Organizing Schools to Address Early Warning Indicators (EWIs): Common Practices and Challenges

An early warning system is an intentional process whereby school personnel collectively analyze student data to monitor students at risk of falling off track for graduation and to provide the interventions and resources to intervene. We studied the process of monitoring the early warning indicators and implementing interventions to ascertain common practices and challenges. Research questions focused on the process of collecting and reviewing student data, conducting team meetings, and designing or selecting, and following through on, student interventions. This article reports on typical practices and implementation challenges of early warning indicators meetings from 10 schools that participated in the pilot phase of the Diplomas Now School Transformation Model across the country, gathered through meeting observations and interviews.