GAT Meeting - 2019-11-21

Owned by Chris Moffatt (Deactivated)
Last updated: Dec 02, 2019
4 min read

Agenda

  1. Ed-Fi Leadership Updates

  2. 2020 Planning Discussion

  3. Governance Activities

    1. Promotion of 2 RFC’s to standards

    2. Charter for newly formed Internationalization Workgroup

    3. Quarterly review of governance metrics

  4. Ed-Fi Technology Show-and-Tell - Overview of Ed-Fi website updates

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.

2020 Planning Discussion

The December GAT meeting will cover Ed-Fi 2020 strategic and roadmap priorities and discussion of the Technical Congress agenda.

For 2020 GAT meeting planning purposes, the potential for additional GAT face-to-face meetings beyond those planned for the Technical Congress and Summit was discussed.  The following suggestions/comments were offered:

  • To help ensure full participation and accommodation of scheduling conflicts the Alliance should provide for remote attendance for these sessions.
  • The hosting organization (such as the LEA or SEA) can engage their leadership and thereby indirectly benefit by getting better future support and participation for Ed-Fi work.
  • Holding an in-person GAT meeting after Technical Congress enables better processing of what’s learned there.
  • In-person GAT meetings are very beneficial and more productive than virtual meetings.
  • Being tied to other events such as Tech Congress can minimize travel and time away from key work responsibilities.
  • Having expenses covered for standalone meetings (when separate from Technical Congress or Summit) will be helpful to members in removing a barrier that would prevent some members from attending – especially those where there is no funding available for such activities.

Additionally, it was noted that SLDS grants are to be announced in early 2020.  Discussing their functionality and coordination should help planning for states and overall roadmap planning.

The Work Group chairs provided updates on their goals/priorities for 2020:

  1. Finance WG – The F-WG is largely done with their major proof of concept project for the ESSA reporting financial extensions in Wisconsin. The pilot phase has 3 vendors; district data should start flowing in December. The FWG can report lessons learned to the larger Ed-Fi community in 2020.  Wisconsin is building an accommodation for smaller districts and charters that do not have FI software.  This can be shared with the community also. Wisconsin is planning to go to full production in 20-21 school year.  This will help move FI RFC through to completion.  The FWG may consider another pilot state to fully vet the FI RFC proposed extensions before finalizing these in the data model.
  2. Reporting and Visualization WG – The RV-WG is fleshing out the proof of concept for what the back-end architecture should look like. The use cases for the proposed architecture validation are on track for the first of December. The visualization group is still working on the estimate and scope of work to upgrade dashboard.
  3. Special Education WG – The SPED-WG meeting at the Summit identified some accommodations for classroom and assessment uses, to include what is needed (prescription) and what is actually provided (delivery). A 2020 goal for the SPEDWG is to prepare an RFC identifying the IEP data requirements for inclusion in the Ed-Fi data model.
  4. Assessment WG – The A-WG had a productive session at Summit that established 2020 goals as follows:
    1. Develop an initial draft of an assessment glossary of terms by the Technical Congress.
    2. Proceed with the district-level roster use case in parallel with the state efforts on rostering.
    3. Pursue a formative assessment use case/project.
    4. Continue the work on Social-Emotional Learning and a better understanding of survey versus assessment data model for SEL
    5. Establish and monitor a set of certification metrics for assessment.
  5. Teacher Prep Data Model WG – The TPDM-WG meeting at the Summit went well. The 2020 priorities include: 
    1. A talent management/human capital (K-12) metric subgroup is under consideration. The focus will be on observations and performance with parallels to K12 evaluations and personnel management.
    2. A new TPDM release is being planning for fall 2020

Governance Activities

There are two RFCs in the queue.  The Alliance recommends:

Following this GAT meeting, a link was be sent out to GAT members to vote on these items. There is one vote per site on the GAT. Contact Chris Moffat with any questions.

There is a Draft Charter for the Internationalization Work Group to be considered by the GAT.  This Work Group will explore and propose opportunities for broad adoption/support of Ed-Fi standards internationally. The first meeting is Nov. 22 and is focused on primary and secondary education. Eric Jansson is the Alliance liaison to this WG.  Some issues to consider as this moves forward include: privacy compliance regarding laws in other nations (GDPR), students who move between nations and coding of identity codes. A link for GAT members to vote on the draft charter was sent out after the meeting.

Chris reviewed the community work group status board on the Ed-Fi website, reflecting community engagement and leadership. This status board helps to show the progress being made by the Work Groups as well as the engagement by the community in helping to guide the Ed-Fi data standards and technology.

The third-quarter health metrics of the Work Groups were reviewed.  The overall cadence and work output look good.

Ed-Fi Technology Show-and-Tell

An overview of Ed-Fi website updates and Implementation Playbooks was provided and include:

  • An Ed-Fi Community Leadership Page
  • Audience-specific Playbooks (by district, state, technology provider and teacher prep provider) to better guide and focus resources for the community.
  • Self-service option for creating an account and having access to Ed-Fi resources.

The meeting was adjourned.