Featured Speakers
- Lenay Dunn, Senior Research Director, WestEd
- Alicia Okpareke, Senior Research Associate, WestEd
- Laia Tiderman, Data Integration Support Center, WestEd
- John Dolle, Systems Improvement Partnerships Lead, WestEd
- Kylie Flynn, Lead Senior Research Scientist, WestEd
Host
- Danny Torres, Associate Director of Events and Digital Media, WestEd
Danny Torres:
Well, hello everyone, and thank you very much for joining us. During today’s webinar, we’re discussing the launch of WestEd’s Research Practice Partnership Network. My name is Danny Torres. I’m associate director of events and digital media for WestEd. I’ll be your host.
Now, before we move into the contents of today’s webinar, I’d like to take a brief moment to introduce WestEd. As a non-partisan research, development, and service agency, WestEd works to promote excellence, improve learning, and increase opportunity for children, youth, and adults. Our staff partner with state, district, and school leaders providing a broad range of tailored services including research and evaluation, professional learning, technical assistance, and policy guidance. We work to generate knowledge and apply evidence and expertise to improve policies, systems, and practices.
Now I’d like to pass the mic over to Kylie Flynn, WestEd’s lead senior research scientist. Kylie, take it away.
Kylie Flynn:
Thanks, Danny. Welcome everyone. We really appreciate your time in joining us today. We’re really excited to share about WestEd’s new Research Practice Partnership Network. This network acknowledges that the needs of the education field are shifting quickly and dramatically. As we rise to the challenges in the field, we believe opportunities to collaborate and learn from each other across a variety of stakeholders will yield the best outcomes for the teachers, students, families, and communities we serve.
It’s my great honor and privilege to introduce two of my colleagues who will share more about research practice partnerships in general and WestEd’s approach around them, as well as information about the new WestEd network. They also recently did a Q&A about Research Practice Partnerships that’s published on WestEd.org if you’d like to check that out. I think Danny’s going to put a link to that in the chat.
Dr. Lenay Dunn is a former teacher and senior research director with over 20 years of experience in education research. She has expertise in mixed methods research, program evaluation, policy implementation, technical assistance, and the use of research evidence. Dr. Alicia Okpareke serves as a former, she’s also a former teacher and senior research associate. She partners with state and local education agencies, community organizations to advance work focused on educator pathways, teacher retention, literacy, and special education systems improvement. So I’m going to turn it over to Lenay.
Lenay Dunn:
Thank you so much, Kylie. Welcome everyone. We’re so glad to have you here and wanted to share a little bit about what we’re hoping to achieve today. We want to first just talk about research practice partnerships, how they work, how this collaborative approach can really help you address your local needs and challenges.
We want to share some examples of that collaborative approach, how WestEd is approaching that with our partners, give you some examples of what that looks like, and then give you the opportunity to engage with us in this RPP network and talk you through how to join the network and engage with us.
So that’s what we’ll be doing today. But we want to start off to learn a little more about who is here. So we have a poll that’s going to pop up and ask what your primary role is. So just picking one, recognizing that many of us wear multiple hats, some of us might be researchers and practitioners at the same time, but what’s your primary role? State, county, district, school, community organization, post-secondary, researcher, other. So just take a minute to fill that out and as we start to get some results, we’ll share that.
I think take just a few more seconds and then we’re going to see those results. Okay. So it looks like most of you are state education agency leaders or staff. That was 41%. And the next highest are researchers, about 27%. 14% district folks, 7% from community organizations, and 5% from post-secondary, and 7% are other. So we’ve got a good mix.
So it’s nice to know who’s in the room. We’ve got some good examples from state education agencies that we’ll be sharing. So hopefully that will resonate with the majority of the folks on this call. So thanks for sharing who you are and where you’re from.
So I want to first just start with, what is a research practice partnership? A research practice partnership, there are a lot of different definitions and our friends at the National Network for Education Research Practice Partnerships, or NNERPP, have really set a great definition of what a research practice partnership is. They have a plethora of tools and resources to help you learn about how to RPP. So we wanted to just start with this definition. So it’s really a long-term collaboration between researchers and practitioners.
