In our ongoing journey to refine and enhance collaborative team meetings (CTMs), we recognize the need for clearly identifying students who should be brought forward to the collaborative team meeting. We want to ensure we are talking about the right students in the right level of team. We also recognize that the collaborative team meeting can be a powerful mechanism for actualizing our school improvement plans. We do all this through the use of data-informed pre-meeting organizers.
These simple tools are instrumental in focusing discussions, ensuring productive outcomes, and fostering a culture of intentionality. Let’s dive into the how and why of creating these organizers to empower your team.
When we first began designing the collaborative team meeting in our school, we asked teachers to bring forward students who they were concerned about. After several meetings using this simple criteria for choosing students, we realized that we were bringing forward the same students over and over and very often students with complexities that it would take much more time than we would have dedicated to the collaborative team meeting. The simple pre-meeting organizer allows teachers to reflect on what they know about their students and to identify a student to celebrate as well as a student that is experiencing a key issue.
The Role of Pre-Meeting Organizers
A well-structured pre-meeting organizer is more than just a preparatory tool; it’s a cornerstone for effective CTMs. Here is a template for a very basic pre-meeting organizer that provides teachers an opportunity to reflect on who they should be bringing forward to the collaborative team meeting.
For schools new to CTMs, a simple pre-meeting organizer can serve as a guide to:
- Identify a student for celebration
- Highlight a student experiencing a key challenge
- Identify areas of concerns for students who need enrichment
Starting with this basic framework ensures teams can focus on clear, manageable objectives while building their CTM processes. A simple pre-meeting organizer supports teachers in engaging in thoughtful reflection prior to the collaborative team meeting. We often suggest printing them off to deter team members from documenting long narratives about students. At the end of the meeting, these slips are not gathered or recorded but are shredded as the tool is intended to provide an opportunity for reflection prior to the meeting.
Evolving to Data-Informed Discussions
After exploring the concept of a pre-meeting organizer, we realized that we needed to begin to examine our data to truly inform “who we needed to be talking about” in the collaborative team meeting and what is their specific concern to be targeted.
When turning to our data it meant we needed to organize our data in a way that teachers could easily access the information and very quickly identify who we needed to talk about in the collaborative team meeting. (For more on this see the blog Shifting the Conversation by Color-coding Data).
Once we had data in this format, we were able to identify students who had lagging skills and their scores on our benchmarks and diagnostics were pointing to students being slightly below in particular areas of development. The pre-meeting organizer became the perfect tool for this reflection and identification.
As schools gain experience in the collaborative team meeting, the next step is aligning pre-meeting organizers with data insights. This approach shifts the focus from anecdotal observations to evidence-based conversations, ensuring discussions are purposeful and impactful.
Why Data-Informed?
Without a data-informed approach, teams risk:
- Discussing the same students repeatedly without measurable progress.
- Missing opportunities to address emerging needs.
- Failing to integrate collected data into actionable insights.
Data-informed pre-meeting organizers bridge the gap between evidence and action, transforming CTMs into proactive and targeted supports for students.
Implementing Data-Informed Organizers
1. How do we Organize Data with Color Coding?
Color coding is a simple yet powerful method to make data actionable:
- Green: Meeting expectations
- Yellow: Slightly below expectations (focus area for CTMs)
- Red: Significantly below expectations (addressed in other support structures)
- Blue (optional): Exceeding expectations
By focusing CTMs on students in the yellow category, teams can provide timely supports that prevent escalation into the red zone.
2. How do we Streamline the Process?
Encourage teachers to use quick, clear criteria when preparing organizers. For example:
- Define thresholds (e.g., grades of 40-60% = yellow)
- Limit descriptions of key issues to 10 words or fewer
Providing pre-printed, succinct templates can also help streamline preparation and minimize workload.
3. How do we Integrate Celebrations?
Celebrations set a positive tone for CTMs while reinforcing data-driven practices. Use templates like:
"When I reflected on my [data source], I’d like to celebrate [student] because [specific observation]."
4. How do we Build a Collaborative Culture?
Leaders can support staff by dedicating time for collective data review before CTMs. This approach:
- Ensures everyone is prepared
- Promotes shared understanding of focus areas
- Simplifies the transition to data-aligned discussions
Real-World Applications
Schools successfully using data-informed pre-meeting organizers report notable improvements:
- Surfacing overlooked students: Data highlights students who may not stand out in day-to-day interactions but need targeted support.
- Proactive interventions: Addressing yellow-zone students early prevents more significant challenges later.
- Balanced discussions: Teams focus on broader needs rather than recurring individual cases or reactive concerns.
There are lots of options for pre-meeting organizers but here are a few templates and samples. Please feel free to adapt and adjust for your school
- Data-Informed Pre-Meeting Organizer - Template to complete prior to a Collaborative Team Meeting, related to data colours, to help focus in on specific students to initiate discussions.
- Pre-Meeting Organizer - Data-Informed Statements - Pre-Meeting organizer that reinforces the use of data to inform the celebrations, student of concern and student to enrich in the collaborative team meeting.
- Whitecourt Central Pre-Meeting Organizer - This sample comes from a school in northern Alberta. Take note of the criteria established at the top of the pre-meeting organizer.
Data-informed pre-meeting organizers are a game changer for collaborative team meetings. By connecting evidence to action, they ensure the right students are discussed at the right time, leading to meaningful and measurable outcomes.
We’d love to hear how you’re using or planning to use data-informed pre-meeting organizers. Share your experiences, templates, or feedback, and let’s continue the conversation. Connect with us at or .
