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By 2030, more than 70% of high-demand, family-sustaining wage jobs available in Washington state will require postsecondary degree credentials, and 68% of those will require postsecondary STEM credentials or foundational STEM literacy, according to Washington STEM. Yet, only 50% of high school graduates in Washington enroll in higher education.

In July 2022, Washington STEM released a report stating that 88% of high schoolers aspired to pursue some type of postsecondary education — education beyond high school in the form of a 2- or 4-year degree, apprenticeship, or certificate opportunity. However the pathways to postsecondary education aren’t always clear or accessible, the report highlighted, with only 40% of all students on track to attain a postsecondary credential.

At Quincy High School, Assistant Principal Susan Rose and her team are leveraging data to enhance their programming and support students in achieving postsecondary education. With the support of North Central ESD, Apple STEM Network, the Washington STEM High School to Postsecondary Collaborative, and various grants, Quincy School District has been able to collect and analyze quantitative and qualitative data to shine a light on the barriers students face when it comes to achieving postsecondary education.

Utilizing the Washington State Education Research and Data Center (ERDC), the Quincy School District has identified trends that inform their further exploration through student surveys and focus groups.

“When we look at our ERDC data, it points us in the direction of why so many of our students don’t persevere to postsecondary education,” Rose explained. “We are really exploring what the barriers are because we do have existing programming to support students like AVID and CTE programs.”

The data also provides insight into why specific groups of students move through postsecondary education while others do not, she added. “Through the longitudinal data from ERDC, we are seeing that there is a huge group of kids that go to our community colleges and they just spin. Maybe they get a two-year degree, but there is not a lot of that happening.”

During the spring of the 2023-2024 school year, the high school conducted focus groups with students to learn what barriers they face and what they need to continue their education past high school graduation. Students shared that often the only support they have to explore postsecondary pathways is what is happening at school.

“From this data, we know we need to make sure that what we’re doing for postsecondary support happens during the school day,” Rose said. This knowledge of student experience led the school to implement several new strategies to engage students with postsecondary pathway support.

Another valuable source of data for Quincy School District is student grades. This data challenges the assumption that a poor grade simply indicates a lack of effort from the student. In many cases, there is something else going on, Rose explained. One barrier the District has identified through testing is that some students struggle with literacy more deeply than previously assumed.

“We found that some of our 9th and 10th-grade students struggle with decoding, meaning they are missing some foundational literacy skills,” Rose said. “We have used grant money from the Ninth Grade Success Program to start to identify these students and give them the support to learn how to do the basic building blocks of reading because this was hurting everything else they were doing as well as their self-esteem.”

Student response to this intervention has been overwhelmingly positive, with many sharing how nice it feels to finally “get it” and that they were feeling more confident in the other classes.

Quincy High School’s data-driven approach has resulted in a comprehensive strategy to prepare students for postsecondary education. They aim to ensure that every student – regardless of barriers they face – engages in some form of education after graduating from high school. For solutions to be authentic and impactful, school leaders have found that interventions must be rooted in a variety of data in order to build a deep understanding of student needs.

“It would be easy to say that we just need more of ‘this’, but that’s just not the truth,” Rose further explained. “We’ve got some kids that are worried about money, we’ve got some kids that are struggling with literacy skills, and we’ve got some kids that just don’t know about opportunities.” 

This work cannot be done in a silo. School districts must have support from community partners, funding opportunities, teachers, and families. 

“If we didn’t have good partners to help us identify opportunities, we wouldn’t be here,” Rose said. “We wouldn’t be able to do it because we don’t have the bandwidth to find all these grants to fund this work or the partners to support it.”

North Central ESD and Apple STEM Network play a pivotal role in supporting school districts like Quincy to promote career-connected learning, postsecondary pathways, and STEM education awareness. The NCESD has assisted Quincy School District with grants, facilitation, connecting to colleges, and events and programming.

In October 2024, with the help of NCESD Career Connected Specialist, Cari Horning, Quincy High School hosted a career panel discussion for students to engage with local industry professionals and high school alumni. Over 800 students heard from the panelists as they shared their career journeys, offering practical insights and emphasizing the importance of personal development skills for success. 

“We would have never been able to put on that kind of event without her support,” Rose added. “Our students are being exposed to good paying jobs right here in their backyard. Many of our kids have strong ties to their families and want to stay local, and Cari is helping our families realize the opportunities to do that.”

To continue fostering family connections, the high school joined the Limitless Learning Partnership through the Gates Foundation to allocate resources for engaging families in discussions and planning regarding students’ post-graduation paths.

“Our kids repeatedly express that their parents are the reason they’re doing every single thing they do,” Rose said. “So the question is how do we bring parents into the conversation about available resources for students and families so they can be partners with us in that.”

Another partner supporting data-driven work is the High School to Postsecondary Collaborative, a statewide community of practice facilitated by Washington STEM and regional STEM Networks like the Apple STEM Network, providing technical assistance and coaching for regional and district education leaders.

“The ability to have regular check-ins and have a connection at the state level where we could find out about resources like ERDC has been helpful,” Rose shared.

The High School to Postsecondary Toolkit, updated in March 2024, offers practical examples, templates, and instructions for data access and is available to districts interested in a data-driven process to improve postsecondary readiness opportunities for high school students.

Quincy High School’s data-driven approach to education is a testament to the power of data in driving student success. By identifying barriers and implementing targeted strategies, they are making significant strides in supporting students’ postsecondary aspirations.

How can other districts set to engage in this work? Rose recommends taking a look at district data from the ERDC High School Graduation Outcomes dashboard and starting a conversation with district stakeholders.

“Looking at your ERDC data is a very friendly, easy thing to do,” Rose said. “And then have rich conversations with your families, teachers, educational leaders, and most importantly your kids about what you find and what the data says about futures.”

For districts interested in exploring data-driven approaches to supporting student postsecondary pathways, contact Holly Bringman, NCESD’s Apple STEM Network Coordinator, at 509-665-2624 or email info@ncesd.org.