So it’s not just working on one project together. It’s really saying, “How are we going to identify some long-term work together to address a challenge or an issue?” Some research practice partnerships work on more than one issue at a time. Some might work on one issue and then move to another issue. But the idea is it’s this long-term collaboration and this mutual benefit so that it’s not just for researchers to come and say, “We’re doing this kind of research, we want you to be a part of it.” It’s really grounded in the needs the practitioners and ensure that there’s a mutual benefit in that partnership.
It’s really designed to be driven by the local needs and challenges. So what do the partners need? What do the practitioners need? What are the challenges that they’re facing? That’s what the focus is. And then it’s bringing in evidence and expertise from the research and practitioner from the partners at the state education agency or the district. What are the expertise that’s at the table and understanding what each brings to that.
And I think that’s a really important part about a research practice partnership is that shared understanding of expertise that it’s not researchers have the expertise in coming to say what to do. It’s a partnership to understand how to tack tackle challenges together. And ultimately it’s focused on outcomes and focused on improvement. So how do you make improvements to systems or student outcomes? You’re focused on that and that you’re looking at data along the way to see how you’re doing on that. So outcome oriented, long-term collaboration, and a true partnership in using evidence and expertise to drive and make decisions.
I do encourage you check out some of the resources at NNERPP to learn a little more about that as well.
So now that you’ve heard the definition of what an RPP is, have you participated in one before? We have yes, no, and unsure. And we have unsure because there are formal and informal RPPs. So you may not have been in a formal one. You’re not sure if you have been, because sometimes it’s a little bit of an amorphous, amorphous status. So have you participated in one before? So take a minute to let us know. It’s helpful for us to know if people are familiar or have worked in one before.
Give that just a couple more seconds. Okay. Wow, great. So we have 47% saying yes, they have participated in RPP before, 30% have not, and 23% are unsure. So that’s great. So we’ve got a good mix of experience with RPPs here.
So hopefully that each of you, as you have questions and you’re approaching this from your own perspective and experience, feel free to pose some questions and bring in that experience and help us make this relevant to you and where you are coming from. So thanks for sharing that.
So we want to talk a little bit about what RPPs do. So the work of RPPs, and again, this can really vary, but the work of RPPs is really again, grounded in supporting partners at the state and local levels to address those challenges. Like what are you trying to tackle, and then how do you tackle that? We typically tackle it through research and evidence in various ways. So we’re going to kind of break that down and then give you some examples of what that looks like.
So using research evidence, that can be both research that the RPP generates. So you might be working on a research study together and it’s helping to use that research and evidence in your context. It could be that there’s another research study or an approach that you want to try to apply in your setting or you want to apply the learnings from it in your setting. So that’s another way we can use research evidence in a research practice partnership where we’re thinking about its application, we’re trying different things together.
It’s really grounded in the idea that you’re using that research and evidence to make decisions. So if you’ve got this high-leverage challenge that you’re trying to tackle, it’s bringing different kinds of research and evidence to understand and then use it to motivate to action, right? To make a decision, to realize we need to implement this evidence-based strategy or maybe we need to stop doing something else and shift.
So using the evidence to make decisions, and then also in that kind of cycle of continuous improvement, helping to use data along the way to understand how things are being implemented. So if the research practice partnership is tackling a specific challenge, they’re using an evidence-based practice to address it, they want to study and see is that working. So they want to look at the implementation of it, look at data to understand the implementation, use it in that continuous improvement cycle so that you do have the opportunity to learn and build capacity together.
I would really emphasize that’s a shared experience, that the learning and capacity building goes both ways between the researchers and the practitioners, that the practitioners are helping to build the capacity of the researchers and vice versa. So that is really an important part of it, is that reciprocity and the real grounding in the use of research and evidence to inform decisions and actions.
