INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY and DATA STRATEGY ANALYTICS
Contact Us
Data Lab
918-746-NERD (6373)
data@tulsaschools.org
Email data@tulsaschools.org for research request.
IT Service Desk
918-746-6300
ServiceDesk@tulsaschools.org
Hours of operation:
Monday - Friday, 7am - 5pm
it team
Information Technology (IT) at Tulsa Public Schools provides technology solutions that drive our journey to Destination Excellence. By unleashing the power of of technology, we foster a culture of continuous improvement and embrace the idea that every individual is a learner, contributor, and designer. We strive to provide a variety of technology services to meet our diverse customer needs and create cutting-edge learning environments for our students and teachers.
Classroom experience
Our schools are filled with eager, energetic, and innovative 21st century learners. We recognize the importance of technology in the classroom when it comes to engaging young people in the learning process. The IT team supports our teachers and school leaders to use technology in a way that further enriches each child's learning experience.
integrating Technology into schools and classrooms
We strive to provide technology that adds value to student learning experiences. Some recent classroom technology includes:
- Drones
- 3D Printing
- Google Expeditions (Virtual Reality)
Extending the classroom experience
Technology helps to ensure that learning never stops. We are committed to using technology to close learning gaps and increase equity for our students
Through the Sprint 1Million Project, many of our families will have access to mobile hotspots - providing them high-speed internet access.*
IT by the Numbers
We work to equip every student and school with great tools for learning. In the 2018-2019 school year, our schools will have:
3,800 interactive displays
Every classroom in our district will be equipped with interactive displays to support delivery of instruction. Schools are transitioning to Interactive Flat Display Panels.
40,000 devices
Every student in our district has access to devices, which include Chromebooks and tablets.
data team
What We Do
Teachers, school leaders, and support staff throughout our district rely on data provided by our team as they work to support students and families. Through real-time data, we can help answer questions like:
- How many absences has Jeremy had during the last two months?
- How have these absences impacted Jeremy’s academic performance?
- What intervention strategies are colleagues implementing to better support Jeremy?
The data team loves looking at numbers and helping our extraordinary educators answer important questions like these in an efficient and simple way so that they can better serve our students. We’re relentlessly focused on serving our schools - whether that's through partnering directly with teachers, creating data dashboards, or analyzing information behind the scenes.
Ways we support schools
Our team supports teachers, schools, and other district team members by providing:
- Analytic reports: We do the deep dives and find the insights to help us find ways to improve
- Data tools: We create tools for teachers and school leaders that can help make their jobs just a little bit easier
- Dashboards: Our data dashboards feature student, class, and school-level data visualizations and statistics for TPS team members
- Data requests: We fulfill data requests for TPS team members and community partners to help us all understand needs and trends to better support our students
- Research: Through the use of evidence and theory, we provide information that gets put into practice
- Program Evaluation: We analyze program performance and impact to ensure that we stay on track to Destination Excellence
Who We Are
Sean Berkstresser
Executive Director of Information Technology
berksse@tulsaschools.org
Data Team
Jonathan Mcilroy
Director of Data Strategy
mcilrjo@tulsaschools.org
Jim Provenzano
Application Programmer
proveji@tulsaschools.org
Darcie Hobbs
Data Strategist
hobbsda@tulsaschools.org
Chao Li
Data Strategist
lichao@tulsaschools.org
Jeremy White
Data Strategist
whiteje1@tulsaschools.org
Jennifer Santangelo
Manager of Data Policy & Practice
santaje@tulsaschools.org
Team Culture
What do we expect in ourselves as individuals?
We are self-directed, eager to take on challenging work, and open to feedback. Data team members never settle in place and are constantly building their expertise. We seek professional development opportunities and support each other in our personal and professional goals.
What does diversity look like on the data team?
We take pride in attracting individuals from varied backgrounds and in particular love finding team members who have school-site experience.. Each data team member contributes a distinct set of strengths and provides feedback to others on the team to help us all grow and develop our skills.
How do we collaborate with each other?
Reflected by our open-space office, we encourage accessibility and collaboration. For any given project owned by a Data team member, you will likely find others close by as either contributors or support.
With a sense of common purpose, we are able to distribute our work within the team. When facing roadblocks, we do not shy away from speaking up and asking for help.
How do we work with other teams in the district?
We actively contribute to a variety of district projects and help teams get clear on what we’re measuring and why. Given the support nature of our role within the district, we actively engage many teams across many district projects.
What tools do we use?
Our team maintains our data dashboards with Ruby on Rails, and we determine what improvements to make and what new features to add based on feedback from our school sites!
The main tools we use for analytics are Stata, R, and Python. To manage our code in a collaborative setting, we host and maintain our work on GitHub repositories.
Data Dashboards
The Data Dashboards were developed based on guidance, feedback, and insights from our teachers and school leaders. The Dashboards provide tools and visual displays of district data to teachers, principals, and district leaders. We are always gathering feedback and suggestions to help refine these tools.
You can view a few features of the Dashboard below:
Attendance
Student Profiles
Students have individualized profile pages with tabs tracking metrics such as attendance, test scores, transcript, grades, discipline, and graduation track progress.
Attendance
Student attendance information since the 2015-2016 school year might look like this:
Testing
Student MAP Math scores since fall 2014 might look like this:
Timeline
Student academic progress over time might look like this:
Transcript
Student Letters
What our teachers are saying
- "You guys are doing a great job! Love the updates."
- "Love getting the weekly data report!"
- "OMG, the drill down abilities are so amazing! I love that it includes grades and days in membership! I wish I was a principal so I could use this data to work with specific students!"
- "This program is great! So many things we need all in one place - a teacher's dream! This is one of the best tools I've seen from TPS."
- "Love it - great visuals that are understandable for parents. Plus, it's good to have all information on one page."
Become a Research Partner
Tulsa Public Schools is committed to the success of all students, staff, and schools and is actively involved in conducting educational research toward this goal. If you are a researcher who would like to partner with our organization in the pursuit of research, we invite you contact Elena Schmidt, our Director of Research and Evaluation at schmiel@tulsaschools.org.
The partnerships that we are most interested in establishing would:
- Pursue research questions that support our strategic plan, Destination Excellence
- Provide timely, actionable findings that benefit programming at Tulsa Public Schools
- Conduct research activities outside the periods of district-wide student assessment or other planned activities such as approved surveys
- Have a sound theoretical foundation and follow rigorous, appropriate methodologies
- Produce publicly disseminated research reports, presentations or publications, coordinated with Tulsa Public Schools
Please note that we are always mindful of the risks of disrupting teaching and learning with data collection, violating the privacy or other rights of participants, or any other harmful consequences of research activities. In most cases, establishing a partnership will also involve approval by an Institutional Research Board (IRB) or determination that IRB is not required that the researchers have to secure prior to active data collection. Additionally, partners will need to sign a data sharing agreement with Tulsa Public Schools.
If you are interested in becoming a research partner, please contact data@tulsaschools.org and we will contact you to discuss your proposal.
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