Conroe ISD to track intervention program

The Conroe Independent School District received a $500,000 grant to develop a system to measure the success of intervention programs for struggling students.
The money will be used to help develop a prototype data tracking program for our Response to Intervention," said Chris Hines, associate superintendent of CISD.
The grant was provided by the Michel and Susan Dell Foundation to help school district improve student achievement.
It is part of a Statewide Tools for Teaching Excellence project in five school district, including Conroe, Beaumont, Galena Park, Lubbock and Northside-San Antonio that are using data to help drive improvements.
The Conroe Independent School District is tracking about 700 to 800 students in first through eighth grades who are struggling in the classroom and provides supplemental intervention programs to help them succeed. The grant will allow the district to track the programs used and the success rate for about 1,000 students.
Through the database, the district can develop a laundry list or programs used to address student issues and how effective they were in student achievement. That list could be used to identify tools that can be used in similar cases.
For example, if a student is at risk of dropping out of school, there are many alternative programs that can be provided outside the classroom to help students complete their education. This system could provide a list of the programs and the district's success rate in using that effort for student retention, Hines said.
We know where the student needs are met and we can try additional interventions," he said.
The bulk of the funding will be used to purchases additional intervention programs to expand the district offerings. In addition, three personnel have been hired to track the success of the programs for the 14 month project. There is also funding for computers and training to assist teachers and staff in using the intervention methods, Hines said.
Through the statewide tools initiative, the district developed a computer dashboard program for principals to track the progress of individual students in a single document on a daily basis. The dashboard provides a snapshot of the students, including achievement tests, grades and absences, so that principals can more quickly identify when students are struggling.
With the new system, principals will have easy access to intervention programs and their success rates at their fingertips, Hines said.
The STTE (Statewide Tools for Teaching Excellence) initiative supports an emphasis on improving student performance and progress by allowing educators to evaluate data and quickly act upon this information to make a measurable impact on student achievement," said Kathleen Barfield, executive director of the initiative.
PM Village
Five Texas school districts, including Conroe, Beaumont, Galena Park, Lubbock and Northside-San Antonio, are participating in an initiative to use data to help drive student performance and progress. As part of the program, the district have formed a unique community called PM Village, where district scan share best practices and develop innovative approaches to solve common student problems. Here's what available on PM Village:
Indicator Metric/View - a dashboard / scorecard system based on performance indicators that helps identify area of need.
Intervention Clearinghouse - allows users to browse a database of researched interventions to address area of need.
Intervention Planning, Implementation, & Monitoring - Users create and monitor an implementation plan.
Source: Statewide Tools for Teaching Excellence.