The K12 Insight Difference:

Systemic and Systematic Approach

K12 Insight emphasizes a systemic and systematic approach to building stakeholder trust, public engagement and data collection. The entire system comes together as a single entity to understand the district’s critical needs and to develop a comprehensive plan and survey calendar that addresses the requirements of various departments and school sites.

In school districts which do not take a systemic and systematic approach, activities occur in silos. Departments spearhead initiatives without consulting other departments. Without a single comprehensive view of district issues, you’re left with:

• A lack of expert critique of either the methodology of the approach or the process by which the data is collected and analyzed.
• Lost data when school employees transfer between departments or schools, or when they leave a district.
• Over- or under-surveying of certain stakeholder groups, with questions being repeated survey to survey
• Failure to identify the systemic value which the district as a whole gains from these efforts, due to a lack of any best practices
• Data that rarely if ever reaches the superintendent’s office or school board

Often a district needs to include certain data in accreditation paperwork or grant applications. Lacking best practices, there’s likely to be much duplicated effort in creating such data and, in some cases, the data may be impossible to access.

The K12 Insight approach starts by bringing all critical stakeholders together to review data needs, ensuring alignment with government mandates and grant or proposal requirements. The goal is to build stakeholder trust by operating openly and transparently, while giving the community a chance to provide input on key decisions.

A systemic and systematic approach allows us to:

• Create data not only at the district level, but also at individual school site levels. School principals can then use this valuable site-level data for their school improvement plans. They can compare their results with peer school sites, as well as with the school district as a whole.
• Conduct longitudinal tracking, so a school district can focus on improvements. Rather than looking solely at where a district stands on one particular issue in one given year, longitudinal tracking takes a longer view, by helping you focus on where you’re going rather than where you are. But longitudinal tracking is only possible if the district conducts studies in a planned way year after year, ensuring that the data is comparable and relevant.
• Benchmark against peer school districts. Whether a 70% approval of a particular issue is good or troubling news only becomes possible to discern if we have data from comparable school districts. Benchmarking against other sites within a district is a critical component and benefit of taking a systemic and systematic approach.

K12 Insight has a unique repository of data culled from hundreds of school districts nationwide. We administer thousands of climate surveys annually, many of which have consistent parameters surrounding the most timeless public education issues. Districts can see their results relative to the national average, as well as in comparison to other districts based on factors such as location, free/reduced lunch level and English language proficiency.