Pieces of advice can seem like they’re a dime a dozen, but good advice can sometimes be hard to find. The National College Attainment Network (NCAN) offers countless strategies to practitioners every year, and we benefit as an organization from learning from high-performing organizations across
the country that are always trying out and improving strategies for helping students.
Still, advice rings differently when it comes from a peer.
Over the past three academic years, NCAN has been working with school districts and the community-based organizations that support them as part of the To & Through Advising Challenge. This
project has helped NCAN jumpstart our development of K-12-focused resources, including our 15-month college and career readiness calendar. That,
as they say, is not all. The project also yielded valuable insights from grantees through their progress reporting.
The insights below come in response to asking grantees, “What advice would you give to other districts and/or organizations interested in engaging in the kind of work yours has done for the past two years? What advice would you give to funders seeking
to support this work?”
In compiling grantees’ responses, it is interesting to see the areas in which grantees focused. After advice for funders, which was specifically solicited, data is by far the most popular area here. That speaks a little to the focus of the grant but also
to the area in which most districts and organizations have the most room to grow. Curiously, very few bits of advice focus on the actual operations of doing college and career readiness. This is perhaps because implementation varies so widely and
is so heavily dependent on an organization’s context that generalization is difficult.
In any event, the advice here is hopefully of use to any K-12 district or school, or organization supporting them, that wants to start, improve, or transform its current college and career readiness practices. These are organizations that have embarked
on one or more of these processes, and their experience comes through in their words.
Grantees’ responses, anonymized and lightly edited for length and clarity, are below. NCAN is grateful for their thoughtful responses and participation in this project.
Planning and Buy-In
Take a full year, at least, to plan a sustainable intervention before implementation. Take time to research organizations or districts that already have systems or data-sharing agreements that are working well and try to model your work from them.
Seek district-level support prior to implementation as it is imperative to the success of any initiative that calls for large-scale change. Leadership will often be excited about the financial award without being aware of their future responsibilities
and accountability for the work.
Seek input and advice from districts similar to yours in terms of size, demographics, and geographical location that have been successful.
To engage in this kind of work, you first need to secure support from your superintendent and other top leadership personnel. They must know what type of work you need to appropriately respond to schools within the district. Another factor to consider
is that your staff must be culturally responsive to the students and community needs. [District] has been successful because school personnel know the students they serve, the parents, and the communities' needs. In [District], we understand that
to change the cycle of poverty, we must educate the student and the parent to engage and value a postsecondary degree.
For other districts and community-based organization's doing this work, we would advise thinking about sustainability at the beginning and what is doable in the timeframe considering change in public education systems take years to achieve. The same recommendation applies
to foundations.
We would also encourage organizations just starting to build their muscle in this area to go “deep” in specific areas rather than try to do everything at once, and we would encourage funders to support the same approach. We believe that looking closely
at one piece of work will garner a great deal more in learning that can then be translated to other bodies of work in the district. By focusing on too much, there is a risk that nothing will actually change.
The biggest piece of advice that our districts noted was having the right people at the table from the very beginning of the process. In order to take a comprehensive approach to this work, it needs to be prioritized by district leadership. Additionally,
engagement with school administrators and counselors [needs to be] present throughout the process. The connection to the district and the school’s mission as well as the broad level of engagement ensures that work is prioritized and helps address
the barriers to ownership of the work. Building shared ownership should expedite the speed in which the work occurs.
Leverage this work to support the vision of the district around postsecondary success. The work must be aligned to further advance college access and success strategies to reduce any perspective that engaging in this type of work is “just another
initiative.”
Building the Right Team
Deliberately create spaces and opportunities for students to offer feedback, insights, and highlight opportunities.
Develop a team of individuals in the system who will be committed to taking your college advising efforts to another level.
The overall team is even more expansive and requires establishing relationships across diverse stakeholder groups. Establishing a common vision and goals will help guide these partners to support the initiative with less resistance.
For us, the role of external facilitators was critical to gaining buy-in among all participants. We would encourage use of an external facilitator to help build a culture for this work. Our program consultant helped us achieve this by presenting a
number of sessions that emphasized collaboration while helping sub-groups (administrators, counselors, advisers) understand their role.
Develop trusting and open relationships with your coaches/consultants such that sharing of information and ideas flows organically. It is difficult to work amid tension or distrust.
Partnerships
Research and collaborate with other school districts on effective college advising practices and solving challenges.
If you have college access partners supporting the work happening in the schools, have frequent meetings to discuss initiatives and discuss goals and action plans.
