I can’t say enough good things about Allyson Hile, Director of ELL Services at Kansas City Public Schools (KCPS), and her entire staff. On April 11, Allyson and Stephanie Easley, ELL Assessment Coordinator at KCPS, gave an informative presentation to ELL Coordinators from surrounding districts. During the presentation Allyson and Stephanie shared their strategies for comparing MAP achievement to language proficiency, enabling them to make better informed decisions about cohort improvements and successes.
Recently they also began making use of new data reports available from WIDA through ELLevation, a data management software specifically for ACCESS data. The data digs are paying off, enabling KCPS to see more than just student trends, but also cohort trends that point to teaching practices having the greatest impact on improving the academic performance of ELLs.
Near the end of the presentation, Allyson talked about a highly valuable yet unintended outcome of their hard work – which has been the ability to use this data in district and building-level conversations about student success. Given that the KCPS is home to over 4,000 ELLs speaking about 40 different first languages, building and classroom teacher buy-in is necessary to sustain the supports the ELL staff can offer.
With Allyson’s permission, I’m happy to provide a downloadable version of the step-by-step PowerPoint that was shared, Using data for ELL Success.
Additional questions or sharing ideas of how you’re using data in your district may be posted as a reply to this story, or you may contact Allyson Hile, Director of ELL Services, KCPS at ahile@kcpublicschools.org