Fulton County Schools reports declines in referrals and suspensions as strategic-plan engagement expands
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Summary
District staff told the board the strategic plan's re-engagement with school governance councils and cross‑council workshops coincided with declines in referrals and suspensions, improved retention and rising net promoter scores; more disaggregated school-level data will be provided.
Doctor Ryan Moore, executive director of strategy and governance, told the Fulton County Board of Education on June 10 that the district’s ongoing strategic planning work has produced early positive signals across safety, staff engagement and student attendance. "Referrals are down — 16% at elementary and middle levels and 19% at the high school level — and suspensions are down 15% out of school and 24% in school," Moore said.
Moore said the district re‑engaged school governance councils (SGCs) in a cross‑council design this spring, holding five in‑person workshops with more than 250 SGC members to share practices and align school‑level initiatives to district goals. He attributed part of the improvement to clearer initiative ownership at schools and to efforts led by student discipline and prevention teams.
Board members pushed for more granular data. "Have we disaggregated that data to see parent and student satisfaction at the middle‑ and high‑school level?" asked board member Warren. Moore said the district is working to break down annual perception surveys by domain, demographics, school and zone and will report more detailed findings in fall updates.
Moore previewed possible metric updates tied to new state accountability measures, including the Climate Star rating and ‘‘Beating the Odds’’ indicators. He noted some state measures remain under review for methodology and participation thresholds and said any new metric would be phased in once the district confirms comparability.
Board members also praised the work with SGCs and asked that the presentation and training materials be shared widely. Moore said the presentation will be included in the next district newsletter, SGC training has been revamped and individual school strategic action plans are available on the public strategic‑plan web page via a posted QR code.
The presentation prompted questions about retention, certification breakdowns and attendance; Moore said that further staff and IT work will provide deeper breakdowns, including certified and classified staff retention by role and zone. He also said the district will continue reporting progress in a public, iterative way as the plan is implemented.
