In 2022, the Road Map Project’s commitment to lead with race and center community resulted in our ongoing dedication to transforming the educational systems that impact our underrepresented youth and families. We—as well as our backbone organization, the Community Center for Education Results (CCER)—remain steadfast in our work to meet the needs of Black, Indigenous, and Latine students through partnership, intentional funding practices, and research & data. To all of our staff, funders, board member, community-based organizations, parents, youth, and everyone in between: thank you for a wonderful and impactful year!
CCER Adds Key Staff in Support of Organizational Goals
In 2022, CCER added five key staff to the team: Crystal Ellington (Director of Anti-racist Storytelling), Holly King (Family Engagement Manager), DeAndrea Levias (Director of Finance), Dr. Kristin McCowan (Director of Research), and Jordan Nishimura (Data Scientist).
Academic Parent Teacher Team Sees Success in Community Alignment and Collective Impact
The Road Map Project Academic Parent Teacher Teams (APTT) Readiness Initiative (2022-2025) is a partnership among the Community Center for Education Results (CCER), WestEd, Highline Public Schools, and Auburn School District, while Education Northwest is the evaluation partner for this initiative. APTT is a model for engaging families as partners in learning. In APTT meetings, families learn about the foundational skills their child is learning in class, their child’s progress on those skills, and activities they can use at home to support their child’s progress. They also participate in community building activities with other families and set goals for their child. WestEd staff provide training and coaching to schools in planning and facilitating these individual and team meetings. This year, the APTT published their Readiness Road map, secured additional funding, and cultivated a collec
tive effort that enabled partners to shift policies and power structures through adaptive partnership of cross-sector data infrastructures. There was also a greater depth of learning in implementation science, which is teaching CCER how to bring multiple sectors, including community-based organizations, evaluators, families, and school districts, into alignment and accountability partnership. APTT has also measured the growth and success of educators and school staff against the Dual Capacity framework; as a result, learning from this work informed the proposal for the new Washington State Family Engagement Center.
Parent Leadership Team Awarded Over $1 Million of Funding for Grant Process Co-Design
The Parent Leadership Team (PLT) developed strategic visions with 15 parent leaders that represent the Road Map Project region and organized Parent Leadership as a parent-led infrastructure to support and develop their own work, including professional development for parent leaders. The PLT also secured $1.6m of funding from City of Seattle to co-design a granting process informed by the PLT’s emerging work, as well as $20,000 from the Board of Education to host community conversations.
College and Career Leadership Institute Schools Show Higher FAFSA Completion Rates than Rest of Washington State
The College and Career Leadership Institute (CCLI) has shifted its focus to sustainability by school teams. This shift has meant a bigger focus on supporting team leads, allowing cross-school and cross-district collaboration, and student and staff survey data support. Program leads continue to express higher rates of belief that this approach will be sustainable in their school buildings. On average, CCLI schools continue to see higher FAFSA completion rates than the rest of Washington State. All schools identified a specific racial student group to focus on, and many had higher FAFSA completion rates than the previous year. With a focus on shifting adult mindsets around college and career in their school buildings, across CCLI schools there was a narrowing of the adult belief gap in student expectations and aspirations. Many schools focused on staff PD and creating more resources for staff outside of their CCLI team.
Course Planning Product Feasibility Study Launched
In response to hearing from students that they wanted to have better knowledge of the courses they need to directly enroll into college, our team has been working on the Course Planning project, which is aimed at simplifying the course selection process for students and making transparent the eligible courses, ensuring students meet the necessary academic criteria. This project has included: the creation of mapping between courses and CADR (College Academic Distribution Requirements), development of logic for automating the measurement of CADR eligibility and progress towards college eligibility, and initial reports to share high-level results, and initial feedback from college and career teams, and data and assessment leaders within local schools and districts.