So I wanted to give you a couple of examples of how we at WestEd have used this research practice partnership approach to address some critical challenges with our partners. So the first example, this is probably something I know many of you are, at state education agencies, are dealing with teacher retention issues, right? We want to make sure that we’re keeping teachers in the profession. We know that the first three to five years, there’s a lot of drop-off in teacher retention, and that’s people are moving out of the profession.
So this was with an SEA, so state education agency, and initially was just with the state education agency, and then it was bringing in a consortium of districts that were committed to the idea of addressing teacher retention, especially for early career teachers. So committing to this exchange in this research practice partnership to say, “We’re going to come together to look at data and make action based on what we’re learning together.” So that challenge was addressing the early career teacher retention and how they did it.
So we worked with the practitioners at the state and local level to look at data. So we looked both at the state level data to understand the patterns of teacher retention, when it was happening, where it was happening, and then within the local districts, we did the same thing. So really having a shared learning community to look at that data together. And then collectively, the RPP identified an evidence-based practice that they wanted to implement that was trying to address teacher retention.
So they each implemented it a little bit differently because their local content context really drove the need, drove the way that they did the work, so they implemented that. And along the way, in the RPP, we were helping to identify and collect data that would inform the implementation of this strategy. And some made shifts to implementation based on the data that they were collecting and coming back as an RPP together to reflect on that data and use that data to make those kinds of decisions. They also were really trying to learn from each other about what was working or what wasn’t working.
I think one of the great results out of this research practice partnership was that they were able to use some of the data that they had collected to make the case for some additional funding for different teacher leadership pathways to help ensure retention of early career teachers. So using data, exchanging with each other, engaging in some action research together was really one of the ways that this RPP worked together.
I’m going to share another example, but this is at the local level. So this was with a district, one single district, that was trying to address chronic absence, which again, I know many of you at the state and local level have been really addressing chronic absence and the spikes that have happened since the pandemic. This district had very high rates of chronic absence that had spiked during the pandemic. And they really needed to know what actions to take, who needed the help. So it was really a partnership very singularly focused on chronic absence. Though other issues came into play about the drivers of chronic absence and how to address them.
So how did the RPP engage? Well, first they looked at data. They looked not only at the chronic absence data of the rates of who and where and which schools, but they also looked at across the schools in the district, what interventions were being implemented to address chronic absence, and collecting data about that to understand what the landscape was of chronic absence interventions, because that was really important to understand before they go and tackle a specific intervention or an evidence-based strategy, they wanted to know what was being implemented, and they learned a lot from that inventory about how disparate the interventions were and that there wasn’t really a connected system for how to address chronic absence across the district.
So then they worked to help identify some particular evidence-based practices that they would help support schools in implementing, and looking at the data, understanding the implementation of some of those strategies, what’s working, what’s not working, and use it to act and address issues like they have students who go through some additional interventions around attendance if they have been severely chronically absent, and understanding what were the referral processes into that. So studying together what the referral processes were, what that meant for how they were served, and then really trying to ensure that there was a plan in place.
And the district has seen reductions in chronic absence from these efforts, and they’re continuing. It’s a moving target, but they’re making some of those improvements and they’re doing it in a way that they’re driving the decisions by data and evidence with WestEd in the partnership to help address that with them.
So I wanted to share a few examples of what some of our research practice partnerships have looked like in action. And I’m going to pass it over to my colleague Alicia, who’s going to find out a little more about your challenges.
Alicia Okpareke:
Thanks, Lenay. It’s so good to have everyone here today. Thank you for taking time out to join us. We’re going to start with another type of poll. This one is going to be kind of a word cloud. We’re asking you, what are your biggest challenges or priorities right now? You can use the QR code here in this slide or there is also a URL here, and I think Danny will be putting that link in the chat as well.
Please try to enter your response as concisely as possible. Ideally one or two words that helps us with the word cloud. And take a moment to consider what might be most urgent or pressing for your organization or your agency. We’ll get responses in just a minute.
