Step 2. Develop a schedule for the data collection decisions made in Step 1. In addition, decide who will be responsible for each component of data collection.

You will assemble a schedule that has dates for the different data collection tasks. Table 3 displays a section of the timeline for data collection activities in the summer and during the first semester. The piece of the schedule captured in the table covers general preliminary tasks that apply to data collection at all the districts, plus all the data collection activities that will take place at the first two districts. Notice how each task has been assigned a different task leader.

Table 3. Partial timeline for evaluation project data collection tasks

The timeline shows that your site visit schedules will run in parallel, with different site visit teams going to different districts during the same time spans. You do not, however, expect complete parallelism. You anticipate that you will need six weeks to schedule site visits at the Forrestville School District but only four weeks at the Casemont School District . The reason is that the Forrestville School District requires that scheduling of all classroom visits be cleared with written permission from the principal, while Casemont School District only requires that the scheduling be worked out with the teachers you will visit.