The Virgin Islands Department of Education has received an award from the United States Department of Education (USDE) in recognition of improved data reporting. The award, presented to the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (PRE), from the USDE’s Institute of Educational Sciences-National Center for Education Statistics, praised the office for “making significant progress in timely and complete reporting of the Common Core of Data for School year 2008-09,” according to a press release from Education Commissioner La Verne Terry, Ph.D.
Commissioner Terry said, “We are pleased by the national recognition of our efforts. The Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation emphasizes data based decision-making at the Virgin Islands Department of Education. The staff continues to improve their data systems through by focusing on improving data quality and collaboration between the districts to bring about standardization for No Child Left Behind and other federal reporting. The department also continues to provide professional development and establish policies and procedures in order to improve services to students through the use of collected data.
“The department is making great strides to improve overall services. We are now at a pivotal stage in our efforts to migrate from the existing student information system to a new centralized, Web-based, real-time system that has significantly greater functionality and reporting capability. The receipt of this award is the result of the hard work of very dedicated individuals in the school, district offices and PRE. I offer my thanks and appreciation to those staff on behalf of the department’s leadership and students served for their efforts.”