Comprehensive District Education Planning (CDEP)
The CDEP pilot initiative (1998-2002) was intended to achieve two major ends:
- provide Statewide support and capacity-building skills to districts in the deep analysis of data, in planning strategies to address needs identified through this analysis, and in creating collaborative stakeholder ownership of school and district improvement goals; and
- reduce the redundancy and volume of multiple plans in favor of a comprehensive plan that considers all the important aspects of school improvement.
As part of this initiative, resources were planned, developed and implemented by State Education Department staff and field-based practitioners through a Statewide steering committee. The resources provided over the 4 years of the pilot included guidance and support from data analysis experts; annual training workshops for those districts who wished to begin the CDEP process; annual skill-building and sharing conferences for districts already engaged in the process; and perhaps most importantly, the development and training of a cadre of facilitators to help districts negotiate the sometimes emotionally charged process of collecting and using difficult data to identify needs and establish priorities.
While the pilot has ended (and NYS has still made little progress in reducing planning requirements), many districts still use the CDEP process as a means of focusing all school improvement strategies on priority needs, and for sustaining a stakeholder community dedicated to achieving school improvement goals. As a side benefit, having created such a plan generally was been found by districts to be useful in more easily meeting separate, specifically-oriented State and Federal planning requirements.
The Office of Teacher Quality and Professional Development will continue to support district efforts as possible through web, phone and email assistance. To that end, we hope this website will be a useful and growing resource:
- The history section includes CDEP plan formats from the last year of the pilot (2001-02); guidance in using that format as well as guidance on deep analysis of data and systems thinking; and a CDEP Final Report from the 2000-01 implementation year.
- The tools section is a work in progress. It is our hope to include here links to sites that provide supports for data analysis processes, sample tools from NYS districts that are still engaged in the CDEP process, and the opportunity for practitioners to raise questions/concerns/ideas for other practitioners.