Previously, we shared a blog about RISE’s history with data tools and their use with our network of educators, followed by a blog exploring specific components of the Hub. In this entry, we introduce you to Candice Wade, School Counselor at Middletown High School. Candice, who works with the Hub as part of her daily practice supporting students, is a member of RISE’s Hub Innovation Fellows, a group of educators who are providing feedback to better understand their experiences and help us define the future of the Hub.
Q: How has the Hub enhanced your personal practice? How do you use the Hub throughout your day/week?
A: I use the Hub mostly for postsecondary tracking, whether it’s Junior planning meetings, FAFSA coaching, or milestone completion, especially when it’s around college application time. It’s also helped me track students’ progress for promotion to graduation, so it helped me solidify my list of Seniors at risk of not graduating or needing to attend summer school, just by having that snapshot of their current grades in the Hub.
Q: Can you describe a change, improvement, or enhancement that the Hub has helped to support in your school?
A: At one of our recent RISE role-alikes, we learned that a small number of our ELL students were choosing four-year colleges as their postsecondary plan, yet many were not confident in pursuing their postsecondary goals. Having that data helped us, as a team, to brainstorm ways that we could increase student confidence, as well as expose these students to multiple career paths.
Q: Tell us about a feature or tool that you find particularly useful in the tool in the Hub. How does that feature help you and your team?
A: The “tags” feature is uniquely helpful to me, as well as the rest of the school counseling team in reviewing data as a team. We can make new tags to categorize students, I can see if a student has had an On-Track Coach in 9th grade, if they attended Summer Academy, if they are part of Upward Bound. I find this helpful when tracking seniors and milestone completion, as it helps me notice certain trends. For instance, this year I noticed more Summer Academy students had more milestone completions than those who didn’t attend the program.
Q: How does the Hub help you and fellow educators in your work helping students stay on-track and graduate prepared for postsecondary success?
A: I am working on the Summer Melt program and one thing that stood out to me in a recent CCR meeting is that looking at our two-year college-bound students and their milestones helps me determine their preparedness for postsecondary success. So if I notice a lot of our two-year students maybe haven’t completed their FAFSA or haven’t registered for classes, it lets me know that they need some more individual support from me.
Q: How has the Hub helped you work collaboratively with other educators?
A: Individually, I’m on the Hub several times a week. Our CCR has a biweekly meeting, which is where we come together as a team to review data in the Hub. Not only are we looking at data in a broad sense, but we’re also looking at our own caseloads. The data helps inform specific action steps in terms of students we may need to check in on and help them complete some milestones. It helps us to come together and look at data broadly, and also, narrowing it down. It helps to guide our meetings and our action steps.
Visit our website to learn more about the Data Hub and submit an interest form.