There we go. Oh, great. Thanks so much for sharing challenges and priorities. Looks like we have a range of responses. Some of the words are bigger. That shows that they were more commonly mentioned within this group right now. Not surprised to see evidence-based literacy instruction is one of the bigger ones. And we have math, teachers, special educators, instruction, retention, pipeline, a lot around workforce, and then of course attendance too, another one on literacy.
Let’s keep these in mind as we move forward and think about how the RPP network might support addressing some of these challenges and priorities. Okay, what is WestEd’s RPP network? Here we’ve listed the three kind of key features of the network.
First is this idea of co-identification. Lenay talked about this for a while, but this partnership and collaboration and identifying the key priorities and challenges. And it’s going to be led by you all, those of you that are in the field and on the ground. You know your schools, you know your communities. And so this ensures that we’re focusing on what matters to you and the individuals that make up your counties, your district, your schools, your communities.
Secondly, the network acts as a connector. We want to learn from each other, and we want to offer opportunities to do this. And I’ll talk about that a little bit later on.
And then we really believe in partnership here at WestEd. This is not a one-size-fits-all model, but something that’s flexible as a responsive approach to how we tackle concerns and interests.
So why join WestEd’s RPP network? Here’s a couple of reasons here. You have access to a WestEd researcher who’s going to work with you to do this co-development of your research agenda. And also we can assist you with securing additional funding if that’s needed. We also can give some technical assistance around the development of the research agenda if that’s something that you know you would like some support with.
We have additional WestEd experts who can come in and share insights and practices based on what you’ve identified in your research agenda. And we have webinars, this one being the very first one, but we’ll have webinars on topics that are relevant to the network. So we are going to ask you, members of the network, what it is that you want to talk about, learn more about, discuss, and then have those opportunities to collaborate and talk amongst each other as well as join WestEd projects that maybe match some of your priorities.
Who should join the network? Many of you. So everybody from district leaders, charter schools, school leaders, staff, state leaders and staff, county agencies, local education agencies. Also post-secondary, leaders, faculty staff. We also are very interested in educators and working with your school leaders and district leaders as well.
And so I’m going to hand this over to Laia now to give us a few more examples of kind of opportunities and approaches when you’re a part of the network.
Laia Tiderman:
Hello. Thank you, Alicia. It’s good to see all of you. I am Laia Tiderman. I came to this work after 15 years with the Maryland State Department of Education and the Maryland Longitudinal Data System Center. So it’s nice to see so many state agencies represented today.
I’m here to tell you a little bit about the Data Integration Support Center and how it really relates to this idea of a research practice partnership. We at the Data Integration Support Center provide technical assistance for public agencies that are integrating data across that education through workforce pipeline. We really specialize in connecting pre-K through workforce data systems, not just education silos, right? Which we sometimes operate in.
And so one of the things that we’re able to do is help you bridge those gaps in technical, legal, and governance between those sectors. We know that sometimes it’s a real struggle to link that data between early childhood, K-12 systems, post secondary, and the workforce. And we saw data sharing come up, and data sharing agreements come up in that word cloud. So that’s really where our support can come in and help you bridge those gaps.
So we know that there’s all kinds of gaps, right, along that pipeline. And we’re really here to help you bridge those gaps in really definitive and concrete ways. So that might mean supports with establishing data sharing agreements, establishing governance structures, making sure you have policy that aligns across those sectors to really support the integration of those data systems.
We know that this relationship, these relationships can get really complex, right? There’s multiple agencies, there’s competing priorities, there’s different cultures, and we’re really here to help those integration efforts happen within months, not years, right? We know that these things sometimes get stuck. And so we’re here to provide both that technical assistance and that national and objective expertise to help bridge those gaps.
So there was a lot of talk about how researchers learn from practitioners and practitioners learned from the researchers. The same thing is true for the technical assistance we provide. We support many states. We’ve supported 27 states so far in the past couple years. And we learn from them, and then we take that information and can share it back with those public agencies that we support, and can say, “Hey, this is what so and so did, and this is how you could leverage that information.”
