Eileen Mezzo:
After every quarter, the freshman teachers are invited to a mini data showcase. We have all of their data out, we're celebrating their hard work, and we pair that with a waffle bar or ice cream sundaes. The table runner is the disaggregated data, and everybody gets a chance to look it over and to set some goals going forward.

Alec Patton:
This is High Tech High Unboxed. I'm Alec Patton. And that was the voice of Eileen Mezzo, an assistant principal at Naugatuck High School in Connecticut. Naugatuck High School is part of a network of public high schools in Connecticut that are using data to learn and improve together, facilitated by an organization called RISE. That's why they host ice cream parties where the table runners are decorated with disaggregated data. When Eileen joined Naugatuck High School in 2023, they'd been part of the RISE Network for four years. She now oversees both the school's work on grade nine on-track and post-secondary success.
In this episode, I spoke to Eileen and Nichelle Woodson, the chief of Network Success at RISE. I wanted to talk to Nichelle because RISE has achieved some remarkable results on ninth grade on-track rates. Since 2015, RISE partner schools have improved grade nine on-track rates by 15 percentage points from 67% to 82%. That's a whole lot of students on track to graduate high school who weren't on track to graduate before.
But to really understand how impressive this is, you need to act like you're decorating for a Naugatuck high school party and disaggregate that data. Disaggregating data just means you take a data point such as grade nine on-track rates rose by 15 percentage points, and you look at what that meant for specific demographic groups. If you do that with the RISE schools on-track data, you notice one thing right away; on-track rates for Black students rose much more dramatically than the average. Their on-track rates improved by 27 percentage points. If you imagine a ninth grade cohort with 100 Black students, that's 27 students on track to graduate who wouldn't have been on track to graduate nine years ago. And they're the only group that outperformed the average RISE of 15 percentage points. Latino students have improved by 18 percentage points, multilingual students have improved by 16 percentage points, and special education students have improved by 25 percentage points. That's disaggregated data that would look extremely good on a table runner.
I got in touch with Nichelle to ask her how they achieved this, and she said I should talk to Eileen as well, so I interviewed both of them. We cover a whole lot of ground in this episode, but the heart of the conversation is about using data for improvement. RISE has this awesome tool that all their partner schools can access called the Data Hub. They also maintain what they call the strategic data calendar and a host of routines for looking at data. I started by just asking Nichelle to explain what the Data Hub is.

Nichelle Woodson:
The Data Hub is a tool that our school partners have that gives them quick access to data, data on grades, data on attendance to help them make strategic intentional decisions on how they support their students. And the Data Hub allows our educators to look at data in different ways so that they can engage in meaningful conversations that lead them to intervening to support students.

Alec Patton:
Eileen, do you remember the first time you used the Data Hub?

Eileen Mezzo:
Yes, I do. I had a RISE coach who sat with me and showed me a few tools. And I would say that every time I meet with my coach, I learned something a little bit more. It's not just a hub for data, there's also a variety of features that allow you to filter. We can quickly look at our subpopulations and identify gaps, we can send out reports to families and to the rest of our team.
But there's always something to do. And one of the things that I have really tried to do this year in particular is to ensure that I'm not the only one proficient in the Hub, but that everybody in our team is really solid. We occasionally will create a scavenger hunt or something where we all get really good and build our capacity because the more the educators are in the Hub themselves, the more they're using that data to drive their next moves.

Alec Patton:
Yeah. Now, going back, if you can time travel back to what was your first impression when your coach showed you this thing?

Eileen Mezzo:
I was grateful that we had something at our fingertips that allowed me to quickly look for what my next steps as a leader would be. And I think I was also grateful for the fact that when we became proficient in using the Hub, we spent a lot of time talking about strategies and talking about adults. Although we were looking at student data, it really shifts the focus from the student to what the educators in the room are going to do next to support those students.

Alec Patton:
That's interesting. Tell me more about that. Why does that happen?

