The American Samoa Department of Education is partnering with REL Pacific to support and promote wider and deeper data use across the district and within schools. ASDOE seeks to improve student academic outcomes by developing a stronger environment of data use with central office staff and school leaders, strengthening data-driven decision making with the Teacher Quality Office, and ultimately providing supports for teachers who directly influence student learning.
ASDOE leaders have launched three new initiatives that strengthen their capacity to promote data-driven decision making. The “K–3 Early Literacy Initiative” was launched in 2021 to address the needs of students in English language arts. The Teacher Quality Office is in the process of creating an exit survey to learn about the factors that may affect teacher recruitment and retention. Finally, ASDOE is focused on building a statewide longitudinal data system (SLDS). The Ala (Pathway) for All Learners in American Samoa partnership complements these efforts by providing meaningful professional learning opportunities for district-level staff focused on building their capacity for data collection and analysis surrounding teacher retention and attrition, as well as for school leaders focused on using the SLDS system and developing a culture of data-driven decision making at their schools.
Current Projects
Participants in this coaching project will review current multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) processes and practices within the American Samoa Department of Education (ASDOE), as well as the intended goals for MTSS implementation. The review will determine how best practices for integrating data use and data-driven decisionmaking (DDDM) may be used throughout the ASDOE MTSS framework. Partners will receive technical support in developing data collection plans, DDDM processes, and piloting the MTSS framework.
Completed Projects
This training and coaching project Enhancing Central Office Ability to Address Teacher Retention engaged district-level staff from the ASDOE Teacher Quality Office to develop capacity with collecting data on the teacher workforce and to understand factors that may be influencing teacher attrition, particularly new teachers. Over the course of four training sessions, central office staff learned about how to collect and use data to gain knowledge about the American Samoa teacher workforce, as well as existing research, literature, and frameworks available to develop a process for data collection and analysis. This project was conducted 2024-2025.