Everett Public Schools to link ‘essential practices’ to student outcomes, build Synergy dashboard

Everett Public Schools board members on Feb. 20 heard a progress report on a district initiative to identify “essential practices” in classrooms, attach data measures to those practices and build a Synergy-based dashboard to monitor effectiveness.

The work aims to tie measures directly to the district’s student priority outcomes so leaders can spot where instructional supports or professional development are needed. Dr. Beckney, the initiative lead, told the board the effort is intended to create “actionable data” that is tied to the strategic plan and to build the system from the ground up.

District staff described the initiative as a three-year effort. Year 1 (current year) focused on refining the set of essential practices identified in earlier work and drafting the measures that could indicate whether those practices are in place. As staff collect those measures, year 2 will use Synergy’s analytics module to begin visualizing the data. Year 3 will combine those visualizations into a district data dashboard with versions tailored to different audiences — for example, public reports and internal school leader views. Staff said the target is to have dashboard work completed by December 2025 and to finalize features over the following summer so principals can use them for school improvement planning in the 2026–27 school year.

What the district calls an “essential practice” is a practice expected to appear across classrooms and that is supported by research or local evidence. Dr. Beckney gave the example of teachers using adopted, standards-aligned instructional materials with clear learning targets as a practice the district would expect to see systemwide. The initiative team is developing two kinds of measures: implementation measures (how many teachers use a practice, professional learning participation, observable classroom evidence) and impact measures (changes in student assessment results). “We are building something from the ground up, and it is something that is focused on our student priority outcomes,” Dr. Beckney said.

Staff emphasized stakeholder engagement: the initiative has worked with the executive and academic cabinets, administrators and initiative members so far and plans to expand outreach to instructional and certificated staff, support staff and building leadership later this year. The team reported five milestone deliverables for year 1 and described an implementation tracking document that lists success criteria, target dates and current status for each deliverable.

Board members asked how the district determines what counts as “essential.” Staff said the definition blends research-based instructional practices, district vision documents that describe high-quality instruction in each content area, and evidence from classrooms that are already showing positive student outcomes. Dr. Golden and other staff added that local performance data and practitioner expertise inform the selection so the district can scale what already works.

Staff also said the initiative will coordinate with other strategic initiative teams, including MTSS and grading‑practices teams, to align measures and avoid duplication. Monitoring practices will use the district’s project-tracking format (referred to in the presentation as a “run show” document) to report progress and implementation status to leadership.

No formal votes were taken on the initiative during the workshop. Board members and staff agreed to continue stakeholder engagement and technical work with Synergy ahead of the analytics rollout.

Next steps listed by staff include finalizing the measures draft, sharing it with expanded stakeholders this spring, piloting visual reports with Synergy partners and producing dashboard prototypes for leadership review later in 2025.