Eileen Mezzo:
I think that in absence of a strong routine using data or a strong agenda, sometimes, we're all human and we share challenges, and we can maybe spend time talking about a student from a deficit mindset, what they're not doing right, or sharing an anecdote that maybe doesn't really get us to the next stage. I think what this does, the use of the Hub, the strategic understanding of what the outcome should be, our goals for that particular meeting, this allows us to quickly identify all the students who are doing things right and also chart our growth.
I'll give you an example. We were at a recent team meeting, and the team leads decided that they were going to identify students who had been off track in quarter one but had made really nice progress and were now on track in quarter two, as evidenced by their credits passing. They brainstormed the adult moves that made that happen, and then they brainstormed what other students could benefit from that same intervention. The conversation shifted from what isn't working to what could potentially work for a whole host of students. We thought about students who could benefit from the strategy rather than just identifying students who were not meeting the mark.

Alec Patton:
And what was different about the Hub versus the way that you accessed data at the last school you were at?

Eileen Mezzo:
Well, the Hub allows us to see which students in particular attended our summer Bridge program. We can see those quickly. We can see which students have an on-track coordinator. We also can see who our multi-language learners are, who our students with IEPs are. When we talk about ensuring that we are shoring up our gaps between our subpopulation groups and our whole school, it provides a quick tool to see that.

Alec Patton:
And now let's get into these strategic data calendar.

Nichelle Woodson:
The strategic data calendar, we introduced this to our school partners a couple of years ago. And it is in the Hub right at the fingertips for our school partners. And the purpose of the strategic data calendar is to ensure analysis and reflection that's systematically aligned with key decision-making points throughout the school year. It helps our school partners, our educators to really use data intentionally to drive continuous improvement, to monitor progress, and just to also inform strategic adjustments. It takes the guesswork out of it for our school partner so they don't have to think about, okay, what data should we be looking at right now? What data should we be discussing that will have us make the most impactful decisions to support our students? They don't have to think about that because the strategic data calendar outlines that for them for the entire school year.
And it's also broken up by months. And by quarters they can see, okay, you know what? In the beginning of the quarter, we should be looking at this particular set of data as compared to the end of the quarter. We know in September we really should be focusing on having discussions around attendance, so we're looking at our data based on attendance. It really helps those conversations for our Improvement team and school partners.

Alec Patton:
We're recording this on Friday, March 21st. What would I see on the calendar right now?

Eileen Mezzo:
We are in the month of March, and right now we are using a few of the tasks in our strategic data calendar. For example, we are meeting right now, we're doing on-track student data conferences. We're a little bit late in that, but we wanted to finish up our quarter data. That is an opportunity for a student and a trusted adult to sit and go over the student's data with the goal of helping them. We review their data and we set goals, and it's an opportunity to connect with an adult. And we don't have to remember that every year because it's right there for us.
We also know that in grade nine, this is the time to start looking at those students who are in grade eight who might be slated for needing a little extra support. We call that students at risk. And then students who have high opportunities are also identified. We use this for scheduling purposes. Those are two examples of a whole host of things that we might be looking to do in March.

Nichelle Woodson:
And a couple of other things in March I think is really important at this point of the quarter because it's towards the end of the quarter, so our schools are looking at the on-the-cuffs data. These are the students who are right there on the level of passing for the quarter. You're looking at those particular students and determining interventions on, okay, what do we need to do to get them to that passing grade?
And then something that I know the administrators are looking at with their coaches is also grades and pass rates data. Looking at how are students doing in a content? How are they doing in a class? What are trends and patterns that they may be seeing? And then bringing that data back to the Improvement teams to have conversations about interventions based on what they're seeing as content patterns and trends.

Alec Patton:
Okay. The way I see this, there's stuff happening in school, and then that is collected in the Data Hub, and then the strategic data calendar is an overlay on that that suggests what data you could be looking at right now that would be valuable depending on the time of the year.

Nichelle Woodson:
Exactly.

Alec Patton:
And then in order to look at that data, you then use data routines.

