Just Peachy: Georgia’s Team Approach to EDPass

A Date with Data

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### Episode Transcript ###
00:00:01.52 >> You are listening to A Date with Data with your host, Amy Bitterman.

00:00:07.34 AMY BITTERMAN: Hey, it's Amy and I'm so excited to be hosting A Date with Data. I'll be chatting with state and district special education staff who just like you are dealing with IDEA data every day.

00:00:19.50 >> A Date with Data is brought to you by the IDEA data center.

00:00:24.60 AMY BITTERMAN: Hello. Welcome to A Date with Data. Now that states have used EDPass to submit all of their 618 data files, we want to hear how those submissions went. And in particular, highlight how the data manager and EDFacts coordinator in one state have collaborated to successfully submit the files using the new system. On this episode, I am joined by Dominique Donaldson, who is the Part B Data Manager, and Adam Churney, who is the EDFacts Coordinator, and both are with the Georgia Department of Education. They're going to share about their experiences and provide some strategies that worked for them to partner effectively in this process. Welcome Dominique and Adam. So glad to have you on.

00:01:05.27 DOMINIQUE DONALDSON: Hi Amy. Thank you so much for having us.

00:01:08.88 ADAM CHURNEY: Yes, thank you for having us here.

00:01:11.10 AMY BITTERMAN: So I want to start off, if you each can just very briefly introduce yourself, say a little bit about your role at the Department of Education. Dominique, do you want to go first?

00:01:20.62 DOMINIQUE DONALDSON: Hi, my name is Dominique Donaldson and I am the Part B Data Manager for the Georgia Department of Education. And I've been with the Georgia Department of Education for a little over one and a half years.

00:01:33.88 AMY BITTERMAN: Great, thank you. Adam?

00:01:36.80 ADAM CHURNEY: Hi, I'm Adam Churney. I am the Georgia Department of Education State Data Analysis and Reporting Manager, which includes being the EDFacts Coordinator. I also handle Power BI Reports and many other data-related stuff.

00:01:50.53 AMY BITTERMAN: All right, so going back a few years now, when EDFacts Modernization kind of first came up and knowing that it was happening, why was it important for you all to approach those changes that were coming as a team and how did you create that team?

00:02:08.41 DOMINIQUE DONALDSON: Well, you know, for the longest time we had been hearing about EDFacts Modernization and there was so much talk about what was coming. It was discussed and shared in emails from PSC and IDC, you know, in all of the conferences like the Interactive Institute and OSEP. But there were very few tangible resources about EDFacts Modernization. So, you know, it kind of made us a little nervous. So in preparation for the EDFacts Modernization, the EDFacts coordinators and Part B Data Managers participated in all of the webinars and working groups. And not only was this process changing, but there was an entirely new platform for submitting the data files. So it was very, very clear that collaboration was going to be the key to a successful transition to the EDFacts modernization using the EDPass system. So, you know, we knew that we needed to work together.

00:03:09.40 AMY BITTERMAN: Mm-hmm.

00:03:09.92 DOMINIQUE DONALDSON: And we needed to first identify the necessary people required for the task. So the EDFacts coordinators identified Part B Data Managers as integral partners in the submission of special education data. So the Part B Data Managers were provisioned for access and relevant collections in EDPass. Our EDPass coordinators were crucial in helping the Part B Data Managers acquire the correct provisioning through the ed.gov and EDPass platforms. Not only did they grant us the access, but there was also a strategic walkthrough by our EDPass coordinators of the system to orient us to the inner workings of the system. In that walkthrough, we were able to navigate throughout EDPass and ask questions. Being able to access the system, interact with the system components such as the file download, and to be able to see the options within the platform allowed the Part B Data Managers to be a relevant part of the data submission process. You know, looking at the system together really helped us to visualize the shared goal that we were working to complete together and to ensure that we submit accurate and timely data for students with disabilities.

00:04:39.63 AMY BITTERMAN: Thanks, Dominique. So Adam, tell me how you as the EDFacts coordinator, and Dominique as the Data Manager, how do you share information back and forth?

00:04:50.52 ADAM CHURNEY: Sharing data, there's a lot of places where we actually share data because it really starts when we collect the data from the LEAs. We have several data collections and in each one of them, we've got reports that basically are already out there that we can do our first check on the data to make sure that it's coming in correctly. From that, we, most of our data that we send to EDFacts is actually aggregating from these data collections. So in that process, my team has created a portal within our application that we have all our data collection in that allows the data managers for IDA and all the other ones to basically go in and start seeing these aggregated reports, aggregated accounts, not just for the current year, but also a comparison with previous years to do that first check of data quality.

