GAT Meeting - 2018-11-14

Owned by Chris Moffatt (Deactivated)
Last updated: Dec 04, 2018

The meeting was held via WebEx from 3 to 4:30 pm CT.

Agenda

  1. Ed-Fi leadership updates
  2. Governance activities
    • Update on plans to activate the Leadership Council
    • Review feedback from “Pain Points” survey
    • Discussion on potential new work groups for 2019
  3. 2019 planning & priorities
    • Discuss early thoughts around building privacy features around the ODS/API
  4. Community work group updates
  5. Finance Work Group
  6. Assessment Work Group
  7. Reporting and Visualization Work Group
  8. Next steps and key dates

LINK TO MEETING PPT

Participation

Members:

Support:

Meeting Minutes

Refer to the meeting PPT for additional details on the meeting minutes and discussions.

When available, meeting minutes should be read, and any corrections sent to Chris. 

No comments on minutes from October meeting

Ed-Fi Leadership Updates

Executive session discussion.

Development of Leadership Council

Nancy presented a list of potential Leadership Council members and a plan for next steps. The plan is to establish the Leadership Council and have the first meeting at the Technical Congress in April. Jamie pointed out that the southeast region was not represented and offered to research a name of a good district superintendent candidate from that area.

Discussion: Review Feedback from “Pain Points” Survey

Chris reported that the Survey results highlighted the complexity of the Ed-Fi work for education agencies. Mark agreed that the complexity is real and getting started is an issue for many districts. He gave the example of speaking recently with a colleague who holds the same position as Mark in a different district and is also a bus driver for the district.  Stephen echoed the concern saying that as LEAs, the state case is not as helpful with small growth in LEA adoption. This work may still be too focused on SEA data issues and there is a priority need to solve LEA challenges with interoperability with the SEA. Due to the fact that there was only survey response from one SEA, the results are primarily focused on LEAs.

Discussion: Potential New Work Groups for 2019

It was recommended that the Teacher Prep Data Model (TPDP) work move into the status of a work group in 2019.  Also, establishing a work group around social emotional learning was brought forward again. Another option is to develop an SEL subgroup under the Assessment Work Group. AWG members have discussed this and there is strong interest.

The question was asked about what special education is looking for, what is the use case? Is the issue related to transferring information from LEA to LEA as a student moves from one district to another or is it related to accountability or are there other points? This area needs more discussion and an understanding of who is involved (such as vendors). For example, in Nebraska the SEA serves as the vendor and there are concerns about consistency of data.

Discussion: 2019 Planning and Priorities

GAT members are encouraged to review the meeting PPT related to the Data Privacy focus being considered for 2019. Jami gave an overview of the issues to be addressed.  For example, functions such as managing opt out processes would be prioritized in this planning. These ideas were well-received by the members and there was agreement that this would be a valuable focus. A question was raised as to whether a solution could be more of a middle-ware that does not require an ODS. In response Troy indicated that a key aspect of considering this focus is to act as an incentive/pull-through for the ODS/API as a secure broker of data exchanges, alongside rich aggregations of education data domains. 

Stephen explained that directory information would be the minimum ask, and Dean agreed this would be the same for the SEA. The concepts are in the vanguard of solving problems people worry about, but don’t understand how to tackle.

Work Group Updates

Work Group updates were deferred to the next meeting due to time constraints. See the meeting PPT for a summary.

Upcoming dates

An in-person GAT meeting is being planned for February 2019.  It was suggested that the meeting be held in Jacksonville, FL as the CIO Network is meeting there Feb. 4-6th. The Alliance will be able to pay for travel and lodging expenses for GAT members that need it. Former user (Deleted)will be following up to coordinate logistics for this planned meeting.

During the Tech Congress being held in Tampa from April 10-12, 2019 there will be an in-person GAT meeting  - 2019 Technical Congress.  

Action Items

  •   GAT members to review minutes from 2018-11-14 meeting
  •   Jamie Martinez will research a name of a good district superintendent candidate from that area and send to Nancy.
  •   Former user (Deleted) will coordinate with GAT members regarding locking down details and logistics for the February in-person GAT meeting.
  •   GAT members are asked to save the date for Tech Congress from April 10-12.