The Boston Charter Research Collaborative (BCRC) is a multiyear research-practice partnership (RPP) among six high-performing charter management organizations (CMOs). These organizations combine their expertise to conduct research and improve practice to support the development of students' social-emotional competencies (SEC) and the cognitive skills that are not directly captured by academic assessments. Research suggests that the surveys used to assess students' SEC in the BCRC provide valid reports of student mindsets, skills, and habits. Further, student scores from those SEC surveys are predictive of both academic and behavioral outcomes, suggesting that SEC are important contributors to students' academic success. Considering the promising findings that have emerged thus far from this RPP, this white paper seeks to address challenges common among RPPs, including: (1) finding effective ways to bridge the research-practice gap by building a common language around using new types of data to address urgent problems of practices; and (2) facilitating practitioner-centered dialogue about the data and its implications. The authors found that it is valuable to engage in practitioner-focused conversations that are grounded in data while deeply leveraging practitioners' expertise. Doing so can help researchers and educators collaborate to share actionable insights with one another and identify additional questions that require further exploration.