How We’re Serving K12 in 2019!
Jonell Sanchez, Vice President, Education Solutions, National Student Clearinghouse
By Jonell Sanchez, Vice President, Education Solutions, National Student Clearinghouse
Dear K12 Community,
On behalf of everyone at the National Student Clearinghouse, I want to thank you for your support and participation during our 25th anniversary celebration in 2018. Last year was a transformational one in the Clearinghouse’s journey, an opportunity to salute our successes together and share our vision of the future with you, including how we plan to evolve our services to meet education’s ever-changing needs.
As we begin 2019, the Clearinghouse is off to a great start with many more ways to serve you:
- New Partnership with NASSP
- A New Mission and Vision for You
- Exciting Enhancements to StudentTracker® for High Schools
- Automate Diploma Verifications for Your Students
- More Ways for You to Put Data to Work
- Full Calendar of Live Events
- Tell Us How We’re Doing
New Partnership with NASSP
I’m pleased to announce that the Clearinghouse and the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) have agreed to collaborate on events, communication and opportunities to benefit secondary schools. Partnering with NASSP, the leading organization for secondary school principals and other school leaders across the United States, will provide the Clearinghouse with greater insight into the needs of secondary school principals and how we can better serve them. As part of our collaboration, look for the Clearinghouse to present research findings and case studies at the July 2019 National Principals Conference, along with the Digital/Assistant Principal of the Year Pre-Conference session, as well as the September 2019 NASSP Principal’s Institute Meeting.
A New Mission and Vision for You
As our 26th year begins, we have renewed our commitment to serving the K-20 to workforce continuum through our new mission and vision statements that guide everything we do.
MISSION: Serve the education and workforce communities and all learners with access to trusted data, related services, and insights.
VISION: To be a premier resource in serving and supporting the opportunities created by lifelong learning.
Finally, this year, we are introducing our new logo, which you can see at the top of this post, as well as a new tree seal.
Exciting Enhancements to StudentTracker for High Schools
We’re hard at work on several enhancements to StudentTracker for High Schools that will provide improved access to information and expand its available report options. Later this term, we will release ReportShare, which will allow districts to submit data to the Clearinghouse on behalf of their high schools. Not only will the district receive all the StudentTracker for High Schools reports for its schools, it can easily distribute school-specific reports to each of their participating high schools. This ensures that everyone, district leaders and principals, receives the timely, accurate and comprehensive postsecondary outcomes information they need to make informed decisions. During the summer, we plan to introduce additional reports available through StudentTracker for High Schools, including poverty and minority comparison and peer outcome comparison reports. Our new services updates page, available under “News” on our home page, provides the latest updates, enhancements, and features added to your Clearinghouse services.
Automate Diploma Verifications for Your Students
The Clearinghouse pioneered electronic education verification for colleges two decades ago and is still the nation’s leading provider of degree verifications. Now we’re offering secondary educators the opportunity to participate in our free DiplomaVerify service. DiplomaVerify lets your high school or district outsource all your diploma verifications to the Clearinghouse for secure, automated, and immediate response. Because our service is available 24/7, employers and others can verify academic credentials instantly, even when your office is closed. Through DiplomaVerify, you can provide timely verifications to help your students meet college application deadlines and get jobs faster, while improving your office productivity and decreasing the expenses associated with diploma confirmation.
More Ways for You to Put Data to Work
In the face of unprecedented changes to education, more than ever, the Clearinghouse is focused on establishing data connections between the education, workforce, and learner communities, like our work with industry credentials.
Overseeing our data strategies is our new Chief Data Officer, Roberta Hyland. A long-time Clearinghouse employee with a vast knowledge of the technologies and platforms that support our data-driven activities, Roberta is uniquely qualified for this critical role. In this position, Roberta will focus on honing the Clearinghouse’s internal and external data strategies to enable scalability and effectiveness; expanding our work with industry credentials, not-for-credit enrollments and other credential providers; and connecting learner experiences to labor outcomes.
Finally, our renowned National Student Clearinghouse® Research Center™ continues to provide insightful reports throughout the year that draw on our unrivaled student-level information resources, such as our recently released sixth annual High School Benchmarks 2018: National College Progression Rates. The Benchmarks 2018 report provides high schools and school districts with the most relevant benchmarks for evaluating and monitoring progress in assisting students to make the transition from high school to college. The sixth annual report provides the most updated data on high school graduates’ college access, persistence, and completion outcomes. To subscribe to receive our research reports as they’re released, visit our Research Center.
Full Calendar of Live Events
The Clearinghouse has a full schedule of events to share with you in 2019! To help kick the academic year off, we’re introducing a new look-and-feel to our booth at the AASA National Conference on Education 2019, which runs from February 13 (for the pre-conference) through February 16 in Los Angeles. If you’re going to AASA, make sure you stop by our booth, #705, to learn how better data — available exclusively through the Clearinghouse — can help district and school leaders, like you, tell their story and value to parents and community leaders. You also won’t want to miss our session, “Using Benchmark Reports and StudentTracker to Report on Postsecondary Outcomes,” on Saturday, February 16 from 9:15 am to 10:15 am in Room 505 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. K12 subject matter experts from the Clearinghouse will discuss how to use our High School Benchmarks Report and StudentTracker for High Schools to help you satisfy Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) Career and College Readiness reporting requirements.
You can also see the Clearinghouse throughout the year at national secondary conferences, including the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) annual conference, South by Southwest (SXSW) 2019, and the National Council for Community and Education Partnerships (NCCEP)/Gear Up annual conference, as well as at a number of regional shows.
The Clearinghouse will also be on the road with our popular, free Clearinghouse Academy Live: In Your Neighborhood” sessions. We’ve expanded the content to include panel sessions — targeted at both secondary and postsecondary audiences — comprising real StudentTracker users sharing how data can be used to produce more successful graduates. As always, live webinars on our services are held year round. Events are added regularly, so make sure you bookmark our events calendar.
Tell Us How We’re Doing
To help celebrate our 25th anniversary, we hosted a gift card contest on social media that generated over 1,000 likes and 300 comments from our followers. This feedback was tremendously helpful in learning how well our services help the education community, and has encouraged us to continue to ask: How are we doing and how can we improve? I invite you to share your experience with the Clearinghouse by taking our short survey or leaving a review on our Facebook page. Either way, we want to hear from you. And be on the lookout this year for more social media contests with opportunities to win!
Please reach out to your Clearinghouse Regional Director to get started on any of our services for high schools and districts. And don’t forget to visit clearinghouseacademy.org to sign up for our events and access our latest training resources.
We look forward to working together on our continued journey in 2019!