Consult and collaborate with your local postsecondary institutions. Develop partnerships that will ensure students in the district are being supported and are on a path to being successful and persisting to the next year.
Data
Review data monthly. Do not just review at the district level, but review at the school level (with administrators) and develop ways to improve concerning data points.
As data is fundamental to all decision-making, it is critical to identify the appropriate staff to serve on your team for its collection, reporting, and analysis. An old adage is, “have your people talk to my people.” The contemporary version is,
“have your database talk to my database.” So, this work requires advanced computational, technological, artistic, critical thinking, and communication skills. Also, access to data often has privacy safeguards to address and requires legal and
leadership support. Assembling a team to address these data obstacles is essential from the onset.
I would encourage other districts to not shy away from the hard work of analyzing the data. Look for opportunities to leverage the information you discover and collaborate with other departments. An interdisciplinary team is needed to review the data.
Each person will see the data through a slightly different lens. I would also encourage school districts to set process goals they could track weekly or bi-weekly. The process goals are indicators; they help you know if you are going in the right
direction toward your outcome goals. I would encourage funders seeking to support this work to invest in organizations that have great leadership and just need resources to scale their strategies.
There’s nuance in postsecondary data and how metrics are defined that needs to be sorted out and discussed through this process – and this is a helpful part of the process to identify what is important in a given context. For example, looking at the
ninth grade cohort and how they go on to each grade and then matriculate and stay in college is one way to look at enrollment AND a district could look at enrollment and persistence based on those who graduate from high school primarily within
four years. What nuances do districts need to take into account based on the types of schools they serve? This may be different with schools where a higher number of English Language Learners need a fifth year to graduate or in schools where they
work with over-age, under-credited students. Related to definitions, it’s important to understand that high school staff may not understand the nuances of the metrics and how they are defined, but coming to this understanding with them is important
so that we look at data together in a way that is meaningful and allows them the space needed to develop questions that are meaningful in their work.
[We] would advise districts and other organizations that data use and analysis is absolutely key and has completely revolutionized our metrics and systems. Most districts do not look closely enough at National Student Clearinghouse data and do not hold themselves accountable
to Educational Policy and Standards Committee data. Broadening that work to more districts seems central to making progress.
We would advise other districts/organizations to narrow their focus based on a thorough data analysis of your district and be sure to include no more than two or three initiatives. This will allow you to pool your resources and see the initiatives
to completion.
Another piece of advice is to pilot data tools, especially new ones, before trying to scale. We spent a significant amount of time trying to partner with a new data visualization tool that wasn’t ready for the function and scale at which we needed
it.
Advice for Funders
Funders ought to make available local mentors, coaches, or consultants who are familiar with the communities that are implementing the work.
For funders, provide opportunities for those who receive your funding to collaborate and provide access to a resource library to support the work.
Our advice for the funders is to continue allowing for great flexibility with budget allocations. School districts operate within very restrictive environments. So, funding usage from external sources can fill many gaps in college, career, and life readiness activities that are
prohibited internally.
If fiscally possible, there could be some incentive for sustainable or expanded funding for attaining initiative goals. It’s almost worse for grantees to find solutions that can no longer be implemented once the grant is completed. It may also inspire
greater achievement when there are extrinsic rewards for success.
Realize that participants come with different financial and personnel capacity, infrastructure, and exposure to resources. Funding should reflect these realities and also not overlap in areas already covered by the original grant source. A small example
would be that half-day and whole-day workshops require food and sometimes substitutes for practitioners, items that may not be covered by the original grant.
Outside funders should also be ready to partner at the conclusion of the grant to support sustainability. For example, we would have loved to have continued our partnership with NCAN, but outside of grant funding, we were hard-pressed to justify the
resource in terms of cost versus benefit.
To advance your program, know that funders offer more than financial support for your program – their rich knowledge of the field and thoughtful network makes them well qualified to recommend college partners and make connections for school districts.
Funders can also partner by offering career exposure, mentors, internships, and more.
To the funders, I would encourage them to continue the work they do. Every penny helps school districts that have limited funding, especially now due to lower attendance rates. I encourage you to reach out and meet some students and listen to
their stories of struggle and hope.
For funders, recognize that this type of work takes time. It takes time to use data in ways to change the narrative. Investing in a district strategy to support this type of work allows establishing intentionality to improve college access and success.
If other funders wish to support this work, they need to stress the data analysis in order to narrow the scope and focus of the work. This grant allowed us to narrow that focus and be successful in reaching our goals.
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