Data quality issues can quickly impair the functional roles of nearly all stakeholders, not to mention the quality and effectiveness of decision-making processes in nearly all instructional and operational areas in addition to the board of trustees. Does your school district have a data governance committee that follows a formal process to ensure additions, deletions and changes to select data elements are evaluated to ensure the integrity of the district’s data elements in addition to ensuring data availability and usability? For example, the accounting office staff may not be able to reconcile the general ledger accounts if the processes for adding, deleting or modifying financial account codes follow business rules developed in isolation by individual programmatic offices and operational areas in a school district.
In mid- and large- enrollment size school districts, it’s important to not permit individual programmatic and operational offices to change data elements in isolation without sufficient review and verification by a cross-functional team representing programmatic, financial management, personnel management and operational areas. The cross-functional team should evaluate how proposed additions, deletions or modifications of data elements will impact the roles and responsibilities of all programmatic, operational and administrative areas including:
- Decision-making processes supporting academic success and performance goals
- Data collection, storage, usability and access
- Data management
- Ability to operationalize data elements to make then actionable
- Compliance with local, state and federal law, rules and regulations
- Efficiencies and effectiveness of programs, services and activities
- Support data analytics activities by all stakeholders
- Data quality assurance procedures and processes
- Reporting roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders
- Maintaining the most efficient and effective hierarchy of data elements to contribute to the school district’s goals and objectives in all areas
It takes a team to avoid being a “silo” organization that may be at risk of adverse academic and financial performance impacts that are associated with insufficient data governance. Data governance is one of the key components to maintaining quality data and stronger internal controls.