Education Week - January 23, 2019 - 22

SUPERINTENDENT

TOP SCHOOL JOBS's K-12 TALENT MANAGER

How BIG Data Can Inform and Innovate HR in K-12 Education
Westwood Public Schools
The Superintendent of the Westwood Public
Schools invites qualified candidates to apply for
the position of Director of Business and Finance.
Westwood is a community of about 15,000
residents located 15 miles southwest of Boston.
The Westwood Public Schools offers a highquality educational program to approximately
3,100 students in grades PreK-12.
For additional information about the Westwood
Public Schools, please refer to the district
website at www.westwood.k12.ma.us.
General Summary:
The Director of Business and Finance reports to
the Superintendent of Schools and is responsible
for the effective implementation of all financial
and business operations, including budget
development (both operating and capital),
implementation and supervision. The Director
of Business and Finance also oversees longrange planning, fund accounting, and internal/
external audits for the Westwood Public Schools.
The individual prepares statistical and narrative
reports, including financial statements for the
Superintendent and the School Committee, as
well as for all state and federal reports. He or
she is responsible for the supervision of all noninstructional support functions, and provides
direct supervision to the Director of Operations,
Director of Food Services, and Business Office
staff. Functions performed by the Business
Office include payroll, purchasing, inventory
control, data processing, and transportation.
The salary range for this position is between
$125,000 to $145,000 per year. A generous
benefits package will be offered. The start date
for this position is July 1, 2019 unless an earlier
start date is mutually agreeable.
To access the applications, please visit:
www.westwood.k12.ma.us/employment
*
*
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Position Type: Full-time
Positions available: 1
Salary: $125,000-$145,000 per year

Job requirements:
Citizenship, residency or work visa required.
Contact Information:
Emily Parks, Superintendent of Schools
220 Nahatan St.
Westwood, MA 02090
Phone: 781-326-7500 x 1340
Email: eparks@westwood.k12.ma.us
The Westwood Public Schools prohibits
discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex,
gender identity, religion, national origin or
sexual orientation and is an equal opportunity
employer. Candidates of diverse backgrounds
are encouraged to apply.

This is a guest post by Tony Bagshaw, Teresa Daulong, and
Emily Douglas-McNab
In today's data-rich, technology-driven world, being a "data
nerd" is cool. Even Harvard Business Review has said that
"data scientist" is the sexiest job of the 21st century. Are we
surprised? From who we engage with on social media to what
clothes we purchase online to the music we download, people
around the world are collecting and analyzing massive amounts
of data every day. The exponential growth and availability of
data is often described as "big data"--and it has become a critical tool for businesses, governments, and other organizations.
Why? As SAS® explains, "More data may lead to more accurate analyses. More accurate analyses may lead to more confident decision making. And better decisions can mean greater
operational efficiencies, cost reductions, and reduced risk."
For example, data can help doctors to better diagnose illnesses
to save lives. Grocery stores use the data they glean from various sources to reduce internal foot-traffic jams. Marketing departments use data to target products to customers based on
their buying history. Police departments use data to uncover evidence that may help solve cold cases. Even the airline industry
uses big data to provide piece-of-mind that your baggage will
make it to your destination on time!
Big data doesn't necessarily mean more data. It's about
being able to analyze non-relational data and draw conclusions
upon which to strategically act. If used in appropriate ways, HR
data can teach us a great deal about an individual's drivers and
behavior, performance, needs, and their potential.
There is tremendous potential for using big data to help HR departments be proactive in hiring candidates who fit the organization's culture, identifying the best benefit package to meet employees' needs, managing employee absences, and more.
If you're wondering how to assess the maturity of your own big
data use in HR, Bersin and Associates has built a maturity
model to support your analysis. They describe four levels of maturity:
* Reactive
* Proactive
* Strategic Analytics
* Predictive Analytics
The youngest stage is the Reactive stage--where organizations
create reports for measuring efficiency and compliance. This is
where many HR departments in K-12 education sit. We believe
this is due to the availability of HR data and integrated technology management systems in K-12 organizations.
The next stage in maturity is the Proactive stage. This is where
reporting is done, and data are collected for benchmarking and
decisions making. Some organization use dashboards to assist
in these efforts. A handful of K-12 organizations use scorecards
and dashboards to drive change and improvement.
The next step-up is Strategic Analytics. This is where statistical
analysis is done to identify root causes, commonalities, and correlations.
Finally, Predictive Analytics means the organization uses big
data and algorithms to create predictive models, complete scenario planning, and mitigate risk. This level of sophistication requires the right data, technology, leader, strategy, and a data
analytics team.
While many organizations see the benefits of using big data,
most organizations have a ways to go in to develop a strong HR

