The Strategy Room, LLC Coaching and Leadership Development

"Our data is a mess."

That is how a lot of School Strategy Sessions start, and I am always glad when a leader says it early. It means we can get to the real conversation faster.

To be clear, the session is not me solving your data problem in 45 minutes. It is a conversation where I get a real picture of what is happening in your building. Progress notes living in three different spreadsheets. IEP goals nobody has updated since October. One coordinator who is the only person who actually understands the system, and she is exhausted.

From there, I tell you what I am seeing and what I would recommend. Sometimes that is coaching. Sometimes it is Progress Monitoring PD for your team.

When PD is the right fit, your team also gets Progress with Purpose, a dashboard built to keep every student's data in one place your whole team can actually trust.

Link is in the comments.

Most SPED data isn't a collection problem. It's a follow-through problem.

Districts require progress monitoring, teachers do it, and the data gets stored exactly where it's supposed to. But storing data and using it to change instruction are two different things, and most systems only account for the first one.

Here's what that looks like in practice. A student's data shows no movement for three straight collection points. The teacher enters it on time. It sits in the file. Report cards come out, someone reviews it, and only then does anyone ask what should have been asked six weeks earlier: why hasn't the instruction changed?

That question usually comes too late to matter for that reporting period. And it's not because anyone dropped the ball. It's because the system was built to track compliance, not to trigger action.

The fix isn't more data. It's a shared structure that tells every teacher what to track, how often, and what happens when the numbers don't move. Right now, most buildings solve that with training or reminders, which helps for a few weeks and then quietly falls apart once the school year gets busy.

Back to school season is when caseloads, IEP goals, and data systems get set for the year. It's the one window where a building can build this in from day one, instead of trying to retrofit it in November after the first round of progress reports has already gone out with gaps nobody caught in time.

Progress with Purpose™ was built to give teams that structure from the start. Take a look at what it could change for your building this year. Link is in the comments.

I’m excited about this conversation! 🎙️

On Wednesday, September 2, I have the opportunity to sit down with someone I highly respect in the special education community, Valerie C. Williams, former Director of the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) at the U.S. Department of Education and Co-Founder and CEO of Apokrisis Consultants, Inc.

We’re bringing together policy and practice for a timely conversation about Special Education Today.

As schools begin a new year, leadership teams are already making decisions that will shape how effectively special education systems serve students. We’ll dig into four important questions:

🔹 Where do federal policy and local implementation become disconnected?
🔹 How do we distinguish between collecting data and actually using data to make instructional decisions?
🔹 What does inconsistent progress monitoring reveal about the system—not just the teacher?
🔹 What should leadership teams be examining during the first 30 days of school?

Valerie brings the federal policy and systems perspective. I’ll bring the school-level perspective from my experience as a SPED teacher, administrator, instructional coach, and educational consultant.

Policy matters. Practice matters. And what happens between the two matters to students.

📅 Wednesday, September 2, 2026�⏰ 1:00 PM ET�📍 Streaming LIVE on Facebook

If you’re a SPED leader, SPED teacher, school leader, or parent, this is a conversation you don’t want to miss.

👉 Scan the QR code to learn more and let us know that you’ll be joining us.�
Tag a SPED teacher or school leader who needs to be part of this conversation. 👇🏾

If your progress monitoring changes depending on which classroom a student walks into, that's not a teacher problem. That's a systems problem.

I've watched this happen in buildings where nobody did anything wrong. One classroom tracks progress weekly. Another tracks it every other week. A third uses a form nobody else on the team recognizes. Every teacher is doing exactly what they were trained to do. The problem is they were all trained a little differently.

The student doesn't see any of that. She just knows her progress looks different depending on which room she walks into that period. And when report time comes, nobody can fully explain why the numbers don't line up.

This isn't a training gap. It's not a motivation gap either. Your team is working hard inside a structure that was never built to keep them consistent with each other. That's the part that's actually fixable, and it's usually the last place people think to look.

As your team heads into back to school planning, this is the moment to put one shared system in place, before the first progress reports go home and the inconsistencies start showing up on paper.

Take a few minutes to look at Progress with Purpose™ and see what a shared system could look like for your building. Link is in the comments.

📚 We can’t afford to sit on the sidelines of the reading epidemic.

I’m excited to host a Community Reading Coach Training!

You do not have to be a teacher to help a child become a stronger reader. Parents, grandparents, mentors, church members, community leaders, everyday people can make an extraordinary difference.

On Saturday, August 29th, I’ll be equipping participants with simple, practical strategies to support children as they build the foundational skills they need to read.

💛 One trained adult. One child. One brighter future.

📍 Steele Memorial Library, Mt. Olive, NC�⏰ 10:30 AM–2:30 PM�⚠️ Limited slots available!

Scan the QR code on the flyer to register.

Together, we can turn the page on the reading epidemic. 📖✨

I didn't build The Strategy Room to catch schools doing something wrong. I built it because most SPED teams are doing the work; they just can't always prove it fast enough when someone comes asking.

That's the difference between "we're compliant" and "we can show you we're compliant." One is a feeling. The other is a folder, a date, a number you can point to.

Progress monitoring and reporting is one of five areas that shows up again and again in state reviews and it's often the one teams assume is fine until they're asked to produce it on the spot.

If your building is heading into PD planning for back-to-school, this is worth putting on the agenda before the first bell rings, not after the first review notice.

The free SPED Compliance Gaps Checklist gives you a starting point — 10 indicators, 5 critical areas, one score that tells you exactly where to focus first. No cost, no sales pitch. Comment SPED and I'll send you the link.

Every goal tracked. Every check in logged. Every deadline met.

And still, nobody in the building can tell you what that data actually means for the student it belongs to.

This is the pattern I see most in SPED and MTSS teams: the data collection is strong, but the system to turn that data into a next step for instruction was never built. So it gets entered, then filed, then forgotten until someone needs it for a review.

Back to school is when this gap either gets fixed or gets carried into another year of the same disconnect. I'd rather your team catch it now, before the first data review of the year turns up the same surprise.

Progress with Purpose™ gives your team one system, one shared way to read the data, and one clear picture of where every student stands.

Visit services.tsrcharlotte.com/progress-with-purpose to see what this could look like for your school.

Sometimes, advocating for yourself is part of the growth process. 💛

We often talk about advocating for others, our students, our teams, our families, but there are seasons when we have to recognize what we need and be willing to ask for it.

Maybe you need additional coaching.
More clarity.
A mentor.
More time to learn.
Or simply someone to walk alongside you while you strengthen your practice.

Asking for support doesn’t mean you’re incapable. Sometimes, it means you care enough about what you’re doing to say, “I want to get better, and I’m willing to seek the support that will help me grow.”

And sometimes advocacy comes from the people who see something in us and care enough to encourage us toward the support we need.

But ultimately, we have to be open to receiving it.

There is strength in knowing when you need support. There is wisdom in asking for it. And there is growth on the other side of being willing to receive it. ✨

Advocate for your growth. Advocate for what you need to become your best.