Fulton County Schools
Fulton County Schools, a large school district outside of Atlanta, Georgia, has adopted data-driven decision as part of a comprehensive strategic planning process with everyone involved – from classroom teachers to principals to district administrators. The district data management and analysis systems provide increasingly customized and more frequent information to decision makers.
About Fulton County Schools
Fulton County Schools is the fourth largest school district in Georgia with more than 75,000 students and 9,900 full-time employees. The district is growing with the addition of 19 new schools since 1999 and plans for 10 more schools, bringing the total up to 98. Located outside of Atlanta, the district serves the cities of Alpharetta, Roswell, and Mountain Park in the north, and College Park, East Point, Fairburn, Hapeville, Union City, Palmetto, and unincorporated portions of Fulton County in the south.
Data-Driven Decision Making: Starting the Process
At the heart of Fulton County Schools DDDM is the district-wide strategic planning process. Each school creates a strategic plan under the direction of the principal with assistance from the curriculum support teacher. “We don’t just have an opinion that something is a good idea, we make program decisions based on data and strategy,” said Principal Steve Curry. Teachers provide content area input to the district plan. The school team meets with a cross-functional district team to define requirements for dis-aggregation and determine interim measures. Experts from the district planning and evaluation division meet with the area superintendent and members of the school planning team to discuss the specific data and help school teams understand it within the context of their school. The district sets benchmarks to help area superintendents and principals set goals and meet expectations.
The strategic planning process provides the framework for data-driven decision making with expectations focused on student achievement. The district data warehouse generates customized reports for specific teachers and populations to support their planning process. Standardized, system-level interim assessments create a common way to look at student achievement in real time across the district.
Data-Driven Decision Making: Implementation
For the first two years, the district experienced push-back from principals and teachers according to Martha Greenway, chief planning and evaluation officer. Principals did not expect the district to return their reports with questions and suggestions. They expected to file their plan as in previous years without comment. The school personnel felt criticized and frustrated.
Cross-functional district teams went to the school site to help principals, teachers, and site specialists understand the data and what they could do to change it. Legitimate concerns about assessment tools, data, and curriculum were acknowledged and addressed as the district refined the DDDM process. As school staff became comfortable and began to see results, they wanted to learn more. Principal Steve Curry uses his school’s strategic plan as a touchstone for all activities. Because everyone knows the plan and helps create it, they act on it each day. “Everything we do, the plan reflects or is reflected by the plan,” he said.
Professional development in Fulton County focuses on differentiated instruction, assessment, and questioning techniques with targeted emphasis to address weaknesses. Rather than offer A to Z staff development, the district clusters training into areas where teachers need more help. If a school has a weakness in a curriculum area, the district sends a team to work with subject area teachers or department chairs to look at alternative strategies. New staff members attend workshops to learn the planning framework and the district’s language for measurement, evaluation, and assessment.
Data-Driven Decision Making: Real Results
By showcasing the best strategic plans, the school board identified and celebrated excellence, raising the standard and communicating it to everyone in the school and the community. When NCLB and state accountability requirements became mandatory, Fulton County Schools were ready. In 2003-04, all elementary schools and all but one new middle school met their AYP targets. Teachers know where students fall into performance categories and know how to differentiate instruction to meet their needs. The district’s next targets are the high schools where lack of frequent, course-level data has made DDDM adoption more challenging.