So we support states and public agencies across a number of focus areas, including planning and community engagement. So even if you’re just thinking about how these data sectors fit together and bridging those silos, we can help you think strategically about how you would plan that out. We provide legal supports. We know that your legal staff is often understaffed and have a lot of things that they need to know about. And so we really provide that expertise in data sharing to help bridge that gap for your legal stuff.
We also do work on AI readiness. There’s a lot of data here, and how do we use that data in new and innovative ways, particularly around AI. And then we also support public agencies in modernizing their data systems, including modernized security and privacy controls to help make sure that that data is secure. And then we provide governance across all of those areas. So we know that data governance, AI governance, just general agency governance are all really important to making sure that these things and the data itself supports the work and the practitioners.
And then I’m going to pass it over to John.
John Dolle:
Thanks, Laia. The data integration challenges that Laia just described, competing priorities, resource needs, knowledge gaps. These show up across every domain of education systems. I’m John Dolle. I lead WestEd Systems Improvement Partnerships. Whether you’re tackling data integration, the teacher retention, and chronic absenteeism issues we talked about earlier, instructional improvement, or operational challenges, the approach I’m about to share applies.
In our research practice partnerships, we bring together three essential types of knowledge that successful improvement efforts require. The first, which we’ve talked a bit about, is research knowledge, and this is really about understanding what works based on research evidence. Sometimes subject matter expertise exists in-house in your organizations, but WestEd brings research expertise that can often complement or supplement that expertise that you have in house.
Second is professional knowledge, and this lives within your organization. You understand your organizational context, your specific structures, your actual processes. This practitioner expertise is irreplaceable. Third is improvement knowledge. This is expertise in how systems function, how to design for users, how to see and understand variation, and the psychology of organizational change.
In our partnerships, we bring this lens while you bring the professional knowledge of your context. Together, we combine them to design improvements that actually work for your reality. Systems improvement happens when we combine these three in creative and collaborative ways. That’s the heart of our RPP approach. Not handing you a report, but partnering to transform your systems and outcomes together.
So what does this look like in practice? Let me show you how we work together. You saw earlier how RPPs address teacher retention and chronic absence. Systems improvement provides a methodology for partnership. In our RPP network, we start with your needs, the real challenges you’re facing. Here are four common ones and the partnering opportunities we create together.
First, why are we getting these results? Through current state analysis, tools like needs assessment and pathway walks, we help you uncover the root causes, not just the symptoms of your current outcomes.
Second, how do we organize to achieve our goals? In partnership, we work with your leadership team to clarify your vision, develop a living strategic plan based on the current state analysis, and build action plans with real-time problem solving routines. This isn’t about producing a glossy report that sits on a shelf. It’s a strategy that evolves as you learn.
Third, how do we know if changes are actually improvements? Together, we build improvement analytics. This can focus on specific processes. For example, we’ve partnered with elementary schools to protect student writing time. We’ve also helped districts get buses to arrive on time, and that’s an important precondition for learning. And it can scale up to performance management systems that give leaders real time visibility across attendance, safety, academics, interventions, and even costs.
Fourth, how do we improve faster using evidence? In partnership, we develop change packages, tools that consolidate the best research evidence into accessible, applicable formats. Rather than starting from scratch, you get a curated resource for evidence-based interventions that address your specific problems.
Now, these partnering opportunities aren’t isolated supports. They can work together in a phased approach to transformation. System transformation follows a progression. It starts with strategy development where we work together on current and future state analysis, building your roadmap and aligning your actions. We then move to strategy deployment. That’s the green area in the middle. And where we start in that area depends on your current state.
We often find instability, and so we begin with stabilization. In instruction, this might mean getting complete, accurate assessment data or establishing basic classroom management routines. With that foundation, we move to standardization, building shared definitions of quality and shared processes for delivering work. Once we can reliably, once work can be reliably delivered, you can rapidly improve it.