Analyzed and Studied the Use of Graduation Requirement Emergency Waivers
When the pandemic hit in 2020, school districts in the Road Map Project region began issuing emergency credit waivers to students most impacted by the pandemic. To understand the use, and potential impact of these waivers, we engaged in discussions with state agencies, school districts, reengagement providers, and a program serving youth in foster care in our region. We then analyzed academic data to understand which courses were being waived across student groups within the Road Map Project region. Findings were shared with regional and state decision makers and informed their planning of continued use of waivers. Results generated in this analysis are updated annually so our region can stay informed on the potential long-term implications of these waivers and resulting policy and practice considerations to ensure equitable outcomes for students who receive waivers.
Improvements to the College Enrollment and College to Career Progress Dashboard
CCER engaged with college and career staff to understand which portions of existing dashboards met their needs, and what changes they would like. As a result of these feedback sessions, we made substantial improvements to the College Enrollment and CTC Progress Dashboard, with a focus on providing information about all available postsecondary college enrollment and including Fall enrollment of high school graduates from the prior school year.
“Street Data” Book Clubs Launched
The Road Map Project Data Advisors Group engaged in a book club to discuss how the methods discussed in “Street Data” (Safir & Dugan, 2021) could be applied to make needed changes in our region’s education system by engaging directly with those closes to the system to uncover the issues, and reimagine and pilot new solutions together. Learnings from these sessions informed the Community Practice Partnership proposal for the Washington State Achievement Council (WSAC) Regional Partnership that CCER developed in partnership with regional schools, districts, and colleges.
In working closely with reengagement providers within the region, our data team understood that the established reporting process was no longer serving its intended benefit. It then engaged in a dedicated series of listening sessions with the providers to learn what was working, what was no longer working, and to imagine new ways of reporting that could provide utility to all stakeholders. These providers were later invited to join an Opportunity Youth Street Data Book Club to engage in deeper discussions about how they could share richer information about what is happening in their programs. Discussions from this book club led to the development of a two-tiered Opportunity Youth Street Data Cohort that would commence in Q3, 2023 to apply the Equity Transformation Cycle (Safir & Dugan, 2021) to focus on changes within their own programs that address needs their students have surfaced.
Data System Modernization Initiated
During 2022, CCER engaged in in-depth analysis of options for data warehouse storage that would meet best-practice standards for data security and ease of maintenance. Over the course of the year, we selected Snowflake as our proposed solution, and began the process of securing approval across all state agencies that participate in CCER’s data sharing agreement.
Research Project Launched to Understand the Racialized Impacts of COVID-19
In partnership with American Institutes for Research (AIR) and Puget Sound Educational Service District (PSESD), Dr. McCowan began developing a research project focused on understanding the racialized impacts of COVID 19 on Black Families, Educators and Administrators. In October 2022, Dr. McCowan attended the AIR COVID-19 Equity in Education Network Convening. During this convening, AIR provided one on one coaching sessions to assist in project planning and implementation. As a result, a study plan was developed, a literature review was conducted, and data tools collection protocols were developed. AIR also awarded CCER with $5,000 start-up funding to carry out this research.
Internal Research Project Launched to Understand and Analyze Organizational Pillars
In 2022, Dr. McCowan also launched an internal research project that focused on understanding how staff interpret and apply the organizational pillars (leading with race and centering community) in their role and through their bodies of work. As a result, the organization was able to understand that the pillars function as guiding principles that staff use assess organizational alignment across varies projects and proposals.
Black Community Statement of Love Unveiled
The Road Map Project, in partnership with the Community Leadership Team, unveiled the Black Community Statement of Love. This living document—which means it is ever-evolving, based on the direction and guidance of our communities—reflects the care and love that is Blackness. In addition, specific asks are posed to stakeholders with the goal of creating a more equitable and just education system.
Grassroots Organizations Awarded $68,000
The Rapid Resource Fund awarded $68,000 to five grassroots organizations in 2022. The grantees shared the positive impact funds like the Rapid Resource Fund has on their work and growth. Deep relationships and partnerships between CCER and grantees were born from continuous engagement, including the 2022 Black Brilliance Celebration with Auburn High School Black Student Union, the Youth Advocacy Fall Fest, and an upcoming convening.
Posted in: College and Career Readiness , College and Career Success , Community Leadership Team , Data and Research , Family Engagement , Opportunity Youth