Automated Teacher Diversity District Tool

The automated teacher diversity district tool is designed to help state education agency staff support districts in identifying gaps in the diversity of their teacher workforces. It is an automated version of the prior Teacher Diversity District Tool. The automated tool generates district-level reports that provide the racial/ethnic make-up of a district's student and teacher populations and its three- and five-year teacher retention rates by race and ethnicity. The template can be used to prepare reports for any number of districts. Inputting the data could take as little as 30 minutes if the data are readily available. After gathering and entering the necessary data, the tool takes one to two minutes to generate district reports.

The automated teacher diversity district tool includes four components:

1. Instructions document (66 KB): Provides an explanation of how to compile the data and produce the district reports.
2. Teacher diversity district report data table in Excel (516 KB): This file is used by state education agency staff to compile the data for each district.
3. Teacher diversity tool (67 KB): This file uses the data from the teacher diversity district report data table Excel file to automatically generate reports by district showing the diversity of each district's teacher workforce and retention rates.
4. Teacher diversity district report in Word (42 KB): This reporting template contains the text and figures generated by the tool with updated information for each district.

Teacher Diversity District Tool

The teacher diversity district tool is designed to help state education agency staff support districts in identifying gaps in the diversity of their teacher workforces. The tool generates district-level reports that provide the racial/ethnic make-up of a district's student and teacher populations and its three- and five-year teacher retention rates by race and ethnicity. The template can be used to prepare reports for any number of districts but is intended to produce reports for around 20 to 30 districts. For 20 to 30 districts, the template will take approximately two to three hours to use, depending on the availability of the necessary data. For a larger number of districts, the template may take substantially longer to use.

The teacher diversity district tool includes three components:

1. Instructions document (59 KB): Provides an explanation of how to compile the data and produce the district reports.
2. Teacher diversity district report data table in Excel (170 KB): This file is used by state education agency staff to compile the data for each district.
3. Teacher diversity district report in Word (107 KB): This reporting template uses the data from the Teacher diversity district report data table Excel file to summarize the diversity of each district's teacher workforce and retention rates.

Go-Learn-Grow: Improving the School Attendance of New Jersey’s Youngest Learners

Chronic absenteeism is particularly high in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten, compared with elementary and middle school. For a young child to succeed and develop a strong foundation for learning, he or she must attend school regularly. U.S. Department of Education’s Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Mid-Atlantic has partnered with the New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE) to provide support of their initiative called Go-Learn-Grow: Improving the School Attendance of New Jersey’s Youngest Learners.

NJDOE and REL Mid-Atlantic created this toolkit Strategies for Improving Attendance in Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten: Toolkit for Districts, Schools, and Early Childhood Providers, with simple, easy-to-use resources and handouts to support districts, schools, and early childhood providers in improving school attendance in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten. The goals of these materials are to:

• Help educators and families understand the importance of attendance in the early grades
• Encourage schools to gather and include data on preschool students when reporting chronic absenteeism rates on school report cards
• Help schools collect information from families to help identify reasons for absenteeism in the early grades
• Provide guidance on selecting and implementing research-based strategies to improve attendance in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten, based on the identified challenges

• Strategies for Improving Attendance in Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten: Toolkit for Districts, Schools, and Early Childhood Providers (4.45 MB)
• Chronic Absenteeism in the Early Grades: A Snapshot of New Jersey (669 KB)
• Chronic Absenteeism in the Early Grades: Risk Factors and What Schools Can Do (624 KB)
• Chronic Absenteeism in the Early Grades: How to Choose and Implement Proven Strategies to Improve Attendance (554 KB)
• Infographic (flyer) for parents and families: Attendance in Preschool and Kindergarten Spells Future Success! (293 KB)
• Slide deck (with talking points): Attending School Every Day: Preschool and Kindergarten Attendance Can Spell Success! (1.59 MB)
Note: If using the Internet Explorer browser, you may need to Save the file to your computer before opening it.
• Corresponding slide deck handout for parents and families: Preschool and Kindergarten Attendance Can Spell Success! (482 KB)