Committee vets public dashboard to show support for early‑career teachers; staff to refine metrics

The Educator Excellence Committee on May 28 reviewed a draft public dashboard intended to show the committee’s progress supporting early‑career teachers and directed staff to refine which indicators appear to the public.

Bernice, the committee’s executive director, opened the discussion and said the goal was to identify dashboard elements that “work for the body of work you all are leading on this committee to support early career teachers.” She asked members what the public would want to see and said staff would return with several iterations based on the committee’s feedback.

Representative Williams urged the committee to front‑load what it has already produced rather than only showing plans. “Focus in on what we've actually done to date rather than what we had laid out here,” Williams said, calling for the dashboard to list concrete outputs such as interviews, panel events and an internal report by Taylor so the committee can claim credit for completed work.

Members suggested the public dashboard include direct links to materials — the internal report, any recorded panel or vendor research — so users can access the evidence behind recommendations. One member proposed a simple quantitative indicator: the number of educators the committee has engaged through interviews, panels and focus groups, noting that a small sample could weaken the credibility of any recommendations.

Staff reported that the contractor’s focus groups included 34 participants in total and that more than 400 educators had signed up or shown interest, figures the committee cited as evidence of broad interest. Members asked staff to request the participant list so the committee could follow up with additional engagement (surveys or other outreach) and keep interested educators informed.

On process, members agreed to split outreach responsibilities among themselves to avoid overburdening any single person while still briefing a broad set of partners, including WTU, DME, District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS), Empower K12 and the Charter School Alliance. Volunteers identified leads for specific organizations and proposed scheduling outreach meetings in late June and July so the committee can present stakeholder input before going to the full council with specific asks.

The committee set a tentative follow‑up meeting for June 22 to review the focus‑group draft report and asked Jen to circulate scheduling details. Staff said Nathan would present the focus‑group results before the committee finalizes dashboard choices. The chair closed the meeting, asking staff to circulate assignments and a proposed narrative arc to guide outreach ahead of the next session.

The committee did not take any formal votes during the meeting; members focused on refining dashboard content, documenting existing outputs and organizing outreach to partners.