KIDS Corner

Welcome to the third newsletter of the KIDS Pilot Project!

Quarter Three- March 2020

KCSOS is excited to share that the KIDS Support Team is expanding!

As we prepare to initiate Pilot #2 with Fruitvale School District and KCSOS Alternative Education in April, and look forward to launching Cohort #1 (19 districts in January 2021) we need to establish a dedicated KIDS Support Team that can successfully achieve the countywide implementation by 2023.

The KIDS Support Team will expand to 15 positions dedicated solely to supporting the work of KIDS Onboarding & Professional Learning/Support to assist districts with implementation and training for District Administrators, Principals, Teachers, and Counselors. See below-

Positions include:

KIDS Director II (Oversee Onboarding and Prof. Learning/Sup. teams)– Posted on EdJoin - Deadline 3/31/20

• KIDS Secretary I

KIDS Onboarding

• Applications Integration Solutions Specialists x 3

• Program Specialist – Data Assessment Analyst x 5

KIDS Professional Learning/Support

• Coordinator III (Oversee Professional Learning/Support)– Posted on EdJoin - Deadline 3/31/20

• Program Specialists – KIDS Support x 4

As the KIDS project marches forward, the continuing expansion of the project will complete the PK-12 lens of Kern County by 2023.

Pilot 1: January 2019

BCSD, BUSD, GUSD, KHSD, MUSD, PBVUSD, RUSD, SSUSD, WUHSD

Pilot 2: April 2020

The KIDS support team is excited to welcome Fruitvale School District & KCSOS Alternative Education as Pilot 2 partners, bring the total number of pilot districts to 11.

Cohort 1: 2021
19 Districts scheduled for onboarding

Cohort 2: 2022

Remaining 18 District scheduled for onboarding

Cohort 3: 2023

Institutions of Higher Education and Charter Schools scheduled for onboarding

Many thanks to Kern High School District and Bakersfield City School District leadership for being willing to stop and share their ideas about the KIDS Pilot Project rollout. Each shared insights from lessons learned, as well as how this partnership provides the capability to enrich the many district efforts and initiatives already underway.

We look forward to connecting with each of our partners in the future, as we share our best practices and “Bright Spots” on this journey together.

Thank you, Roger Sanchez for the following insights:

How has the KHSD designed your rollout plan to support the KIDS platform?

We have taken a methodical approach since getting this out in front of stakeholders too soon (when not ready) can do more harm than good. We have exposed our Principals and Asst. Principals to the platform. We have invited primarily administrators to the workshops (Modules 1–3) as we continue to validate the data. We hope to expand the training to counseling, support staff and eventually teachers.

At this point, which metrics have you found to be of particular value?

One of the metrics that has been rather telling is the Overview of Student Behavior – (Are incidents decreasing week over week?). This provides a 3-year snap shot and clearly shows how the KHSD has decreased the number of incidents over that time period. A lot of work on the behavior side has taken place by administrators and teachers that reflect the work we are doing is moving in the right direction.

EXAMPLE: Overview of Student Behavior – Are incidents decreasing week over week?

Which features of the KIDS platform do you find to be most useful?

The ease of use with the various dashboards has been a godsend. Normally we are running queries and spending our time gathering, deciphering, filtering the data. The KIDS platform with the intuitive dashboards allows us to see visually at a touch of a button a robust level of information. Less time gathering data and more time discussing the data to make informed decisions.

What insights regarding data have been developed by participating in this pilot?

Having access to data is awesome, but what we do with that data and how it affects student outcomes is where the power lies.

What else would you like for people to know?

We are looking forward to the day when all the county schools are part of the platform so we can see how students have done prior to arriving at our doorstep. Getting a comprehensive view of a student will assist the high schools in developing proactive plans to assist student in the crucial entry year into high school. Also, the upstream, downstream sharing of data with our higher ed., partners will give us insight in celebrating our successes as well as focusing on the areas where we need improvement.