Nichelle Woodson:
Yes.

Alec Patton:
What's a data routine?

Nichelle Woodson:
I think there's some key elements for the data routines that our schools use. One particular key element is that there's just this regular cadence of meeting of Improvement teams. Schools engage in weekly Improvement team meetings. Some even meet twice a week where they're focused on different on-track indicators. Whether they're talking about grades, talking about behavior, talking about attendance, they're looking at those different indicators. And they do this either on an individual student level, and these are protocols that they would use to look at and have these discussions on an individual student level, content-specific level, or a grade level to identify trends and patterns.
Another piece of the data routines in our Improvement team meeting is to make sure there are specific roles and responsibility that each Improvement team member has. Each meeting has a clear structure. They know who's leading the conversation, they know what's being analyzed, what's being discussed. They know how actions are determined and how those actions will be monitored to determine the impact of those particular interventions.
And then another part of the data routines is that it is extremely student-centered. It has a student-centered approach. Because our teams know that data is not just the numbers; behind those numbers are students. It's about the understanding of students' experiences and needs.
And another piece of the data routine are it's quick cycles of intervention. Schools use data to take action immediately rather than waiting until the end of a grading period or a significant amount of time. They're making sure, okay, we're looking at this data, we're determining what this intervention is, we're determining the amount of time that we're going to put towards this intervention, and we're regularly monitoring and talking about the impact that the intervention is having.
And then of course there's the data visibility. The Data Hub makes the data accessible and visible and visual and definitely actionable, as Eileen talked about, exactly how the Improvement team at Naugatuck used it just a couple of weeks ago. In every Improvement team meeting, the educators are having conversations and the planning is centered around and grounded in data.

Alec Patton:
I'm going to pause to recap because Nichelle said a whole lot, and it's important. Here are the key components of a data routine. Improvement teams meet regularly. At RISE schools, that's once or twice a week. The meetings are focused on specific indicators that students are on track, such as grades or attendance. They use data protocols that include clear roles for each person in that particular meeting. The team leaves the meeting knowing what actions they're taking and how those actions will be monitored to determine their impact. They use a student-centered approach, understanding students' experiences and needs. They take action immediately in quick cycles of interventions. Finally, the Data Hub makes it easy to access the data they need. Got all that? Let's get back to the interview. What are the design moves you use in order to influence the data routines to be more student-centered?

Nichelle Woodson:
Definitely Eileen can pipe in because she's living it day to day, but when you look at the protocols, the protocols ensure that students are showing up, are a part of those conversations. They may not necessarily all the time be in the meetings, even though some of our schools actually do bring students into their meetings to engage in these conversations. The protocols that we use make sure that you are talking about students. You are either talking about an individual students as you're looking at their data or you're talking about groups of students as you're looking at trends and patterns. The questions that are asked in the protocol make sure that the focus is on the student. Eileen, you can possibly talk a little bit more.

Eileen Mezzo:
Yeah, I can give an example of one specific protocol that we use. It's called the Kid Stat Data Protocol. And it's really designed to look at a student in a well-rounded lens. We begin by giving a little bit of an overview, but then we dive right into their strengths. Who are they connected with? What are their academic strengths? What are their strengths outside of the classroom? Because all too often we focus on deficits, and this keeps us grounded in what the student is doing well.
We then move into areas for growth, and then what's next? What are we going to do as adults to support this student? And that's where we come up with an action plan with a specific deadline for a follow-up. And we start the meeting maybe three to five weeks later with an update on those students. They are our priority students. How are they doing? How did they respond to the intervention? Do they need an adjustment or are they making some nice strides? That's one example in the grade nine.
I also oversee the grade 12 Data team. We meet every two weeks and we begin with our priority students. And our priority students are students who have yet to meet the certain milestones that a grade 12 student should be meeting. For an example, they've applied to a school, either a trade school or a two-year or four-year, they have a plan for what they want to do after school, and they have completed the FAFSA. We're regularly looking at those three milestones and identifying students who haven't quite met with success and identifying a plan to meet with them.
And then each meeting, we begin with our priority students, we create new priority students for the following two weeks and we update. And the nice thing about beginning the meeting with an update is educators begin to learn from one another about best practices. What worked? How are we putting an intervention in place? And how is that successful? And then we grow our repertoire of skills.

