The West Dallas STEM School Story: Early Evaluation of a School-Community-University-Industry Partnership

Abstract Information: The West Dallas STEM School (WDSS) is a four way partnership between a school district, the local university, a STEM industry partner, and the community where the school is located. This presentation will tell the story of how an evaluation approach, oriented toward iterative improvement, was co-developed by all partners. The WDSS evaluation story is unique in that documenting a replicable model of the partnership was a founding aim of the partnership; all parties acknowledged the potential for replication from day one and a concerted effort to develop playbooks and generate accruing evidence has been a cornerstone of the work. The story of the WDSS evaluation starts with initial workshops to solicit community members’ vision and aspirations for the school; it continues through co-development of a theory of change in partnership with an external evaluator, selection of measures and building consensus around what constitutes success for all partners in the short and long term. The story of the WDSS evaluation also includes purposeful strategies to include university faculty to conduct research studies, collaboration with the school district to formalize permissions and data sharing agreements, and strategies to share emerging findings back with the school community to inform professional development and provision of student support services. The presentation will conclude by describing long term plans for impact evaluation and our efforts to establish the WDSS as a replicable model.

Relevance Statement: The West Dallas STEM School (WDSS) is a four way partnership between a school district, the local university, a STEM industry partner, and the community where the school is located. In this neighborhood, as in many other low-SES communities, high school graduation lags behind other schools, and access to college degrees and higher wage jobs is lacking. The STEM school partnership aims to disrupt these status quo realities and utilizes evaluation as a lever for school and social change.
The story of the WDSS began when partners came together to propose a transformation public school of choice in a long-neglected neighborhood of Dallas, TX. The school opened in the 2021-22 school year. The aim of the WDSS initiative is two-fold: to support students toward college and career readiness, and to develop a replicable model of the partnership. The early intention to replicate has informed and animated the overall approach to evaluation – through a three year planning phase, and into the first two years of implementation. Partners acknowledged that in education, a common phenomenon is that new initiatives start to show promise, and grow in popularity. Districts begin adopting new models, but too frequently, adequate evidence about the conditions and prerequisites to ensure high integrity implementation does not exist. Model implementation is then modified or watered down and initial promising results are not achieved. Due to lack of outcomes, models are abandoned and the cycle begins again. The story of the WDSS evaluation is one that sought to purposefully disrupt this pattern by documenting in detail the actions of the partnership prior to launching the school, including existing and enabling conditions in the district and school community.
The WDSS model encompasses the four way partnership (the school and school district, the local university, a STEM industry partner, and the school community). The project utilizes an improvement science lens to implement and evaluate four key components of the work: 1) STEM curriculum and inquiry based instruction, 2) professional learning to support instruction that utilizes incoming data to make iterative improvements, 3) wraparound social supports provided to students and families through collaboration with local non-profits, and 4) use of research, evaluation and improvement by all members of the partnership. A theory of change, logic model, and evaluation plan with customized measures was co-developed with input and meaningful participation from all partners, and has been led most recently by an external evaluator. The evaluation is designed to provide rapid feedback for iterative improvements to instructional supports and wrapround services as well as to document long term impacts on key indicators of success including student academic achievement (in STEM especially) and college and career readiness. Research is also a key part of the WDSS story; this presentation will describe how permissions for both research and evaluation were simultaneously pursued and an internal structure at the university to support faculty members in proposing sub-studies under the overall project permissions structure.