Honored for Expanding Use of Data at all Levels throughout District
November 15, 2006 (White Plains, NY) – McKinney Independent School District, McKinney, TX was honored last night as recipient of the first eScholar (d3)M Award for exceptional use of data for decision-making that directly benefits K-12 student performance and achievement. Accepting the award were Geoff Sanderson, Executive Director of School Improvement and Accountability and Allen McDaniel, Senior Director of Technology at McKinney.
Shawn Bay, Founder and CEO of eScholar, announced the winner at the Sixth Annual eScholar Fall User Conference in Tarrytown, NY, noting that utilizing data to make decisions that improve education is the ultimate goal of data warehousing. “McKinney, in a short period of time, has harnessed the power of data collection, cleansing and integration to bring about a district-wide focus on using these data to achieve quality education”, Mr. Bay said. “We are particularly gratified that all of the entries demonstrated effective use of data analysis to bring about change,” he added. “Now our task will be to share those practices across the K-12 community.”
McKinney’s entry, “Becoming a Data Driven Culture Using Technology as the Accelerator of Change,” was praised by the independent panel of judges for the District’s extensive involvement of school leadership teams and teachers in the use of data. They were also impressed by McKinney’s focus on parent engagement and student-teacher connection.
Entries were judged based on the extent to which each program has directly impacted students, has brought about considerable change, can be replicated by other districts, has improved academic achievement, and applies vision with the promise of having long term impact.
Finalists were:
- Cambridge Public Schools, Cambridge MA “Benchmark Project,” Jeff LaPlante nominating Bill Mangone, Sr. Database Administrator and the Cambridge team
- Eastern Suffolk BOCES Regional Information Center, Holbrook, NY “School Data Bank ,” Andrew K. Setzer, Divisional Administrator, Judith A. LaRocca, Assistant Administrative Coordinator, Kathleen Twomey, Principal Programmer Analyst, and team
- Guilford County Schools, Greensboro, NC “Home Field Advantage Initiative,” Dr. Terrence Young, CIO, Pam Simmons-Whitley, Supervisor, Information Resource Management, and Laura Coe, SIMS Administrator
- John F. Kennedy Magnet School, Port Chester School District, NY, “Using Results of NY State Tests -- In The Form Of Benchmark Reports -- To Drive Decision-Making at the Building, District and Classroom Levels,” nominated by Maureen McCarthy, Manager, Student Data Services, Lower Hudson Regional Information Center, Elmsford, NY
- Western New York Regional Information Center (WNYRIC Erie 1 BOCES), “Deep Curriculum Alignment Project: A Collaboration of WNYRIC, Erie 1 BOCES, and Erie 1 Component Districts,” Dr. Marie Perini, Manager, Test Scoring, Assessment, and Data Analysis
The (d3)M Award was sponsored by Deloitte Consulting LLP, eScholar’s leading implementation/integration partner, and was judged by an independent panel of nationally recognized experts in data analysis, education, program evaluation, data-driven decision making, K-12 governance, higher education, and business/consulting. |
