New data tool designed to identify student needs
With the implementation of a new analysis tool, School District of Lee County officials say they can now dive deeper into testing statistics to better provide students the help they need.
Business Intelligence Director Phillip Savage said the Lee County Gap Analysis Model allows the district to look at the grade level team at each school and see how they performed with their students, which will shine light on what profile group is struggling to advance.
He said they trained administrators on the model in June so they have more data at their fingertips.
Superintendent Dr. Denise Carlin said the administration is about transparency and “we are where we are.” She said it is not all good news, but the importance of research-based strategies makes all the difference.
“It’s no secret that some of our greatest challenges are attributed to a relatively smaller number of classrooms. You fill a vacancy, and you will see a gain. We can do better,” Carlin said. “The children don’t have an association or union, we have to be the voice for children.”
She said when they lack data, they make poorer decisions.
“Data that is actionable, we make better decisions,” Carlin said. “What you can’t fudge is proficiency. There has to be real strategy behind it.”
The meeting on July 29 discussed the student achievement end-of-year results, which now target more data than years prior.
Savage said the percentage of elementary schools that have As and Bs sits at 48% (24 out of 50), which is lower compared to the state average, which sits at 66%.
Middle schools at an A or B stand at 55.6% (10 out of 18), compared to the state’s 69.8%. High schools sit at 64.7% (11 out of 17), compared to the state’s 82.4% and the combination schools sits at 50% (six out of 12) for Lee County and 76.5% for the state.
The grading scale has been adjusted for high schools and combination schools, as well as districts, because the proportion of A and B schools is above 75%.
“When the percentage of As and Bs reach 75% or higher, they are going to increase a cut score. It’s harder to maintain those As and Bs than it has in the past,” he said.
The district earned a B grade, earning 715 points, or 60% of the points. There were six A districts in Florida — Miami Dade, Broward, Pinellas, Palm Beach, Orange and Duval — all ranging from 827 points to 763 points.
“Although we went up 10 points overall, that was the lowest point change compared to the other Big 10,” Savage said.
The highest point growth for the Big 10 districts was Broward with 40 points, followed by Duval with 34 points.
The presentation highlighted the third grade English Language Arts (ELA) achievement as the Big 10 districts, which put Lee County in 10th place with a negative two-point change from 52 to 50. The highest gain was four points for Pinellas and Pasco.
He said if a low literacy group is onboarded, tremendous things will have to be done to narrow the gap.
“The focus is about outlier performance. Even though the gap between us and the state is widening, there are areas that we are performing well,” Savage said.
The data showed that 73% of the student gap to the state in learning gains came from about 21% of the schools and 32% of the district’s student gap to the state in learning gains came from about 5% of the ELA teachers.
Chief Academic Officer Dr. Nathan Shaker said the data is empowering the district to look at the areas to know the highest impact. He said from last year the percentages could have been a result of teacher vacancies.
“We can target where the need is right now. It helps us know where to support, what kind of help and where to send the help,” Shaker said. “This is our breakdown of where some of the gap needs are by schools. We have 718 areas of need, and we know exactly where they are.”
The target of support will come the first week of school
He said the data also shines a light on pockets of excellence, which shows that 378 classrooms far exceeded state performance.
“We can observe the teachers and learn from the teachers and begin to start taking what they are doing and bring it to scale,” Shaker said.
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