharing and discussing the data that informs decision-making and budgeting processes at both the district and individual school levels.

The event, called Turning Data into Action, Telling the Story Behind the Numbers, was held at Dr. Martin Luther King Middle School.

A Snapshot of our Whole District

The evening began with remarks by Superintendent Dr. Vincent Matthews, and a review of district-level data by John Burke who works in SFUSD’s Research, Planning and Accountability department.

Burke noted that, while on average, SFUSD is still the highest performing urban district in the state, averages conceal existing gaps in outcomes between Asian and White students and African American and Latino students in our district that are wider than in many other districts.

Slides from the Data Forum can be found here. This includes the snapshot of the whole district, as well as slides from all of the breakout group presentations.

Breakout Sessions Provided Grade-Level Data and Time For Participant Analysis and Feedback

After hearing about district wide data and receiving a quick primer in SFUSD's budgeting process from Budget Manager Anne Marie Gordon, participants chose to attend one of five smaller group sessions to look at more detailed data: there were four groups defined by student grade level and one that focussed specifically on school culture and climate - attendance and absenteeism; suspensions & out of class referrals.

In addition to test score data, these sessions focused on other information and data provided by SFUSD that provide feedback to SFUSD leaders and educators. In each session, school leaders shared information what actions are being taken to try to improve student outcomes and examples of promising practices.

Here are links to the data highlights for Elementary School, Middle School, and High School. All of the date highlights are available here in six languages.

Look at Data For Your School! Here is How.

One purpose of the data forum was to examine district-level trends. Another purpose was to model the process that happens at every school in SFUSD: principals, School Site Councils (SSCs), and English Learner Advisory Councils (ELACs) look at detailed data about how students are doing overall at their school and identify needs for new programs, increased investment, and/or special supports for groups of students with needs that are not being met. The data and planning process is then brought to the whole school at a community meeting.

Every parent can participate in this process. If you haven't seen data for your school, highlights for every school are available on the SFUSD website. The California School Dashboard is a great new data resource available from the California Department of Education that allows anyone to look at data and see details by school and by different demographic groups. We have put together some resources on how to find and use this data.

How to find data for your school

More resources for finding data

California Accountability Model and School Dashboard resource: here