The State Longitudinal Data Systems Team: Ferdinand Ngirmekur, SLDS data & privacy specialist; Jeaniffer Cubangbang, SLDS technical manager; Shawna Indalecio, SLDS project specialist; Dr. Annette Pladevega-Sablan, SLDS project director; Dr. Rizalina Liwag, accountability, research, and evaluation senior director; and George Palican, data governance manager.
(PSS) — The CNMI Public School System has officially launched the first-ever, Commonwealth-wide data system that connects, manages, analyzes, disaggregates, and uses student data.
State Longitudinal Data Systems or SLDS can help educators, policy-makers, researchers, and the public understand what works for students and how to use resources more efficiently. They combine data about individuals from different state agencies and programs so stakeholders can answer critical questions about K-12, postsecondary, and workforce outcomes.
Dr. Annette Pladevega-Sablan, SLDS project director, is happy to announce that our centralized data system brings the CNMI up to speed with the rest of the nation in reporting and using data, untangling the maze of some of our most critical data systems, and making the simplest questions easier to answer. The CNMI is a recipient of a federal grant to establish a highly effective SLDS infrastructure by linking Head Start/Early Head Start data to kindergarten through 12th grade, and shifting the use of data from compliance to accountability and strategic instructional usage through an early warning system.
Jeaniffer Cubanbang, SLDS technical manager, who joined the team in late July has been working closely with data stewards and the data warehouse vendor to get the various student information, staff data, fiscal, and assessment data from SY 2018 to SY 2022 mapped, extracted, transformed and loaded.
She says, “It’s been a challenging feat to get our legacy data into the Ed-Fi (CEDS compliant) multiyear model. We had to integrate student and other data from a variety of sources while keeping data safely in its designated domain and aligned with the Common Education Data Standards (CEDS). I am thrilled that our data is now centralized and will be accessible through various reporting and analysis tools. Improved data quality and automation for reporting have been a priority. Our longitudinal data also meets federal reporting requirements without compromising privacy.”
Dr. Rizalina Liwag, PSS senior director of accountability, research and evaluation, is excited to provide our stakeholders with public-facing reports such as Facts & Figures, Academic Achievement, in addition to, providing user-based access to our central office program leaders and school administrators with the Admin Dashboard which will provide snapshots of key data from various data sources in an easy, one-stop-shop format.
PSS program leads and school administrators met several times in October to design the Administrator Dashboard — a set of visualizations that gathers school, staff, academic, and financial data all in one place.
The SLDS team has been working with various stakeholders and intensively training for various reports and tools.
One of several planned reports that went live on Dec. 16 is the School Accountability Report Card.
The School Accountability Report Card is a product of the CNMI PSS Accountability System which brings together a set of measures in order to provide clear, actionable information about district & school performance.
The CNMI PSS’ Accountability System helps schools improve the performance of all students, & helps communities & the state decide how to assign resources.
It was approved by the Board of Education Instructional Services & Assessment Committee on October 12, 2022.
Celine Orsini, ARE accountability manager, is working closely with Pacific Resources for Education & Learning as well as pilot schools from elementary, junior and senior high grade levels.
Accountability rating is based on Renaissance data (STAR Reading, STAR Math), attendance and graduation rates (for secondary schools).
Orsini says “the School Accountability Report Cards results answer two questions: ‘How is the school doing?’ and ‘What kind of support does the school need?’ By providing answers and transparency to those critical questions, we will be able to take the necessary steps to provide schools with support to achieve their goals.”
Fasefulu Tigilau, PSS assessment program manager and acting senior director of accountability, research and evaluation, says: “This is a major step moving forward for the Commonwealth Public School System. Congratulations to our SLDS team. I surely look forward as we move forward in 2023 to get to a P20W SLDS with our partners in NMC and NMITech.”