00:05:35.44 AMY BITTERMAN: Mm-hmm.

00:05:36.00 ADAM CHURNEY: And within that application, we've also embedded our ability to sign off on the data for the data managers. So not only are we getting the data in, but then the data managers are really going through looking at the data and signing off on it.

00:05:49.93 AMY BITTERMAN: Got it. That's great that you have that shared application and can do all of those checks like to your comparisons it sounds like, as well as some of the other validations I'm assuming that get done through EDPass as well. How do you, between, again, data managers and the EDFacts team, how are you collaborating and working together to really make sure that the data that you are submitting are accurate and of high quality?

00:06:15.78 ADAM CHURNEY: So one of the benefits of the new EDPass system is the ability to check your data quickly.

00:06:21.70 AMY BITTERMAN: Mm-hmm.

00:06:22.06 ADAM CHURNEY: So one of the priorities as the EDFacts coordinator is we really want to get the data into the new system as soon as possible. There's that first round of data checks. First is the format correct, which there's format changes every year.

00:06:33.81 AMY BITTERMAN: Mm-hmm.

00:06:34.15 ADAM CHURNEY: And most of those are just a simple fix here or there. Sometimes when there's new data that was collected that we're having to pull in as a new element, we go through and do that first check. But once that first round of uploads happen, me and we also have a programmer [INAUDIBLE] that kind of go through that first errors, data quality edits that we get and we go through and determine quickly whether it is a data issue as in the data that we collected is showing numbers that are out of spec or is it the code that we use to aggregate the data causing that. And last year being the first year EDPass was used for a lot of the files. There was a lot of data quality where it was on the code part where we didn't include zeros. And as a team, we really didn't want to also show this to the IDA managers that go like, "Oh my God, there's so many errors." That, "Okay, just wait. Let us do our first checks." And we did those first checks. We'd identify this data quality check is a code error, or this one is an actual data error. So once we did that first cleaning, we had a lot less error message to then take to the IDA managers to basically look at and say, "Okay, here are the data errors that are actually being caused by our data." And then we do that first round of checks where we'd go, is this a unique case to that system, that LEA, that school, or is this a bigger systemic thing with how we collected the data?

00:07:58.63 And then we would kind of turn through those and make sure that okay, it is a unique case for the school. And from that collaboration, I'm not a subject matter expert when it comes to IDE data particularly, but I know enough that I'm able to sit there, go through, say, okay, let's figure this out, get with the IDA managers and really look at the data, question the data, and then be able to report it. And then one of the nice things in EDPass is if we have a problem where we're looking at a data quality issue and it's like maybe we should have coded it as this instead of that. What's really nice about EDPass is we would take our data file, make a couple of edits to the schools or the LEAs that were throwing these data quality issues, submit it with this altered data to see does this cause other issues or does this clear the air? And being able to do that iteration process, we really were able to ask more specific questions in the data to say what happens if we coded it this way and see, uh, oh, something was triggered over there. And then go like, maybe we shouldn't go that way, or oh no other errors triggered.

00:08:59.99 And then we could come back to our IDA team and say, Hey, if we'd make this change, is this better data quality? And we could kind of iterate. And as you got through the big errors and got to the smaller and smaller errors, you could really start getting into good conversations where we're really talking about how is this data being interpreted, how is it being gathered, is it accurate, is it showing the intention what we're supposed to be showing? And it's really helped a lot with data quality.

00:09:25.36 AMY BITTERMAN: So it sounds like for you all EDPass has been a good thing, it seems like. Has it helped you think with the data quality?

00:09:30.99 ADAM CHURNEY: It has helped a lot.

00:09:31.97 AMY BITTERMAN: Great.

00:09:32.23 ADAM CHURNEY: My first years here I was under the old Eden system and it was great, you know, format errors were checked off early and then, you know, several months later I was like, oh, we've got these data quality issues.

00:09:43.13 AMY BITTERMAN: Yes. There isn't that lag anymore. You can kind of deal with it all at one time and get in, like you said, to sort of even some of those more nuanced, you know, issues to really ensure that the data are absolutely, you know, as clean and high quality as you would hope they would be.