Alec Patton:
And how do you record that?

Eileen Mezzo:
We keep a running agenda. The agenda is set for the year with links to the particular date so we can quickly look at the priority students from the week before. That's at the top of our agenda. And then we just move through. And everybody has the agenda. There are opportunities for roles. Like Nichelle mentioned, someone is the data keeper, someone is the timekeeper. We have someone who takes notes, we have someone who starts us off with an icebreaker, but all the roles are clearly defined. The meeting moves quickly. We all know what we're going to do. It's a routine that we've established this year. And so again, it's focused on our goals and action, and that's all driven by data.

Alec Patton:
Got it. And how many people are on each team?

Eileen Mezzo:
In our freshman world, we have two interdisciplinary teams of teachers. There's four teachers to each team, and we have two of them. We also have on-track coordinators. We have a dedicated freshman counselor and an administrator. And that rounds out the grade nine team. And in the grade 12 team, it's all of our counselors that deal with students grades 10 through 12 along with our college and career coordinators and an administrator. And then we loop in perhaps our MLL teacher or our special education teacher when we think it's necessary.

Alec Patton:
Great. And those teams meet how often?

Eileen Mezzo:
In the grade 12 world, we meet every two weeks. In grade nine, they meet several times a week. We're on a block schedule, so they meet on B day. In a given week, they might meet either two times or three times.

Alec Patton:
Got it. And that's made possible by the fact that they don't have their teaching load, they have gaps because of the block schedule?

Eileen Mezzo:
Well, it's made possible because we have eliminated any kind of duty. The rest of their colleagues have a duty. This is their duty. Their duty is to meet and to share information. They use that time, like Nichelle referenced, to call students in, so students become a part of the conversation often. And they also pull students to... They might think about the interventions that they want to put into place. And then they use that time to put some interventions in place with the students as well.

Alec Patton:
Got it. And Nichelle, I'm curious. We heard about one of Eileen's favorite protocols. Is there a particular protocol that you want to shout out?

Nichelle Woodson:
I also love kids that blitz. Kids that blitz is the same protocol that Eileen just talked about except it's more rapid fire, so you get to talk about more students in your 45-minute Improvement team meeting. But my other favorite protocol is our student-centered protocol because that allows the team to look at and talk about groups of students. Not just an intervention that can be done to help support this one student, which is getting into your tier three supports, but now you're looking at student groups. What are we going to do for this group of students that we're seeing this trend that's impacting them that may be causing some challenges for them? I really like the student-centered protocol.

Alec Patton:
And what is a tier three support?

Nichelle Woodson:
The tier three support, when Eileen was talking about the Kids Stat Protocol, tier three is more of your intense targeted support for this particular student. And it's possibly a little bit more intense intervention. We know tier one is a practice and intervention that can be used for the entire grade level. And then when you're looking at your tier two, with the student-centered protocol specifically, it's now an intervention that can be used with a group of students. It may not be for the entire grade level, but this group of students, this is the intervention that we're going to execute and implement to try to see if we can get them back on track.

Alec Patton:
Awesome. What changes have you seen once school improvement teams start engaging in these data routines regularly?

