Denton ISD Plans to Track Student Learning with Data Warehouse

In Texas, the Denton Independent School District collects student attendance, discipline referrals and assessment results. But because that information isn't connected, no one can analyze which variables impact learning the most.

“We actually have the data, but they’re not talking to each other,” said Robert Bostic, director of instructional technology.

To get the information talking, the district plans to develop a data warehouse that will connect nearly real time, long-term student data. Through the system, key stakeholders will see how students do over time and intervene when they're close to falling off the graduation train.

“We should be able to see what they’re doing and when they’re doing it, and not look at basically what I consider to be an autopsy report after it’s all done," Bostic said. "We can see it as it’s happening.”

Track student progress constantly

Multiple factors can indicate that students are falling off track, including more discipline referrals, missed classes, poor assessments and high mobility. The data warehouse will show when students move closer to the danger zone in these areas so that teachers, counselors and administrators can step in.

But before creating the warehouse, Denton must find funding. This year, the Texas district applied for an Investing in Innovation federal grant along with Western Heights Public School District in Oklahoma City, Fort Smith Public Schools in Arkansas and four other Oklahoma districts.

For the past four years, Western Heights has been using a longitudinal real-time data system from Mizuni, and its district partners plan to scale up the system. The Education Department will announce the grant winners in September, but even if this group doesn't win, Denton will keep looking for funding.

Share information across state lines

In this highly mobile society, Western Heights loses 30 students and gains 30 more every year because families move so much, said Superintendent Joe Kitchens. Mobility may be the issue of our time in education, and we have to create better intervention strategies to deal with the problem.

Elementary school kids work on computers in Denton Independent School District, where a new data system could help them stay on track to graduate high school. | Photo courtesy of Jamie Wilson

“It’s important that we develop programs where we don’t think of ourselves as isolated in a state,” he said.

When kids move from Texas to Oklahoma, Oklahoma to Arkansas, or Arkansas to Texas, they should be able to share information about what happened educationally in each of those states. That's what the i3 grant request is all about.

Change instruction on the fly

By taking the Western Heights model that serves more than 3,000 kids up to Denton's scale of 23,000, the Texas district hopes to prepare more of them for college and careers. In Western Heights, the dropout rate has decreased by 30 percent over the past four years, and ACT scores have increased steadily.

“Teachers want information," Kitchens said. "So when you can deliver to a teacher the results of not just one assessment, but every assessment a child’s had, that’ll make a difference,”

But the system places limits on who can look at the student information. Teachers only see information from  students in their classes. Principles only see student records from their school. And parents only see their children's assessment records.

They're not just seeing test scores either. They're also looking at other factors including students' classroom performance, absences and discipline referrals that may indicate when they will fall off track to graduation.

“When you talk about data-driven decision making, it has to be formative," said Jamie Wilson, deputy superintendent of Denton ISD. "It cannot all be summative all the time.”

As the teachers access nearly real time information, they can change their instruction as needed. 

Look at the big picture

When students move closer to the tipping point where they may fall off track, they receive immediate attention from the district. Teachers, counselors and administrators intervene, support them and keep their eyes on the situation, Wilson said.

A student may not cause problems in math class, but could be earning more discipline referrals in English class. Unless the two teachers talk to each other every day, the math teacher won't know about the problems. That's where the data collection system comes in. 

“It’s really giving them a bigger picture of the whole child to their terminal, at their school, in their classroom," Wilson said, "so they’re seeing other factors that impact their learning."