Success Story

In 2022, the district created a new position that would solely focus on identifying and assisting students in need of interventions using Early Warning. Nicole McDowell (a former graduation coach, high school math teacher, and school counselor) took on the role after working with the assistant superintendent to bring the Campus Analytics Suite to the district. Now a passionate Early Warning advocate, McDowell sat down to discuss how the tools have made a difference at Turner USD.

“My primary role is using the tools in the Campus Analytics Suite and sharing the data with relevant district personnel,” McDowell said. “The goal of my position is to identify at-risk students and proactively help them get on track through targeted interventions.”

What challenges were you facing before using Campus Analytics Suite and Early Warning?

I think a lot of our issues stemmed from potentially targeting the wrong students. We would have intervention meetings, and it seemed like we were talking about the same students repeatedly and seeing little results. When you have many students needing help, determining individuals based off a gut feeling or off previous data led us to, really, only a small group of students.

Campus Analytics Suite has specifically helped us figure out which students need intervention, and which students we can make the biggest impact on using real-time data.

You now have this tool to identify students at risk, what comes next? How are you putting data into action?

This year, we chose 30 students – not already receiving other supports – that the Early Warning system identified as needing interventions. We gave these students the same four core teachers. When we meet every few weeks and talk about these students, everyone involved is on the same page, and we assist in getting them the extra support they need. Our initial end-of-semester data is showing positive results: 70% increased their GRAD score by more than 20 points.

Has there ever been a situation where district personnel were caught off guard by those identified in the system?

There have been a handful of situations where I’ve been in a meeting, brought up a student’s name, and nobody knows anything about the student – they are not on anyone’s radar. And honestly, they’re not even doing terrible in their classes. When we met two weeks later, all of a sudden someone says, ‘Hey, so and so’s teacher reached out about this student; they’re concerned.’ This happened two or three weeks after the Early Warning system identified them.

With certain students, you’re going to know. But then there are those that can easily fall through the cracks, and the Early Warning system helps us identify them sooner so we can help.

Have there been any big success stories related to the school’s work in supporting at-risk students?

With several students, a change occurs that I call the ‘junior jump.’ Something magical happens the summer before their junior year, and students who struggled both freshman and sophomore year are doing better. They come back and have more of a desire to do well. There are two students in particular I’m thinking of.

One girl is now a senior and had a junior jump last year. There had previously been a lot of trauma in her life and she was not very focused on school. She was a student that would pop up in the Early Warning system, and now she’s getting ready and will graduate in May. She made a huge jump, and I think a lot of that can be attributed to her being identified in the Early Warning system and then the intervention we put in place early on.

Another success story…I was able to share with a junior boy how he had fallen off the Early Warning system list. He was no longer showing at-risk. It was really exciting to be able to share with him that even the computer recognizes he’s doing the work, that he’s been putting in the hard effort.

Are there any remaining challenges you see when it comes to improving graduation outcomes?

Before we had Early Warning targeting in place, we were doing interventions and students just weren’t being as successful as we’d hoped. Now that we know which students need intervention, we need to identify the appropriate intervention for them. The question becomes: how do we figure out which intervention will be best in a high school of 1,100+ students, and each kid is a little different. We are currently working on determining how to group them to provide consistent, and successful, tier two supports.

Does Turner USD utilize the Campus Insights tool within Campus Analytics Suite?

I’m a big fan of Campus Insights. From an administrator’s perspective, the tool is invaluable. The capabilities are consistently getting better and having a dashboard where you can quickly see your school’s progress on set goals is huge. We love the ability to filter on all of that data. I’m excited about this tool’s potential.

Any additional comments regarding your experience working with Infinite Campus?

I’m probably a nerd when it comes to Infinite Campus, but I really think if you put in the time to learn it and use the tools that are there, it can help you become more efficient at your job. The Infinite Campus tools being used by dedicated professionals ultimately helps support students, because that’s our goal: to reach more students and help more students be successful in their educational journey.