analytics strategy. According to a whitepaper by the Harvard
Business Review Analytics Services Team, "The Big Data Opportunity for HR and Finance," 71% of CEOs surveyed view
their people as the top factor contributing to sustainable economic value. Yet, their top ranked priorities were operations
(73%), customers (50%), sales (49%), and HR (43%). Further,
when asked where their organizations were making investments
in big data, sales and marketing were reported as receiving the
largest financial investments when it comes to big data use. HR
was the lowest of all 10 options.
For those interested in learning more about data mining or data
science, in additional to the mass amount of articles online, universities, such as Columbia, Johns Hopkins University, and the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign offer free online
courses through platforms like Coursera.
While the federal No Child Left Behind Act and other federal and
state policies have placed a clear focus on capturing data to
measure student performance, districts are also seeing the value
in using big data for talent management, process improvement,
and customer service to improve educational opportunities for
students. Tulsa Public Schools (TPS) Human Capital department has been using big data to foster improvement over the
past two years. The District's strategic plan laid out a vision for
shared accountability, which means that every department has a
balanced scorecard with aligned measures and data, a defined
reporting schedule and structured Board updates. The Human
Capital department has measures around teacher and leader effectiveness, recruiting and retention, and customer service. The
department is using this data to improve processes, increase the
effectiveness of its hiring practices and provide exceptional service to customers. Using this data-driven improvement approach, the district has seen great success. For example, Talia
Shaull, Chief Human Capital Officer, shares that TPS, "has seen
results, such as a reduction in support staff turnover by 6% in the
past year and a 38% reduction in the number of complaints received in our HC department over prior year. Having data allows
us to make informed decisions and proactively address issues
as we move forward down our path of continuous improvement."
For those who find Tulsa's working interesting and are looking
for resources, since 2008, the Harvard University Strategic Data
Project (SDP) has partnered with districts and education organizations to "bring high-quality research methods and data analysis to bear on strategic management and policy decisions." Their
goal is to improve student achievement and growth by transforming how individuals and districts use data. The SDP has
identified strategic performance indicators and a diagnostic for
human capital focused on teacher recruitment, placement, development, evaluation, and retention/turnover. Visit http://cepr.
harvard.edu/sdp/ to access the SDP toolkit with step-by-step
instructions on collecting, cleaning, and analyzing data to run the
analysis yourself! They even offer a free "Strategic Use of Data
Rubric" that provides districts the chance to assess their
strengths and weaknesses when it comes to using data.
Every day, teachers, principals, and district leaders collect a
large amount of data, including student performance, bus-ontime statistics, staff retention, work order response times, open
positions. The list of data points seems to keep on growing.
In summary, successful use of big data is not determined by how
much data you collect. Success happens when data consumers
understand the data and its appropriate uses for improvement.
To read the complete blog post, visit http://blogs.edweek.org/
topschooljobs/k-12_talent_manager/.
The opinions expressed are strictly those of the author and do
not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in
Education.

Got Career Questions?

Get Expert Advice
visit www.TopSchoolJobs.org
under Career Resources click Get K-12 Career Advice
22 | EDUCATION WEEK | January 23, 2019 | www.topschooljobs.org

http://www.westwood.k12.ma.us http://blogs.edweek.org/topschooljobs/k-12_talent_manager/ http://www.westwood.k12.ma.us/employment http://cepr.harvard.edu/sdp/ http://cepr.harvard.edu/sdp/ http://blogs.edweek.org/topschooljobs/k-12_talent_manager/ http://www.TopSchoolJobs.org http://www.topschooljobs.org

Education Week - January 23, 2019

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