PA Grant Report: Gregg Bonti, LS Head Teacher

In May 2024, I began working toward an Advanced Certificate in Education Leadership at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Through the generosity of the MMFS Parents Association, I received partial funding for my first course, Managing Evidence. 

The main objectives of the course were to 

• evaluate the quality of empirical research and its implications for policy and practice;
• apply key concepts in research design and analysis to system-level decision making;
• identify opportunities to generate or participate in the production of high-quality evidence to inform future policy or practice; and 
• strengthen the capacity of systems to make decisions based on high-quality evidence. 

Through a mix of synchronous and asynchronous classes, I was tasked with understanding and designing impact evaluations that could be used at MMFS, considering our school’s use of data to evaluate student and teacher performance, and identifying areas for further growth in making data-driven decisions. 

I approached this course from my perspective as Committee on Special Education (CSE) Coordinator in the lower school, a position I held at MMFS from 2022 through the end of last year. In this role, I was responsible for analyzing and synthesizing data from student assessments and communicating it during IEP meetings and impartial hearings. Data is crucial to how MMFS operates, and the course gave me strategies and suggestions for managing the data in a more streamlined way. 

I also used this course in another of my roles at MMFS. I am one of the co-facilitators of our school’s mentoring program for first-year teachers. So for my final project, I designed an impact evaluation to determine what effect the mentoring program has on teacher retention. 

My biggest takeaway from this course is that when evidence is used to inform decision-making, schools will develop the capacity for continuous improvement. Moving forward, I’m excited to engage in conversations with administrators and colleagues about how evidence should drive decision-making in order to support our students and teachers.