Finally, transformation. This is where we, this is about moving from a slice of the system of the organization to system-wide deployment. This is where you see sustainable change at scale. Through the RPP network, you get access to a WestEd researcher who partners with you through this entire journey, combining research, professional, and improvement knowledge to transform your systems. Plus, you get ongoing technical assistance across access to webinars on topics that are relevant to the network and connection to other partners working on similar challenges. We’re excited to explore how we might work together.
Now I’ll turn back to Alicia.
Alicia Okpareke:
Thanks so much, John. So now is kind of the extra fun part, I think. This is where we’re going to take a quick tour of the actual site where you can sign up to be a network member. Kylie and I are going to demonstrate. I’m going to share screen in just a moment. You can see here there is a QR code and the URL if you want to also follow along and kind of view it yourself.
So when we get to this screen, the first thing you want to do is you’re going to want to sign up. Once you’ve signed up, then you can log in every other time. But we’re going to move to the sign-up. You can put in your email address. We’re going to use our network one right now. And then you’ll want to create a password. Confirm your password next. Gotta match. All right. And then you’ll put in your first and last name. Since this is a test, we’re going to just use “Test.” And then you’ll need to agree to the privacy policy and that you’re not a robot.
Kylie Flynn:
This is something you’re welcome to do on your own, but if you’d like, someone from the WestEd team could join you for a quick call and do this with you. I’m going to pretend to be an administrator at an educational agency.
Alicia Okpareke:
Yes. So after you do this initial screen to sign in, we’re going to then have you fill out some of your preferences. So this is where you get to identify some of those priorities or challenges, and then we’ll get to start to see matches.
Okay, Kylie, so do you have a district or organization name?
Kylie Flynn:
Sure, let’s just say I’m from the California Department of Education.
Alicia Okpareke:
What is your job title?
Kylie Flynn:
I am the director of math learning. I’m making that up.
Alicia Okpareke:
And what grade levels of interest, are you interested in? And I think it’s important here that you can maybe be wide and broad about this. You can make it narrow about something very specific you’re interested in. But if you maybe also want to see more options, you can make it broader.
Kylie Flynn:
Yeah, well, as a state agency, I’m interested in all the grade levels.
Alicia Okpareke:
Okay, let’s grab them all. And what are your content areas that you’re interested in right now?
Kylie Flynn:
Well, obviously mathematics is very important to me, but I also know that the Department of Ed is very concerned about literacy too. And you saw that in the word cloud literacy was the largest. So let’s just stick with those two.
Alicia Okpareke:
Okay, sounds good. Also, we can’t do populations if we want to focus on a very specific population. I think right now, given that you’re a state agency, maybe we will just keep it broad.
Kylie Flynn:
Okay.
Alicia Okpareke:
Okay, the last part here is an inquiry about whether you are interested in being a premier partner. And Kylie, I’ll let you talk a little bit about that real quick. There is a little info button that tells you a little bit about it, but this is just kind of a way to learn more about it. You’re not committing to anything here, but this is a way to show interest in this.
Kylie Flynn:
Yeah, this is really, you know, this is really about joining the network, whether or not you’re willing to be part of the network or if you just want to be matched to a particular researcher or project that addresses your specific needs. So those are the two options.
Alicia Okpareke:
Then you press save. And then the next screen will then start showing you your matches. And what you’ll notice here is our matches are broken down by potential projects that are open and matched with your interests and available, as well as then you can click on the Researcher tab to see researchers who match your areas of interest as well.
For each of them, like we can click on it, and you can see more about the researcher, and you can mark “Interested” or “Not Interested” as well for anything that you see. I’m going to go back. The same for the projects, and this is a way to learn more about either that researcher or that project. If you see a project, let’s say what’s this first Reading Apprenticeship. When you click on and it’s something that’s interesting, you want to know more, you read a little bit. You go to the project website, you can click interested as well to indicate that you’re interested in learning more about it.
