PSESD Collaborates with Pathwaves for Growth Through Evaluation
Several smiling women of diverse ages and ethnicities.

Puget Sound Educational Service District’s Strategy Evaluation and Learning (PSESD StEL) team is excited to announce its collaboration with Pathwaves WA. Together, they will be co-designing an evaluation process that will center the experiences and priorities of its Fellows, Board, staff, and placement sites.

Founded in 2021, Pathwaves is a Washington-based organization that creates pathways for leaders of color to hold decision-making roles in early childhood systems, so that they can equitably drive and shape the designs of policies that affect future generations of their kids and communities.

The evaluation will take place concurrently with the program so that its findings will be able to have an immediate impact. For this cohort, Pathwaves has created an evaluation advisory group made up of current Fellows, alumni, Pathwaves Board and staff, and placement site supervisors. Together, this team will determine the priorities for the evaluation, select data collection methods, and interpret the findings to develop recommendations in order to continue to improve upon the program and meet their vision.

In its official announcement, Pathwaves notes that the partnership with the PSESD StEL team has been essential to the learning and growth of its organization. “As we do this, it is essential that we center the expertise and experiences of the leaders of color who make up our organization and greater Pathwaves community.”

“This partnership has been essential to the learning and growth of our organization,” Pathwaves adds. “We have already seen significant impacts to our Fellowship program based on learning from the evaluation process for the 2022–24 Cohort. We look forward to continuing to set goals as a community, reflect on our impact, and transform the early childhood policy sector in pursuit of our mission.”

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