00:10:01.24 ADAM CHURNEY: Yes. Over the past year with all the files that we submitted last year, we had a lot of great conversations with individual program managers where we would sit down after we did our first upload or even after those second uploads and just kind of go like, "Let's talk about the data. Are these numbers correct?" It really got more into the specifics where being on the outside of a lot of the data, I could ask the simple questions that they hadn't thought about it and well, and they would go like, "Maybe we should try this." And then being able to iterate, we could upload a file with a small change, see if that caused any problems or anything else would pop up. And it really did help create good conversations. And even with this charter upload that was just happening being the second year, all the errors that we had from the previous years about the data building and the data code are gone. So now we're really down into these specifics and we've had a lot of great conversations where should we be in some cases with the charter data we have multiple management organizations and just sitting there talking through that with the team asking the PSC if we did this, what would happen in trying that. It really helped us kind of get together and communicate and collaborate. Just really focusing on these small little nuances that we never had time to think about in the past because it was, everything's good check and then three months later uh, oh let's fix the data. Now it's like, let's talk about it and fix it and kind of iterate from there.

00:11:26.43 AMY BITTERMAN: Mm-hmm. And you feel like you're maybe not getting dinged as much either as obviously, I guess, because you're seeing those issues come up before the data get officially submitted, which is probably--

00:11:41.68 ADAM CHURNEY: Exactly.

00:11:42.12 AMY BITTERMAN: Nice to kind of deal with those early on before it gets too far down the road.

00:11:47.30 ADAM CHURNEY: And I think just the whole collaboration process while we're actually able to re-upload files is really helping data quality. It really sits there just iterating and making sure that is this data right. We have the time now to really ask that question and dig into it to make sure that what we are sending to EDPass is the best data that we can give.

00:12:07.15 AMY BITTERMAN: And you've already spoken to this, but I don't know if you or Dominique have anything to add in terms of what have you seen as the impact of this collaboration and working so closely together.

00:12:17.22 DOMINIQUE DONALDSON: Well, you know, Adam really touched on a lot of the positive impact in the collaboration. And as a part B Data Manager, it really has made, you know, my life easier because of the consistent communication between the two departments. You know, if we had not formed that strong collaborative nature then we might not have identified issues in enough time, which could have possibly resulted in submission of inaccurate data or late data submissions. And the collaboration has really made it where we are able to identify any issues and concerns prior to. And it allows us to be able to submit all of the files in a timely manner and have accurate data submissions and like Adam said, improve data quality.

00:13:06.21 AMY BITTERMAN: Yes. Which is the ultimate goal of all this.

00:13:08.50 DOMINIQUE DONALDSON: Right.

00:13:09.57 AMY BITTERMAN: So I'm sure there are states listening who wish they had the kind of collaboration and strong partnership that it seems like you all have in Georgia. I'm sure it wasn't necessarily easy to get there and there was a lot of work involved. Can you share with us what are some steps that maybe others states out there can take to try to build that collaboration that you all have?

00:13:31.25 ADAM CHURNEY: Yes, I think one of the first things that we need to do is really identify the necessary people needed.

00:13:36.27 AMY BITTERMAN: Mm-hmm.

00:13:36.89 ADAM CHURNEY: Of course, there's the EDPass coordinator. And one of the things that I think is really important with the EDPass coordinator is instead of programs sitting there going through individual business rules and the BRSI or BSRI, I always get that acronym [LAUGHTER]. Being able to be the translator for those program managers so they don't have to live in that document at all, since throughout the year I'm living in it every single cycle. Just going through what errors are popping up, let's understand them. So that really helps having that center of focus person. The other interesting thing that Georgia has is we have our data collections which collect the majority of all the data that we do submit to EDPass. And then we have the programmer and myself that will sit there and create the files to then upload. So my team managed the uploads. So really the program managers don't have to get their hands dirty with data too much. They have to understand the data and understand their data, particularly with how it relates to each other. So with my team, we'll build the files, we'll upload it as soon as possible. And then once we have that we can then go to the Part B managers and any other program managers with the data and say like, Hey, we've got the data up there early. This is what we found. These are the data errors that are code-related where we need to sit there and kind of recode it. Don't worry about anything else until we fix that. And then once we fix that saying, okay, Part B managers, here's what's truly errors. Let's talk about this. Let's see, is it just a issue where we've got some systems that have weird data or is it something else?

00:15:06.86 But really once we found that team and figured out who's responsible for the data, but it's all kind of that center spoke around the EDPass coordinator making sure the data's getting uploaded, being built in time, and then having the managers bringing them in at the time where their time is used to the fullest where they can sit there and say, this data is correct. I know you know, X School has X number of students what they know. And relay that back to the thought. So that's really the key people that we kind of brought into this.

