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Best Practices Case Studies Montgomery County School District: Daily Activities Tied to Vision Name: Montgomery County School District Located in one of the fastest growing areas in the country, Montgomery County School District (MCSD) in Rockville, Maryland, operates 191 schools. Like CCSD15, MCSD adopted the Baldrige model for continuous improvement and uses a business reporting format to communicate goals, progress, and expectations. The MCPS Strategic Plan offers a road map for where the school is going and how they are getting there. The data-driven decision making process started with the superintendent's vision for shared accountability and organizational improvement. Associate Superintendent and Chief Information Officer John Porter began implementing V.O.S.P.A., a strategic planning process he had developed in private industry. Although the district borrows from business models, the school environment differs significantly according to Porter. Decisions require the input and support of diverse constituents and each group will weigh in with an opinion, making consensus-building an essential and time consuming effort. The measures of success are less obvious in a classroom than in a business, but are essential to keeping all staff members on track. "We spend money on staff development," said Porter. "Is it making a difference? People feel good. But are we seeing a difference in the way they teach?" He believes that data systems can help answer that question. The Integrated Quality Management (IQM) System is the district's technology tool to facilitate data driven decisions using a data warehouse and Instructional Management System (IMS). Porter's team began developing requirements for a data warehouse in 2001. The system captures an array of data from different systems to provide a knowledge base for decisions. The data warehouse, the strategic system that houses historical data for trend analysis, becomes available to all schools in summer 2003. 
Roll-out of the IMS coincided with new standards-based curriculum in the elementary schools. Teachers now have electronic access to report cards, standardized assessment data, and new curriculum and instructional resources. Teachers use the system to locate instructional resources, analyze student performance data and develop a road map for teaching with individualized instruction. A cross-functional professional development team created an implementation plan to ensure alignment between district offices and schools as well as between the IMS and curriculum training. "We produced a user's manual geared to the many tasks frequently performed by principals so they did not have to learn a new technology system and make the link to their work," said John Burke, Director of the Division of Information Services. "The manual provided step-by-step instructions so principals could realize immediate benefits using the IMS." MCSD Improvement Process: VOSPA A Vision articulated by the superintendent and board with community buy-in.
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