Nichelle Woodson:
I can start off, and then I'm sure Eileen has some as well, but I think the impact that I've seen is of course looking at the results that you mentioned, at the beginning we've seen increased promotion rates to grade 10 and also consistent closing of subgroup gaps. And we're not touting that we have all the answers because we still have subgroup gaps, specifically when you look at our L and our SPED subgroups. But what we can say is that educator mindsets have shifted and schools are prioritizing the grade nine work, hence we're starting to see those gaps shrink.
Another impact that I think has been really impactful is just stronger teacher collaboration, a stronger educator collaboration. I think staff feel more equipped to intervene effectively because they have structures in place. They have support from their administrators because they know administrators prioritize this. They give them the space and the resources to actually engage in this work.
I think we've also seen a shift in student engagement, so students are more aware of their progress and what they need to succeed. Eileen had mentioned a little while ago about the student conferences. That's where students get to sit down with an adult in the building, and they're talking about what is your on-track status? What are your grades? Where are you struggling? Where are you seeing success? What goals can we set for you for the next quarter or the next part of the year? They just become very aware of how they're doing in their high school experience. And it happens because educators are talking to students. And whether they're talking to them in their advisory classes, they're talking to them in extended day programming spaces or these on track conferences, they're talking, they're learning, they're acting on what they're learning from students.
And then also, there's just better early warning systems that the schools have. Eileen talked about looking at the grade eight data now to start to plan for supports for students that are coming in and going to be grade nine students next year. Also, you're looking at the data in your Improvement team meetings and you're identifying, "Hey, these students I see, you know what? They may be sliders. They have slid from where they were in quarter one to quarter two." Or they're climbers. And how do we support those sliders? Or they're climbers. "Hey, these groups of students, we see that they're actually increasing their on-track status from quarter to quarter." Let's learn from them. Let's find out what was in place that helped them either climb or we saw that they slid. What do we need to do?
Those Improvement team spaces just really allow educators to meet regularly, talk about students, plan for action to support students who are experiencing challenges, and also keep the momentum of students who are actually experiencing success. We know that the goal that Improvement teams have, yes, is to make sure that students are on track and they promote to grade 10; that's the baseline, though. We also know that we're talking about in those spaces, how do we make sure that students are set up in ninth grade to be post-secondary ready? Those conversations are happening in grade nine in those Improvement teams. Those are some of the things that I feel as though we've seen have such a tremendous impact based on the routines that our school partners and RISE has set up.

Eileen Mezzo:
And I would just add that we definitely see teachers as leaders. They're growing and they are taking pride in their work. And as they feel empowered and they feel that their work can really make a difference, it has allowed them to have a collective self-efficacy. We believe that our work makes a difference, and therefore we're inspired and it provides momentum to keep going. Teaching can be hard, it can be very challenging, there's all kinds of obstacles, but these teachers are taking pride in what they've done.
I've also seen a mindset shift. I noticed that over the past two years, teachers are starting to have a better understanding of equitable grading practices and that our students in grade nine are vulnerable and they need opportunities for redemption. If they get themselves into a hole early on, it's in all of our best interests to intervene early and to allow them for a do-over or a retake, a resubmit of something. Because as they build a success, success breeds success and they want to keep going. Our students become demoralized by a low grade, and when we don't address that with them, it can go in the other direction. We can lose more of our students.
I also think that with that pride, we look for ways to not just celebrate our students, but also to celebrate our teachers. After every quarter, the freshmen teachers are invited to a mini data showcase. We have all of their data out, we're celebrating their hard work. And we pair that with a waffle bar or ice cream sundaes. The table runner is the disaggregated data, and everybody gets a chance to look it over and to set some goals going forward. It's just a feeling of wellbeing; look what we can do.
And then lastly, I would say there's been a difference and a shift in how we communicate. It's not just the freshmen teacher's job to ensure that all students are ready at the end of the year with enough credits to make it to the next grade, but it's everybody has a role in this. And the way that we do this is through constant communication about our goals. We send out a counseling newsletter, and we use that as a vehicle to celebrate our data. We shout out on the morning announcements, we do a daily memo to faculty. And we have student liaisons who sit at our board of education meetings, which are taped, and there's usually a video, and they report regularly on how we're doing towards data. It becomes something that's a source of school pride, not just the grade nine teachers.

