5 Steps to Building an At-Risk Student Model

Earlier this month (April 2016) Illuminate Education partnered with Edweek to give webinar presentation on how schools can implement an Early Warning System (EWS). We were so thrilled with the response that we wanted to give a quick summary of what we discussed in the Webinar. Dr. Chris Balow authored and gave the presentation; below are his 5 steps in establishing an early warning system.

1. Create District/School Leadership Teams

Implementation Science is pretty clear that when district level leadership is involved from the beginning Early Warning Systems have a higher probability of success.

2. Identify Key Risk Factors of At-Risk Students

The most common at-risk indicators: Engagement, Academic Performance, and Behavior

3. A Comprehensive Data System

The system must be able to manage and report on ANY data source and be in one convenient place for staff and administration (i.e. all types of test scores, attendance, behavior, perceptual data, surveys).

4. Build Your Early Warning System

Determine your “progress monitoring” schedule using the following metrics: Attendance, GPA, Course Failures, and Behavior.

5. Analyze Your Data

First look at student-level patterns followed by school-level patterns, and then, adjust cut points based on this on-going analysis

There’s a whole lot more in the actual presentation and we’d love for you to take a look! If you already registered for it and want to see it again, click here! Didn’t register but still want to watch? Not a problem, click here and register to get access to the recording of the presentation. Finally, if you don’t have time to watch the whole webinar here are the slides directly from the presentation.

By the way, this isn’t our first time talking about Early Warning Systems either! Check out our other blog posts all about EWS here:

Create an Early Warning System and Give Your Teachers X-Ray Vision!

Student Early Warning Systems: An Introduction and Best Practices