00:15:36.56 AMY BITTERMAN: Yes, that makes a lot of sense.

00:15:38.30 DOMINIQUE DONALDSON: And, you know, after identifying those necessary people, which Adam just touched on.

00:15:43.34 AMY BITTERMAN: Mm-hmm.

00:15:43.67 DOMINIQUE DONALDSON: Then we, you know, it's going to be important for teams to set up meetings to discuss roles, access, and goals. IDC has a very useful resource called the EDFacts Modernization Planning Questions to Consider. And that research is going to be helpful for teams when we're looking at understanding who's responsible for what and what processes you need to complete the task and how you will collaborate as a team. You can search for this file right on the IDC website and it'll help you answer some of those questions like when will we submit files? You know, reviewing the EDFacts submission calendar organizer is also so very important. Using backwards planning to make sure your data is reviewed and submitted on time. You can also look at other questions and discuss where data comes from and what are the audit checks for accuracy and verification of data. Also thinking about what access will be given to special education. Special education needs to have access to all of the EDFacts files containing special education data.

00:16:48.71 AMY BITTERMAN: Yes. [LAUGHTER] You would think that would be a given. Right?

00:16:51.34 DOMINIQUE DONALDSON: Right.

00:16:51.70 AMY BITTERMAN: Yes.

00:16:51.98 DOMINIQUE DONALDSON: You know, all of that special education data, it really should be reviewed by the people that you've previously identified in special education as crucial to the project and the data submission process. And so it's going to be important that no special education data is submitted without special education teams getting a chance to look at the data first and verifying the data.

00:17:16.21 AMY BITTERMAN: Mm-hmm.

00:17:16.61 DOMINIQUE DONALDSON: I also want to know when and how you'll review those files. So thinking about processes and then what are the procedures if a concern arises? You'll need to know who you need to alert first when you see something that's of concern. And one of our issues in our state, our first contact is for our infotech architect and we bring concerns to him and we work through the issues together to resolve them. Another thing that you might want to do is also make sure that you're reading the current file specs and developing that common language. That way everybody is understanding the same information. And it's going to be also important to set up regular meetings to discuss upcoming collections to ensure that your data is in alignment with the file specifications. And then you also want to use that data submission organizer to set tentative dates for submissions to make sure that you are timely and accurate.

00:18:20.67 ADAM CHURNEY: Another thing that I think really helped us was attending office hours together or whenever we could.

00:18:26.58 AMY BITTERMAN: Mm-hmm.

00:18:27.24 ADAM CHURNEY: The office hours that PSCS put together are immensely useful. Not just sitting there, you know, asking the questions you have, but listening to other SCAS and the issues they're having with their data. A lot of times I would find myself listening to an SCA that had an issue and they were talking through it, then I would go, "Do we have that same issue?" [LAUGHTER] And then I would go to the program manager saying like, "Hey, this was an issue in this state. Is this something that we have, how are we accounting for this?" And it really helped seeing not just your state, but seeing everybody else's problems. And having the IDA manager there too also helps because they're seeing what the other program managers are having problems with. And I can't tell you how valuable they were because I learned so much about other states. And then from what I learned from them, I learned more about our data because again, now I had more questions I could ask our teams about our data to see how the data was actually being formed. And it really helped.

00:19:23.67 DOMINIQUE DONALDSON: And the last thing, we should always celebrate the wins. It's important to make sure that your team knows how valuable they are and they need to know that the work that they do has a powerful positive impact on the data that we submit. So working together of as a team is so important and making sure that we say thank you. We are very grateful for Adam and his team because [LAUGHTER] without them, we wouldn't be as successful as we are.

00:19:59.38 AMY BITTERMAN: Yes. I've worked with Dawn going back many years, one of the former data managers, and Dominique and I've heard over the years, Adam's name come up many, many times, [LAUGHTER] so.

00:20:09.08 DOMINIQUE DONALDSON: Mm-hmm.

00:20:09.41 AMY BITTERMAN: I know [LAUGHTER] how wonderful that relationship is, And I think it's something that a lot of states will kind of envy and hope some of the information you all shared can kind of help get them more towards that type of relationship too.

00:20:24.75 DOMINIQUE DONALDSON: Yes. I agree.

00:20:26.28 AMY BITTERMAN: So what are your plans for the future? What do you have coming up regarding your working relationship EDPass, EDFacts Modernization, what's going to be coming up next for you?

