Leadership Profile: Dr. Dings boldly looks into the future of assessment, as he nears retirement

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A lot has changed in student assessment since Dr. Jonathan Dings first came to the Boulder Valley School District, 27 years ago. He says the constant has been technology, even if it has morphed multiple times over the past three decades.

“When I got here in 1998, we had a contract for a scanner and we bought scan sheets,” Dings recalled. “Now the technology has shifted to online. That has resulted in advancements in how large standardized tests are actually scored. Often it is now read by an AI (generative artificial intelligence).”

Dings, the son of a college professor and a social worker, grew up in and around Buffalo, New York and always had an interest in science. Computers, however, really didn’t integrate into learning until late in his higher education journey.

“My education happened at a time where there were not really computers around, at least not in the middle and high school educational environment,” Dings said.

He earned his undergraduate degree at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, his masters at  Bowling Green State in Northwest Ohio and his PhD at the University of Iowa.

“When I was in grad school, you could go to the computer lab and you had access to the mainframe in order to work with most statistical software,” Dings said.

It wasn’t long before he got a taste of the field that would become his life’s work – student assessment. Like many of us, one of his first exposures was through the Iowa standardized test, best known for its multiple choice bubbles that students would fill in with #2 pencils. He wasn’t a student taking the test, but rather analyzing results.

“My graduate assistantship was working in the Iowa testing programs,” Dings said. 

As he finished up school, he had a massive decision to make. He could stick with the testing companies, in the school systems or something in between. He decided to work for the Kentucky Department of Education, bringing his quantitative background to support their efforts.

“I was evaluating their performance based assessment system, which at the time was innovative. Their open-ended questions were pretty novel,” explained Dings. “Eventually this type of assessment system spread to other parts of the country, including Colorado.”

Eventually he found himself pulled towards supporting the work of the educators, themselves.

“I got a chance to get to know some of the people who worked a lot with schools, because the model at that time was supporting schools pretty significantly in doing new tasks," Dings said. “So the appeal that I found was really getting nearer to helping people having an impact in the classroom.” 

He says that he jumped at the chance to come to Boulder, when the opportunity came up. In addition to offering his school-aged children great schools, he was excited about finding new ways to make data a helpful tool for our educators. 

“We aim to provide leaders with information so that they can help make changes over time and then to provide teachers with things that teachers will find helpful,” Dings said. “With some knowledge the teacher may be able to figure out if the students are fitting into patterns that are seen schoolwide or maybe districtwide.”

Of course, throughout it all he has helped our schools navigate through the different federal mandates from No Child Left Behind to the Every Student Succeeds Act, as well as different state-level assessment approaches and their acronyms, from CSAP (The Colorado Student Assessment Program) to CMAS (Colorado Measures of Academic Success).

“You know, over that time period, too, there's been a real expansion in the number of grades that get tested,” Dings reminded us.

Perhaps one of the most astounding parts is how far technology has come in visualizing the data that Dings and his department collect. 

“There's a much greater availability of data and the quality of interactive tools is pretty amazing compared to what I began with here,” he admitted. 

But Dings says those changes are nothing, compared to what is coming. He believes generative artificial intelligence is on the verge of changing day to day practice and his successor will likely need to boldly take the district to places with assessment we’ve never been before.

“There is a new frontier for people who aren't retiring in the next few months to figure out how tools like that can work in combination with data science,” Dings said. “We are only beginning to scratch the surface of what can be done with AI. The possibilities for AI to impact reporting are evolving rapidly.”

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Getting to Know Jonathan

Here are a few more details, so you can get to know our Executive Director of Assessment and Program Evaluation.

Always in key
While we know that Jonathan always hits the right note when he’s giving presentations about the district’s academic performances, you may not have realized that he is also a talented vocalist.

“I do choral singing and I've sung for the last nine years with a group called Cantabile here in Boulder,” Jonathan said. “We sing a mixed repertoire, some classical, some more modern, some sacred, some secular.”

He’s a baritone who sang both in high school and college.

“I really enjoy singing in a group and I enjoy harmony,” Jonathan said.

You can catch Jonathan and the Cantabile singers in May and June. Tickets are available at cantabilesingers.org/concerts 

Riding into the sunset
It wasn’t very long ago that you could often catch Jonathan in his cycling gear at the beginning or end of the day. “It is absolutely a passion and I was very lucky to live for as many years as I did in Boulder and to be in a circumstance where biking to and from work was a possibility.”

Now he lives in Fort Collins, so he can’t commute to work by bike every day, but he is enjoying exploring new bike routes in Northern Colorado.

“On the weekends, I can tell I've had a really good day if I only left home on foot or on two wheels,” Jonathan said. “There are a lot of opportunities, including biking up to Horsetooth Reservoir that overlooks Fort Collins, and around the family cabin near Estes Park.”

He is looking forward to spending even more time on two wheels soon.

“As I retire, I plan to take bike rides that are even longer,” Jonathan said.

Bridge to retirement
As Jonathan nears retirement he’s also dreaming of hanging out with his buddies and playing the card game bridge.

“I enjoy it a lot,” Jonathan admitted. “And the possibility of doing that during daylight hours when everybody in the room is a little sharper than when we are playing it on some evening after a work day, is really very appealing.”

“The game has a nice human element to it as far as it being a partnership game and one that involves playing against other people in a polite and sports person like manner,” Jonathan added. 

His bridge partner and wife, Lisa Dings is also planning to retire – but not quite as soon as Jonathan. As you might know, she serves as the School Office Manager at Eisenhower Elementary. 

“She will retire a little later, as she finds great value as an office manager in getting the year started. It would be difficult for a school to have a new person come in and have to figure out everything,” Jonathan said.

His last day will be July 14.