Kylie Flynn:
And one thing I just want to say about the purpose of this site. The purpose of the site is to help centralize and help the WestEd team start to understand what are the needs that are being elevated as people complete this form. You saw it just took a few minutes. Once we get that, that’ll help drive and inform the engagement of the RPP network, and it helps us to start to identify what are some of the shared needs across our network that we might be interested in starting to learn from together.
Alicia Okpareke:
Thank you, Kylie. All right, I’m going to stop sharing now, and I think we’re going to move to some Q&A.
Kylie Flynn:
Yeah, so I’ve gotten some great questions in the Q&A. The first question was, is the DISC partnership an example or the type of RPP WestEd is encouraging, or is it at the heart of this opportunity? So that was a great question. Those of you familiar with WestEd know that we have a very deep bench of expertise across all content domains, math, literacy, science, engineering, computer science, as well as special populations, English learners, special education students.
So it would have been overwhelming to bring in all of our, exemplify sort of all of our expertise. And one of the benefits to joining the network is that you get that WestEd liaison who will help bring you, like John was saying, bring you the expertise that is most central to the challenge that you want to address. So the DISC partnership was one example, and that is something that is supported through foundation funding. So it is a service that can be easily provided. The systems improvement work that John talked about is another example. Or you may want to drill down into a particular content area domain like evidence-based literacy practices. So regardless of what your needs are, it’s very likely that we’ve got somebody here at WestEd and the role of that liaison would help to bring you the right expertise.
Another question that we got, which is a really great question and something that we talked about just yesterday, Lenay, somebody asked if your state may be reluctant to participate, is there a way that an individual could can participate and benefit from the partnership? So here’s the response to that.
At the core of the RPP network, the work that you would do with that WestEd liaison is to co-develop a research agenda. And I may ask Lenay or Alicia to talk a little bit more about that if time allows. And so there would be, we would prefer that there is some commitment on the part of the agency to share data and to engage in some type of research work. If external funding is needed, WestEd would be willing to commit to help, for example respond to an RFP, maybe from a foundation or some other organization so to help you seek funding. So WestEd is committed, and it would, we think that there’d be more benefits if your agency was committed.
That being said, if you as an individual are interested in joining, you would have access to, we plan on holding regular webinars either once a month or once every two months, about a topic that the network has selected. So individuals could certainly benefit from that and attend those. So individuals can participate. This is a long answer, but individuals can participate but might not get the full benefits, but would certainly get some benefits.
Some, oh, what are the commitments of the partnership? Great question. This is our vision, but we would really want to hear from you. Our current thinking, and what we’ve been doing with our current participants is meeting once a month. We think it’s important to have a regular meeting cadence and try to stick with that to help build some of those routines that are really central to effective RPPs.
So a monthly meeting to work out that co-development of the research agenda, establish some infrastructure, like do we need a data sharing agreement? Currently it’s just a partnership letter, so it’s not a necessarily a binding legal document. Perhaps you’re going to seek funding together, so sort of identify those needs, do some need sensing. But a monthly hour-long meeting with your WestEd liaison, and then of course attendance at the RPP network webinars. You know those are optional, but we do think that they would be of really great value.
I’m going to pause for a minute to see if any of my colleagues have anything to add. We do have a few more questions, but we’re okay on time.
Lenay Dunn:
Sure, I just wanted to add because we got a question, I think that didn’t go to the whole chat, but I want to make sure it’s clear here about just the cost. So there’s not a cost to participate in the RPP network. There may be, and it’s those activities of the building a research agenda, participating in the webinars, some of that initial consultation, and then there might be opportunities that we want to go pursue funding together. If there is a particular topic you really want to dig deeply into, that would be the way to do more intensive work. But joining the network, participating in the network, there is no cost to that.
Alicia Okpareke:
And if there’s a project that matches, that you’re matched with and you think aligns with your agency, there’s not a cost to join those projects.
Kylie Flynn:
Yes, we do have projects that are already funded, and if there’s good alignment there, then you’re free. You know, you’re welcome to join those.
