As education leaders and researchers, we often focus on results. Countless conferences are about what we find, rather than interrogating what we seek and how we seek it. Practitioners are encouraged to share “best practices” rather than best questions. As a result, we rarely turn the table on ourselves, test our assumptions, and question what we’ve done. This year’s conference theme is "Question Everything," and we hope to provide a space for a focus on inquiry, as well as results, at our annual convening. We hope to elevate questions to the status of answers in our shared pursuit to transform education and improve student achievement.
Over a 3-year period, the number of Pre-K children who enrolled but did not show up for the school year ("early drop") increased. In 2016-17, 22% of our Pre-K enrollment were "early drops." We applied a systems approach (including engaging with stakeholders like parents and teachers) to understand our research question and implemented interventions to improve our enrollment stability. We decreased the number of early drops by 27% in 2017-18.
