urban education:
United States

PORTFOLIO:

Urban Education

GEOGRAPHIC IMPACT:

Denver

ORGANIZATION:

Denver Public Schools

SUMMARY:

Denver Public Schools (DPS) is a high-needs urban school district serving almost 80,000 students. Plagued by persistently low graduation rates, DPS rolled out web-based teacher and administrator portals during the 2009-2010 school year as part of an effort to provide educators with immediate access to critical data about student needs. Part of the district’s Digital Door project, the portals have enabled teachers and administrators to make on-the-spot adjustments that help students achieve better results.

Jason Martinez, Director of Assessment Technology and Accountability for the Denver Public Schools (DPS)

When we set out to design the data tool, we made sure our user groups didn’t just include high-end users. We included educators who said, ‘I’m really not comfortable with technology; I’m really quite fearful of it.’ Our goal was to hear what they needed and to design a tool they could and would use.

It was also to break down the silos that have grown up throughout the education sector. We all remember teachers saying, ‘Oh, that’ll be on your permanent record!’ Well, that permanent record has always been something called a cumulative file. It’s a large file which includes a student’s household information, family contact information, and academic record, including schools, teachers and performance. That data is very confidential information, so it’s traditionally kept in a locked cabinet in the main office. And, in the past, as soon as the school secretary left for the day, the information was inaccessible; it was in a locked file cabinet, behind a locked door. So, if I was a classroom teacher who needed information quickly, I couldn’t get it. With the Digital Door, that all changed; all of that essential information has been digitized, and all of it is accessible 24×7. So a teacher can pull up a child at any moment in time, and get the essential information they need to effectively teach that child at any moment in time.

Nicole Veltzé, Principal, Skinner Middle School

My team and I use the tool to monitor attendance data on a daily basis. So if we see that, ‘Oh my gosh, we slipped to 89 percent today, what happened? Let’s get on it. Who’s out?’ We make a plan of attack to intervene instead of waiting to the end of the year to find out at that, ‘Oh, our attendance happened to be this percentage.’ Our social worker got access to the portal, so he’s living on a cloud right now. He has access to all this data that he’s utilizing on a daily basis to conference with families.

I also use the data to motivate kids. For instance, if a grade level gets an average of 93 percent attendance for the month, they get a free dress day. So every morning, I announce how grade-level attendance is tracking. Every morning I’ll say things like, “Seventh grade, you’re at 92.44 percent. Just a couple more days, you can do it!” This year, we’ve seen tremendous growth in attendance, and we attribute that to our ability to access the data, and to create incentives and interventions along the way. Kids’ academic performance is also increasing. We believe that attendance data drives that academic growth, because if kids are here, they’re learning, and that supports their increased academic achievement.