Alec Patton:
All right. This is very inspiring. It's also very tidy sounding so far. The way you're describing it sounds like everything works like a Swiss watch. And having worked in schools a lot, I know one thing that schools are not like is Swiss watches. I want to get into the messiness a little bit because a few things that just occur to me, one thing is... And I want to know how you've dealt with these things. Just a few things off the top of my head, it's like I've set up a lot of routines for myself, and I have actually kept far fewer of them. And it's really easy to be like, "Yes, this is the new plan. We're going to do this. We're going to meet every two weeks," and then a million things happen, and then you don't. I've been a part of many a team that's done that in schools.
And then I'm also just thinking about you say data to any teacher who's been around for a couple decades, and that immediately they're thinking punitive, they're thinking stuff used to... They're thinking accountability being used in the most punitive way. And so I'm sure that this is an easier pitch for some teachers than it is for others. And so I had love to know about what have been the roadblocks, the challenges, the swampy stuff you've get bogged down in, and how are you handling that?

Nichelle Woodson:
I can start. You mentioned just the getting comfortable and trusting the data. I think that has been something that we had to work with school partners with for sure in terms of building trust in data. Because as you said, sometimes educators look at it as it's punitive and it's going to be used in an evaluative way. We had to work with our school partners and specifically the administrators because they're the ones that are championing the work and helping the Improvement teams really see the value in the work, so getting the educators to see that data is really a support tool and not punitive and evaluative when they're in these Improvement team meetings. And I really attribute building that mindset and having the educators become comfortable with thinking about that in that way to Eileen, Eileen and the other administrators that help lead the team, because they help to build that trust in the data and allow the educators that they work with to see that this is not punitive and it's not evaluative, it really is being used to, one, support students and for us to get to our north star, which is to ensure, at least in grade nine, ensure that our ninth graders are promoting to grade 10 on time. And then also, it's used to help improve your practice as an educator.
I think another challenge that schools face are time constraints. It can be difficult finding dedicated space and time in an already packed school schedule for you to get multiple educators together. And like Eileen said, in their schedule, they get to meet two to three times a week, so scheduling dedicated time for groups of educators together and also have a dedicated administrator in that space with them to make sure that this is protected time is not a small task. That's not easy for our schools to do, but they do it. They find a way to do it, but it's not easy. It's not an easy task whatsoever.
And then another thing I think about is just insurance sustainability. Helping our schools maintain these routines over time. Especially when you think about leadership and staff turnover year over year, how do you ensure that the structures, the routines that you put in place? It's not people dependent, but these structures become embedded into the fabric of the school. That's not easy either. Those are some of the things that have been challenging that we continue to work with our school partners with to ensure that we help thought partner and help plan for some of these challenges. What else, Eileen?

Eileen Mezzo:
I guess what I would say is that it is very challenging. And I think the most challenging thing is being ready with the agenda ahead of time so that everybody can look at it and everybody is prepared. But that's, Alec, where our RISE partners come in. They meet with us ahead of time to set the agenda long before we're meeting, at least in grade 12; and that's similar to grade nine. And then also, they provide us with feedback right after. I will get an email from a coach from RISE, and they will say, "This was what was great. You're doing a great job." They're so encouraging. Even if I'm not doing a great job, they find something to complement and keep us going. And then they give us an area for improvement. I think that's been really helpful.
And then as a result of working with them all of last year, this year I was much more skilled at thinking in that way so that I could get my agenda out with the data in it earlier. And that's been really helpful. And I've just used a habit tracker. I would track drinking my water or getting my steps in. I use it how many times out of whatever for each meeting that I go to have I distributed it with data in it ahead of time? And that's been really helpful for me.
I also think that the skill set involved in getting this work done is varied, and we lean on one another. As educators, everybody brings a strength to the team, and that's why the team is so great. Because somebody who might be terrific with looking at the strategic calendar and knowing what we need to do next, someone else might have a really nice rapport with students and can model how to get a reluctant learner to come around. I think, again, being really mindful, leaning on the RISE coaches and then leaning on one another and just getting better, getting better each time. And I think that we have a shared vision and mission. We believe in the work, and we're willing to do what we need to to ensure that it goes well.
Then I would also offer that, despite our best efforts, students sometimes aren't ready to access the learning, and so we need to meet them where they're at. We just provide them with a small win, hope that they can bring something of their own and build momentum. But we don't always see the fruits of our labor. We just have to recognize that we are engaged in best practice. We will continue to try different interventions. And sometimes we have to also realize that maybe we planted the seed and that there's a season of blooming around the corner that we won't be privy to. But I think that when we recognize that we've done our best, then we have to be okay with that.

