Check Out Daria Williamson’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Daria Williamson.

Hi Daria, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Although I’ve been in education for 30 years, my experience with Collaborative Learning Teams (CLTs) began seven years ago while shadowing an administrator who led an 11th English CLT. As a participant observer, I watched the team analyze data, adjust instruction, and design interventions that led to sustained increases in students’ passing rates on local and state assessments.

In the 2020–21 school year, I became an administrator and was charged with maintaining the school’s high graduation rate. To do this I adapted the instructional CLT model so that school counselors could use it. Since adapting and employing the CLT for counselors, the school has been able to sustain its 94% graduation rate.

I’ve written a book – Data Talks: The School Counselors’ Guide to Increasing Graduation Rates – to help other counseling departments create CLT structures.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The road hasn’t been smooth. Given the already impressive graduation rate and the historically independent nature of school counseling, I was met with some resistance.

In my first year, the counselors asked to meet with me independently as they thought we could go through the cycles of collective inquiry and action research in private meetings. I obliged, and the graduation rate decreased to 92%. A contributing factor to this decrease was me! Because I was no longer a counselor, I could not offer any new or intimate ideas about moving students. Moreover, I could not vet the viability of the ideas they determined. Although disappointing, the decreased graduation rate did provide me with proof of why they needed to engage in the CLT process.

In my second year, the counselors took a bigger step toward CLT work and met as a mixed team. They examined data and worked to determine viable strategies to improve student outcomes. The result was an improved graduation rate (from 92% to 94%). Despite this increase, the promotion rates for underclassmen didn’t improve. Of course, the culprit for this was easy to identify as the mixed group design did not allow for focused attention from team members with intimate knowledge of a given grade level. In line with the seniority design in most high school, seniors were deemed the most important; thus, the conversations, strategies, and conversations focused on them. Again, the data provided me with evidence to fight for the implementation of a fully-adopted CLT – one where the professional peers are homogenously grouped.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I specialize in creating collaborative learning teams for high school counselors to increase graduation rates. A big part of that process is using data to make decisions, so another area in which I specialize is gathering various data sets. I am most proud of creating an environment for the high school counselors with whom I work to make decisions that facilitate on-time graduation.

Who else deserves credit in your story?
I’ve had many supporters throughout my learning process. Perhaps Dr. Gore deserves the biggest credit because she introduced me to collaborative learning teams and provided me with resources to learn more about them. My previous principal Mr. Ford and my current principal Dr. Savage have given me the space and opportunity to work with counselors in the way that I do. The biggest credit goes to the counselors with whom I work as they have been the guinea pigs as I’ve worked to adapt the CLT process for them.

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