00:20:38.57 ADAM CHERNEY: So now that we have a year of EDPass behind us.

00:20:41.30 AMY BITTERMAN: Mm-hmm.

00:20:41.57 ADAM CHURNEY: And we've gone through most of those code errors that, you know, consumes some time. The plan this year and going forward is, and you can search for whatever infographic you want, but there's that data information, knowledge, wisdom pyramid, where data's down at the bottom, then it gets a little smaller. Information, knowledge, and wisdom. SCAS are really good about collecting data.

00:21:03.04 AMY BITTERMAN: Yes.

00:21:03.40 ADAM CHURNEY: Some of them are getting better at making it into information where you organize that data into a fashion that makes logical sense. It's the last two tiers, the knowledge, and wisdom where some SCAS have better ability to do that. And one of the things that we're moving forward with is we're creating-- we're using Power BI as our informed data decisions. And we're using Power BI as the tool to express that and communicate that. Not just building the reports. What we had in our Eden portal that we talked about earlier within our application, we're just canned static report, here are the numbers, here are the LEAs, et cetera, which are useful. But when you have 200 or 2,300 schools, 230-something LEAs, it gets a wash in noise. So if there's anything that stands out, you just don't see it in a normal Excel report. So using Power BI and other visualization and techniques, what we're hoping to do is highlight the changes, highlight stuff that we should sit there and talk about where it's not just, oh, does everything look good? It's, Hey, this system's doing something different. What are they doing? And finding out what actual systems are doing. And we've started creating some Power BI reports that really highlight those and save us tons of time on the back end because instead of sitting there filtering through a report of 2300 schools, here are the 10 schools that we identified with this crazy change.

00:22:26.43 AMY BITTERMAN: Mm-hmm.

00:22:26.65 ADAM CHURNEY: Let's talk about them. Is this something that we need to fix? Is this something that's going to happen more in the future? And just using visualization and the abilities with the data dashboard to help communicate not just to my teams and they're making sure the data's correct, going into EDPass, but also having reports for Dominique and other teams around our state to say, Hey, here's your data in a nice pretty fashion with colors. And then highlight the stuff that, here's stuff that you might want to know, because a lot of data, 95% of it in, you know, most cases is the basic case scenario. I always like to say my enrollment scenarios, most students come in day one in school A and leave in school A at the end of the year. Once you start getting to the next level of students that transfers and all this other stuff. Those small 5%, last 1%, et cetera.

00:23:17.12 AMY BITTERMAN: Mm-hmm.

00:23:17.41 ADAM CHURNEY: Are really where the interesting stuff happens. And the quicker you can get to those and start talking about those, that's where you get the final little bits of data quality resolved.

00:23:27.52 AMY BITTERMAN: Mm-hmm.

00:23:27.80 ADAM CHURNEY: And that's what with EDPass being able to iterate through stuff quickly, that's really helping there. Our hope is with our Power BI visualizations, we're going to get that before the end of the window and really understand our data to the next level and create knowledge and wisdom of the data that we're submitting to EDPass.

00:23:45.86 AMY BITTERMAN: Yes. And really use the data that you're collecting, be able to-- in Dominique's group, and then with the schools and the districts.

00:23:53.79 DOMINIQUE DONALDSON: Right.

00:23:54.17 AMY BITTERMAN: It sounds like providing them the data so they can really use it to think about what are we doing that's working well, what maybe isn't working as well, what changes do we need to make? So all of the stuff that you hope finally happens after you've kind of feel secure in your data quality.

00:24:10.91 DOMINIQUE DONALDSON: Yes. I absolutely love that because the power BI visualizations will provide the insights that LEAs need to really identify the positive impacts on what they are doing and identify opportunities for growth, all for student improvement.

00:24:32.55 AMY BITTERMAN: Great. Well, looking forward to hearing more. Maybe you both can come back and talk more about those reports once you've gotten them going and are using them with the state and districts, we'd love to hear more about them.

00:24:43.40 ADAM CHURNEY: Thank you for having us.

00:24:45.09 AMY BITTERMAN: Thank you both so much. Really appreciate it.

00:24:47.66 DOMINIQUE DONALDSON: Thank you so much

00:24:50.47 >> To access podcast resources, submit questions related to today's episode or if you have ideas for future topics, we'd love to hear from you. The links are in the episode content or connect with us via the podcast page on the IDC website at ideadata.org