Thank you, Tim Fulenwider and Jessie Beed for sharing the following insights:

Bakersfield City School District (BCSD) has a multi-pronged effort to address Chronic Absenteeism from many angles, incorporates resources from the KIDS platform to enhance those efforts.

When BCSD entered Differentiated Assistance (DA) status, the decision was made to leverage this status by entering into the Continuous Improvement Process (CIP) protocol offered by KCSOS. This process allowed the team to ask the deeper questions and then to take the time to work on developing processes and address needs. From this work, BCSD refined their MTSS systems and structures related to Chronic Absenteeism in order to better leverage the BCSD Equity Based Support Model.

Key MTSS Systems and Structures within the BCSD Equity Based Support Model:

1. Social Workers- Strategically grouped to deploy resources and to focus on attendance support. Each social worker's assigned area is organized by Jr. High school feeder clusters. Social workers partner with school site attendance teams, conduct truancy sweeps, provide case management and dedicated support.
2. School Attendance Teams- Home visit teams are tasked with going out to pick up students to come to school when they do not show up (a heavy focus). They also identify through data which students are not attending and assign each student an on-site mentor. The mentors then purposely and actively develop a caring relationship on-site with each student, actively reinforcing that the student is truly missed when not at school.
3. Data Gathering and Analysis- Daily data (attendance, etc) is gathered and monitored- looking to answer questions such as: Who is out? Who is close to being chronically absent? Additional resources are assigned to address identified needs. Families that are identified as Chronically Absent (CA) go through SARB.
4. District Wellness Centers- The district wellness centers were created based upon the data analysis of chronic absenteeism, identifying the root causes. Initially, there was a study of chronically absent families within the district in which family members were interviewed, revealing that most absences were health related. There are currently four (4) district wellness centers located across the district, so if necessary, students can be transported during the school day to receive necessary health related services, (because the wellness centers are on district property, the time spent there does not count as an absence). Student health issues are thereby less of a barrier and the district is connecting with providers to ensure that students receive all necessary supports.

An example of how BCSD can use attendance data to implement support:

Through data analysis the team at Stella Hills elementary was able to identify that the majority of student absences were actually coming from the residences directly across the street, and then were able to deploy innovative and effective plans to support those students in getting to school each day.

The BCSD team rolled out training to district principals in January 2020 , and will continue to expand on the use of the KIDS platform/tools for data analysis and decision making.

Favorite features of the KIDS platform (so far!)

• Heat maps
  
• Ability to click on fields, and get to lists of students (powerful!)
• Individual/student groups- helps to identify where to focus
• Overview>Student Drill
• Overview>Student Attendance
• Enrollment>Attendance

Tim wanted to send a BIG shout-out to KIDS support team members~ Gary Lara and Meredith Valenzuela. "The introduction of the bi-weekly support call helps to move things along and leads better data validation. We are able to give feedback and see it put into action."

Communication>Feedback>Action= What you want in a partner, because good partnerships are about communication and responsiveness.

Meredith Valenzuela has created the following Quick Tip Video, and supporting handout, designed to help you create groups and use the group feature within the KIDS platform.

Check it out!

Leveraging KIDS for an Improved LCAP

LCAP Season is upon us and if you are participating in the KIDS pilot you have a powerful new tool to deploy that can enhance your LCAP! While KIDS is still new to everyone, we feel that you can leverage some of the pre-built metrics right away. Just the fact that you have KIDS at your fingertips could be a great highlight mention within your Plan Summary. KIDS provides you the advantage of being up to date and current at the end of our school year and you can better inform your LCAP by extending the required CA School Dashboard prompts to better tell your story. For example, looking at your current trends in chronic absenteeism or suspension in relation to how you performed last year will be a helpful indicator of where we should see your California School Dashboard for the coming release.