Alec Patton:
And so just so I understand, the RISE coaches, do they come to all the meetings?

Eileen Mezzo:
They don't come to every meeting, but they come once a month with me and we set up a general idea of how the meetings will go. And that's, again, maybe more in grade 12 I'm setting the agendas. I don't need to set the agendas in grade nine because the grade nine team leads have taken that over, and they are committed and do it without me. There's that distributed leadership. And then the coaches come once a month to observe a meeting and give feedback.

Alec Patton:
And Nichelle, I know I didn't mention before that this is your second appearance on the High Tech High Unboxed podcast, but in the first one, you talked about making this shift from being a facilitator to a coach. And that was really, as I understood it, about moving from facilitating the meetings to coaching people who actually work at the school on how they facilitated those meetings. And that seems like what Eileen's describing there. First of all, how's that transition going? And second, what have you learned about how to do that?

Nichelle Woodson:
That's exactly what Eileen is talking about now because years ago, before we made the transition, the RISE coaches were more like the facilitators and creating agendas and going in and facilitating these meetings. And what we saw was that the Improvement team members really saw this as RISE. Well, okay, we're coming to a RISE meeting. And we needed to shift that language, shift that mindset to this not being a RISE meeting or this is not being RISE work, but this being Naugatuck's work. This is our meeting. These are the behaviors that we want to make sure are a part of who we are as educators and supporting our students.
I really think that that intentionality in that shift from moving toward, from being the facilitators to really coaching and working with the folks like Eileen that are now facilitating those meetings, we've been able to see that mindset shift in the educators and the Improvement teams where this is their work, it's not RISE's work. This is not something additional that we're doing, this is just a part of who we are. This is the way we work, this is the way we do our work. And I will definitely attribute that from our shift from facilitators to coaches.
Is there still work to do? Of course. There are folks that are more comfortable in facilitating than others. Just like teachers scaffold the support in their classrooms as coaches as RISE, we also scaffold the supports for the educators that we work with. And sometimes we have to do this gradual release, but more and more of our school partners that we work with are becoming very comfortable, very competent, and very confident in facilitating their own meetings with the support.
Eileen talked about those meetings with her coaches, her RISE coach prior to the meeting. That's where we are stepping in and really working with the assistant principals or sometimes the team leaders that are facilitating those meetings and making sure that they feel very comfortable and confident in going in to lead those meetings. We'll help create the agendas. We'll help pull some data as you go into the Data Hub. Let's pull that data together. Let's see. Let's run through what you're going to talk. What are some of the questions you're going to ask in that space with the Improvement team? And then also thinking about, okay, if this question comes your way, how will you answer that? How would you be prepared? In that coaching space, we really use that time to help assistant principals prepare to facilitate those meetings.

Alec Patton:
All right, for someone listening to this right now who's at a school or at a district level, maybe they're not in Connecticut, they're listening to this and they're thinking, I want to have a strategic data calendar. I want to have data routines where teachers get together and look at this. This all sounds great. This sounds like it would make such a difference. How can they get started?

