Announcing NYKids New Study of Persistent and Emergent Positive Outlier Schools
Twentieth Year of NYKids Informing, Inspiring, and Improving
New year, new logo, new study!
NYKids is excited to announce that 2024 is our 20th year of fulfilling our mission “to inform, inspire, and improve.” We extend appreciation to the state of New York for its sustained support, and we are delighted to share our 20th anniversary logo designed by NYKids research assistant Jessie Tobin and on the suggestion of NYKids Advisory Board member Valerie Lovelace from the Greater Capital Region Teacher Center.
In light of 2024 being NYKids’ 20th year, we have designed a unique study. We are investigating schools we identified as positive outliers in prior NYKids studies (what we call “persistent positive outliers”) as well as those schools we identified as typically-performing yet have risen to positive outlier status (what we call “emergent positive outliers”).
This study is set within the context of New York state’s demographic shifts including rising poverty levels and increasing cultural and linguistic diversity, as well as changes in educational policies impacting curriculum, assessment, data use, teacher evaluation and more.
For this research, we will also be focusing in on technological innovations and alterations in engagement strategies for youth, families, and community partners. Our study is guided by the overarching research question:
What accounts for persistent and emergent positive outlier schools’ comparatively better outcomes for culturally, linguistically, and socio-economically diverse youth?
With the help of the NYKids Advisory Board, we designed this study to explore pressing issues facing educators today such as:
- Child and youth mental health and social-emotional wellbeing
- Educational equity especially for children and youth from diverse cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic backgrounds
- Family-school staff relationships and community partnerships
- Educator recruitment, retention, and professional learning
- Leadership for innovation and capacity building for improvement
How Did We Identify Persistent and Emergent Positive Outliers?
Since 2004, NYKids has studied schools that share the characteristic of having achieved above-predicted student outcomes considering the demographics of the student populations they serve. Our mission has been to not only better understand what may account for these outcomes, but to pass on promising practices from schools serving different populations and communities through our research reports, presentations, and blogs. Throughout this work, NYKids has drawn upon the diverse expertise of NYKids research collaborators Hal A. Lawson and Kathryn S. Schiller as well as University at Albany alums Francesca Durand and Maria Khan. We give a shoutout to colleague Dr. Kim Colvin at the University at Albany for offering her expertise in helping identify persistent and emergent positive outlier schools for the current study.
A Peek at Promising Practices and What’s Next
We have already conducted one site visit to Crown Point Central School in December 2023. Crown Point was first identified as a positive outlier in the 2017-2018 College and Career Readiness study. During our December visit we learned from educators about changes in the school and wider community as well as the strategies educators have used to meet youth, family, and educator shifting needs. While data analysis is underway, a peek at some of the promising practices we found in Crown Point include:
- Increasing the number of staff who provide mental health services for students on the school campus
- Providing teaching assistants and aides in classrooms to support educators with growing class sizes
- Utilizing parent and family communication strategies such as ParentSquare
- Collaborating with colleagues across grade levels to ensure that students’ unique needs are met as they transition from one grade to the next.
We are currently busy recruiting more persistent and emergent positive outlier schools for this study and will keep updates headed your way on what we find in blogs and research reports on the NYKids website.
As always, we thank you for your interest in NYKids! Please reach out to us at nykids@albany.edu if you would like one of our staff to present findings from this study to you and others in your organization. We also encourage you to contact us if you are interested in NYKids direct school improvement support and follow us on X, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