Another exciting opportunity to immediately harness the power of KIDS in leveraging your LCAP with KIDS metrics resides in the Annual Update - Analysis Section. Up to now, districts had to rely on locally kept data and “old” California School Dashboard data in part, to prove or disprove the overall effectiveness of actions/services as measured by the LEA. Fortunately, KIDS houses up to date metrics on a wide array of prebuilt dashboards within the Essentials Module such as Attendance, Enrollment, Students With Disabilities, Behavior, Academics, and Assessments. We suggest that you examine your goals and actions/services and then link them or backward map them to related KIDS metrics that might apply. Drilling down within KIDS can expose patterns and trends that can inform critical decisions regarding effectiveness in a timely fashion.

The following narrative and accompanying graphics are examples of how describing overall effectiveness blending state-reported dashboard data along with KIDS data might look:

“The California School Dashboard Indicator for Chronic Absenteeism declined from the

previous year from Orange to Yellow. Current KIDS Chronic Absenteeism data also

shows an improving trend in all grade levels except Kindergarten as compared to last

year. We are attributing our positive outcomes to XYZ practices (actions 1-4) and

Program X (action 7), which focused on student engagement and the importance of

regular student attendance. Based on our upward trend on absences for Kindergarten students, the district has identified root causes and will implement X and Y (new actions 9 and 10) this coming year. We will continue to monitor absences for all students on a monthly basis, but Kindergarten will be monitored bi-weekly in order to make changes as needed.”

See graphic illustration from KIDS platform below:

Stakeholder Engagement within the newly revised LCAP template has been a focus this winter as it incorporates a more robust set of instructions and expectations. Sharing out common KIDS metrics within Google Slides, PowerPoint, or going live on the KIDS platform could be powerful methods to inform all stakeholders about what is working (programs, strategies, initiatives) and what challenges still exist. Stakeholders could view common metrics district-wide, while the individual school sites could display their local data for teachers, students, parents, and other stakeholders. What a great way to learn with our stakeholders and build partnerships along the way!

Please let your Management Analyst know if you would like to discuss the use of KIDS within your LCAP this year.

Shared by Chip Wilson & Michael Hernandez, KCSOS Management Analysts

The following White Paper provides an overview of predictive analytics and actionable insights, check it out!

Thank you to each pilot district team as you have made the time to come together and learn the features of our KIDS platform together- some shared photos- see below!

BCSD Training Session: December 2019

Panama-Buena Vista USD Training Session: December 2019

Shared by Rayshell Fambrough, KCSOS Academic Technology Coordinator

The KIDS team is hard at work developing professional learning opportunities and resources for participating districts as they navigate the metrics KIDS platform to inform systems of support. The team continues to review the platform, solicit feedback from participating districts, and partner with Hoonuit to develop upcoming learning opportunities to refine existing supports and create a robust library of resources. This collaborative effort has resulted in professional learning guides located in a shared space accessible to participating districts, a standing weekly meeting dedicated to embedding supports within the KIDS interface, and a professional learning calendar that will outline the supports that will be provided to the nine districts in the Pilot 1, the two districts in Pilot 2, and the remaining districts as they onboard.

The participating districts in pilot one will attend professional learning the first week of March. This will be the third series of professional learning opportunities provided by the KIDS team. Each series has focused on a newly released module in KIDS; Essentials, Early Warning and Intervention Solution, and Student Success.

As districts attend each professional learning opportunity, the KIDS support team wanted to provide a space where they could access the resources provided. As G Suite is used by all of our participating districts as a collaboration and productivity tool, we created a folder within Google Drive that can be accessed at bit.ly/KernKids to house resources and materials as they are developed.

Our goal for professional learning is to continuously build capacity, provide clarity, and support the ongoing use of KIDS as tool for data driven decision making.

As we move into the 20-21 school year, our team is working to design a systematic professional learning approach to support our participating districts. We are excited for the opportunities ahead of us and look forward to working side by side with our district partners!

Photo: Kern County Wildflowers, 2019