Okay, so some additional questions. Is there a way to participate such that WestEd supports SEA partnerships with university-based researchers to help build and augment IHE capacity rather than supplanting it? Lenay, are you willing to take that question? I think that that’s, I mean, I think that might be feasible.
Lenay Dunn:
I was scrolling through the rest of the rest of the questions, but I think I just found that one. So that WestEd supports SEA partnerships with university-based researchers to help build and augment IHE capacity, rather than supplanting it. Yeah, I think we really want to make sure that we’re working within your local context, and if you as a state agency have a partner that you’re working with, and you want us to connect and collaborate, I think that that is a great opportunity, and I think that would be something with your WestEd liaison that you could really talk about and understand that unique partnership and what that might look like.
But I think the idea is we want to help you help get to the outcomes that you want, and if there are key people you’re collaborating with, that’s something that we certainly could look into and work with you on.
Kylie Flynn:
Yeah, I’ll give it, and the same would go for community organizations as well that might be supporting their local school districts. Another example of an existing partnership we have is a foundation that supports an alliance of districts, and they’re one of our partners, so they have a relationship with each other and WestEd is supporting that relationship. So I think that this would sort of fall into a similar category.
Next question is, will I be able to share this video with my organization? Absolutely. We encourage you to do that. And I think Danny said it’ll be available within a couple of weeks.
Who would be responsible for the IRB or would that be an individual agency or project-dependent? I think that would be project-dependent because that might vary depending on the kinds of data that’s being shared, who’s leading the work. If it’s a WestEd-led project, typically WestEd’s IRB, but sometimes a school district may want it to go through their IRB. So that is project or sort of relationship-dependent.
Other questions? So Lenay or Alicia, would either of you like to speak to this a little bit more about what this co-development of a research agenda looks like?
Alicia Okpareke:
Sure, I can say something, and if Lenay wants to add anything on. The co-development really I think is led by the partner, so not WestEd. These are conversations and discussions to talk about what is important to you and your context. And I think John also talked a little bit about this as bringing any data that you have that might help us better understand it, and then together working through what kind of questions you want answered based on the content or the topic that we’ve identified. And it’s usually over a couple of conversations and discussions, and it’s usually a range of individuals from the agency or the organization that participates.
Lenay Dunn:
I think the thing that a research agenda can help you do is there are, either you’re asked to participate in a lot of different research or you at your agency are interested in a lot of different topics, and it helps you prioritize and identify what topics you’re really ready to jump in on as well. And like Alicia and Kylie shared earlier, there are some WestEd projects that are funded and looking for research partners. And this is a great way to say, “Does this align with my research agenda?” Because you want to be engaging in research that is supporting your ongoing needs and efforts and the desired outcomes you have.
So I think it also just really helps to serve as a guide for you and your agency in terms of what do we want to pursue, how do we want to do that, what decisions do we need to make, and how would research help inform the decisions that we need to make?
Kylie Flynn:
All right. Just a couple of things that I wanted to, I know that you’ve seen this in the chat, but the easiest way to get a hold of us is either to go on the website that Alicia and I showed you and sign up, or if you’re just an email person, you can email [email protected], and someone will get back to you, and the recording and transcripts will be available online within a couple of weeks. And as we said earlier, you’re welcome to share the video recording with other people in your organization.
And we really think that the network is an opportunity for us to start learning, for the field to start learning from one another. We tend to do great work in silos, and I know that state partners love to hear about what’s happening in other states, as do school districts and community organizations, so we think there’s a really great opportunity for sharing knowledge through this network. And we really appreciate your time today, and thanks for joining.
Danny Torres:
Well, thank you Lenay, Alicia, Kylie, Laia, and John for a great session today, and thank you to all our participants for joining us. We really appreciate you being here.
If you’re interested in learning more about WestEd and staying connected, you can sign up for WestEd’s email newsletter to receive updates, subscribe online at wested.org/subscribe, or you can scan the QR code displayed on the screen here. You can also follow us on LinkedIn and BlueSky.
With that, thank you all very much. We’ll see you at the next webinar.