Lessons learned about collaborative evaluation using the Capacity for Applying Project Evaluation (CAPE) framework with school and district leaders

Schools, districts, and state-level educational organizations are experiencing a great shift in the way they do the business of education. This shift focuses on accountability, specifically through the expectation of the effective utilization of evaluative-focused efforts to guide and support decisions about educational program implementation. In as much, education leaders need specific guidance and training on how to plan, implement, and use evaluation to critically examine district and school-level initiatives. One specific effort intended to address this need is through the Capacity for Applying Project Evaluation (CAPE) framework. The CAPE framework is composed of three crucial components: a collection of evaluation resources; a professional development model; and a conceptual framework that guides the work to support evaluation planning and implementation in schools and districts. School and district teams serve as active participants in the professional development and ultimately as formative evaluators of their own school or district-level programs by working collaboratively with evaluation experts. The CAPE framework involves the school and district staff in planning and implementing their evaluation. They are the ones deciding what evaluation questions to ask, which instruments to use, what data to collect, and how and to whom results should be reported. Initially this work is done through careful scaffolding by evaluation experts, where supports are slowly pulled away as the educators gain experience and confidence in their knowledge and skills as evaluators. Since CAPE engages all stakeholders in all stages of the evaluation, the philosophical intentions of these efforts to build capacity for formative evaluation strictly aligns with the collaborative evaluation approach.     

The Spokane Tribe''s Multipathway Subsistence Exposure Scenario and Screening Level RME

Exposure scenarios are a critical part of risk assessment; however, representative scenarios are not generally available for tribal communities where a traditional subsistence lifestyle and diet are relevant and actively encouraged. This article presents portions of a multipathway exposure scenario developed by AESE, Inc. in conjunction with the Spokane Tribal Cultural Resources Program. The scenario serves as the basis for a screening-level reasonable maximum exposure (RME) developed for the Midnite Uranium Mine Superfund site. The process used in developing this scenario balances the need to characterize exposures without revealing proprietary information. The scenario and resulting RME reflect the subsistence use of original and existing natural resources by a hypothetical but representative family living on the reservation at or near the mine site. The representative family lives in a house in a sparsely populated conifer forest, tends a home garden, partakes in a high rate of subsistence activities (hunting, gathering, fishing), uses a sweat lodge daily, has a regular schedule of other cultural activities, and has members employed in outdoor monitoring of natural and cultural resources. The scenario includes two largely subsistence diets based on fish or game, both of which include native plants and home-grown produce. Data gaps and sources of uncertainty are identified. Additional information that risk assessors and agencies need to understand before doing any kind of risk assessment or public health assessment in tribal situations is presented.