Nichelle Woodson:
I think something for educators who do not have this currently but want to get started in doing this, now, if you have the time and you can prepare for next year, the number one thing that I feel as though helps these routines run so effectively is the teaming. Making sure or ensuring that you have a group of adults that are able to meet and speak and talk with each other to plan on how to support students. If you don't give educators that time and space to do that, this becomes really hard to do it.
And if you want to start it right away, it's looking at your current day, your current schedule, and seeing, okay, where are there opportunities for me to get a group of teachers together, a group of educators together to start talking about students in and supporting students? And then when it comes to the data, the Hub is a heaven sent tool. But not everybody has the Hub, so it's like, okay, what data do we have? What data systems do we have in place that we could start to at least extract some of that data and identify, okay, we want to talk about this particular subgroup of students or this particular profile of students. Let's pull some of that data and let's get together as a team and start to talk and see what we're seeing in that data and then plan on how we're going to support them.
I think another thing that helps Improvement teams establish their data teams, both Eileen talked about it and I talked about it earlier, is establishing those norms and those roles and responsibilities. When we do get together as a team, how are we working together? Let's make sure we have a structure in place. Is there a simple protocol that we can use? You can always go on the RISE, ctrise.org website. And we have sample protocols that a team can just pull off of our website under the resources tab, and they can use that to help them start to structure those spaces so that they could have intentional conversations. Those are some of the things that I'm thinking about. If you want to start tomorrow, these are some of the things that you could start to do.

Alec Patton:
Eileen, anything you want to add to that?

Eileen Mezzo:
No, I think that having the Hub and the Data Hub, I think that's invaluable, but I also think that all schools have some kind of a platform. I would just echo what Nichelle said; it's a dedicated time and space, clearly defined roles, some kind of a structure that's put in place, and then those shared goals with an opportunity to measure progress towards them. And I think that with those things in place, any school can start. And I know that schools around the nation are engaged in either professional learning communities or data teams, whatever vernacular they use to describe it, I know that it's a common practice.

Alec Patton:
And is there one mistake that you've made or seen people make that you can just tell people now and they can just avoid doing it?

Eileen Mezzo:
Just one?

Nichelle Woodson:
Right? Something that I've seen just cause challenges is when you do not have a dedicated administrator committed to this work. Because Eileen is the defensive line for her teachers, for her educators in either the grade 12 meeting space with her counselors or her grade nine space with her educators in grade nine. She's able to remove obstacles for them so that they can do the work. And when you do not have that dedicated administrator in the space to help you be able to do that, it makes it extremely difficult for the educators in that space to feel as though, "Okay, I can actually do this." They are able to see, "Okay, this is within our locus of control, and I have the resources and the support to do this because my administrator is here with me telling me that they're supporting me. They're removing those obstacles for me, so I'm able to see that this can be done." For me, that is a pitfall that I've seen schools unfortunately have to... Or a challenge that they've had to navigate around. Because you can identify a grade nine administrator, but that administrator has to be dedicated to that work.

Eileen Mezzo:
Yes, I agree completely, Nichelle. I also think that we have to regularly and consistently offer support and recognize their efforts because this is challenging work. And I think sometimes when things go well, we forget and we turn our attention to maybe something else in the school that needs nurturing. And teachers need regular opportunities to celebrate one another and to be recognized for the fact that they're going the extra mile.

Alec Patton:
That's a perfect spot to end, I think. Thank you both so much. Nichelle, Eileen, this has been absolute pleasure. I'm inspired, I'm pumped. I'm stoked about this work. Thank you both for taking the time to talk and for everything you're doing.

Nichelle Woodson:
Thank you, Alec.

Eileen Mezzo:
Thank you, Alec. It was wonderful.

Nichelle Woodson:
Yes, always great to talk about the work because it's impactful work and it's life-changing work for students. And like Eileen said, the educators that we work with just roll up their sleeves and get into this work and support students every day, all day.

Alec Patton:
High Tech High Unboxed is hosted and edited by me, Alec Patton, with additional editing by Katie McMurrin. Our theme music is by Brother Herschel. Huge thanks to Nichelle Woodson and Eileen Mezzo for this conversation. We've got links to the RISE website as well as Nichelle and Eileen's favorite data protocols in the show notes. Thanks for listening.