School Story
Principal Donahue:
Absence of Data-Informed Decision Making
As the newly appointed principal of Crestwood Elementary, Principal Donahue has identified a major obstacle: Teachers face significant challenges in using data effectively to support and monitor the progress of all students, especially students with disabilities. Key barriers include limited training, a lack of resources, overwhelming workloads, insufficient collaboration time, and inconsistent data practices. Special education teachers, in particular, express frustration over their inability to track student progress toward individualized education program (IEP) goals because of inconsistent data-sharing practices with general education teachers and inefficient data collection processes. These challenges are further exacerbated by the immense demands placed on teachers, stretching them thin and preventing them from dedicating time to data-related tasks, such as administering assessments and analyzing results. Many educators currently struggle with interpreting data and applying insights to individualize instruction, in alignment with IEP requirements. The lack of structured collaboration time between general and special education teachers undermines efforts to integrate data-informed strategies into instructional plans. As a result, educators continue relying on broad teaching methods, which fail to address the specific needs of students with disabilities and limit their ability to make meaningful progress.
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Principal Actions
To shift the current dynamic, Principal Donahue takes decisive steps to build teacher capacity for data-driven instruction. He starts with targeted professional development sessions to equip teachers with the knowledge and skills needed to analyze data effectively. These professional learning activities focus on understanding different types of assessments, identifying performance trends, and connecting insights regarding the performance of students with disabilities with specific instructional strategies. During these sessions, educators gain hands-on experience in setting appropriately ambitious IEP goals, measuring progress toward these goals, and making data-informed adjustments to students’ IEPs services and aids.
To support application of this professional learning, Principal Donahue introduces structured systems for monitoring and discussing data. He makes every-other-week data meetings a cornerstone of the school’s routine, bringing together grade-level teams, including special education teachers, to review student performance and collaborate on decisions. Teams use digital dashboards to access real-time data on formative and summative assessments that align with the general curriculum, alongside progress tracking of students’ IEPs goals. By regularly reviewing data, teams identify areas of concern early and address them through instructional adaptations and, if needed, IEP revisions, ensuring meaningful progress in academic, behavioral, and functional outcomes. Principal Donahue facilitates these data meetings, using clear protocols and decision rules to ensure that discussions are focused, collaborative, and solutions oriented.
In addition, Principal Donahue embeds collaboration time for general and special education teachers into the school master schedule, to ensure that there is dedicated time to discuss the implementation of services for students with disabilities. Moreover, every Wednesday afternoon, educators meet in grade-level professional learning communities (PLCs) to analyze student work, exchange strategies, and refine instruction on the basis of data insights. Principal Donahue frequently attends these meetings to guide discussions, offer feedback, and foster shared accountability among staff.
By combining training, systems, and collaboration, Principal Donahue empowers teachers to confidently use data in their instructional planning, resulting in better monitoring of student progress and more informed decisions, especially for students with disabilities. Over time, the school sees measurable improvements in student outcomes and stronger teamwork among faculty, creating a more supportive and effective learning environment for all.
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Toolkit
Advancing Data-Driven Decisions & Solutions
Explore research-based strategies, along with short, medium, and long-term solutions, to promote data-driven decision making.