Enabling Digital Scorecards

Dr. Emily Bell, Chief Information Officer, Fulton County Schools

Dr. Emily Bell, Chief Information Officer, Fulton County Schools

For over 20 years, Fulton County Schools (FCS) has provided a Balanced Scorecard (BSC) to analyze data and information for parents, teachers, administrators, and other community stakeholders. In January 2023, our FCS Information Technology and Strategy and Governance department leaders presented a new digital BSC to the Fulton County Board of Education and the public. The upgrade has been well-received and enthusiastically utilized.

The digital Balanced Scorecard makes it easier for parents and stakeholders to get more specific and targeted information about schools in the district. It represents a comprehensive collection of key metrics that allow data transparency while maintaining student data privacy. We have gone to great lengths to protect student data. FCS’ Heather Trotter Clark, director of data warehouse and reporting, shared that teachers are really impressed with the data warehouse in how efficiently and skillfully they are able to pull in data safely with the anonymity of students. For example, when the end user applies a filter to access a data set that comprises ten students or fewer, the results from that data search are obstructed. On all other data sets, the public can see aggregate averages.

How It Came About

The impetus for the modernized digital upgrade arose during the several years of pandemic-induced disruption to in-person learning. It became clear to Fulton leaders that there was a need to analyze student engagement during remote instruction as well as throughout the slow transition back to the traditional classroom. For this reason, Dr. Ryan Moore, FCS’ executive director of Strategy and Governance, and I began collaborating with an internal team to incorporate the metrics in the traditional BSC into a modern digital BCS dashboard using the Power Business Intelligence platform. Our leadership team enhanced an annual data reporting process into a real-time, highly visual, and detail-oriented digital dashboard that is accessible to all FCS stakeholders, including the public.

The process consisted of collecting 21 years of data and aggregating that data into four topical buckets, 17 links, 50 pages, and hundreds of metrics on a visualized easily accessible, and easy-to-navigate dashboard. The four topical data areas include Learning and Growth, which focuses on academic-related areas like state accountability, college and career readiness, assessments, and student engagement; Finance, which encompasses average per pupil allocations, the American Rescue Plan, the district’s General Funds Balance and Budget Variance, our Capital Plan, and grants; Business Process, which includes facilities, information technology, transportation, nutrition, and capital programs; and Stakeholder Input, which incorporates FCS’ charter system, Human Resources, and the Perception Survey.

Reception from Parents, Teachers, and Administrators

Both parents and teachers have found tremendous value in the easy accessibility of the digital BSC. Ms. Shelly Wachtel, a School Governance Council (SGC) representative at Northwood Elementary School and Haynes Bridge Middle School, presented the BSC website in a recent SGC meeting. She reported that the parents in attendance were very impressed with the website and could not wait to look into it more closely. “I think it's a great resource for parents who are just moving to the area from out of state,” she added. “Parents often look for specific schools, and this is a great up-to-date resource.”

Director Clark also reported that teachers and administrators appreciated the participation in special programs to offer more diverse courses potentially, and they are leveraging the digital BSC to measure progress and focus on the strengths and weaknesses of their feeder schools. Now, they can track data in real-time to help foster practical ways to continue gauging college and career readiness and school and student performance post-covid.

Enhanced Student Engagement

Additionally, assessment and stakeholder perception data have shown clear evidence of student engagement. Since launching the digital Balanced Scorecard, FCS stakeholders have noticed that trend data for national assessments like the SAT and ACT indicate student engagement and achievement remained high and even increased despite displacement from traditional classrooms. This platform also engages the community in the key data metrics that FCS leaders measure while concentrating on the metrics in their areas of interest.

Fulton County Schools is Leading the Way

The FCS data team also collaborated with key corporate and government stakeholders, including Microsoft, the Georgia Department of Education, and the Governor's Office of Student Achievement, to validate this project's best practices for student data privacy.

FCS is likely the only school system in Georgia, and arguably the nation, to implement the Harvard Review-cited Balanced Scorecard, which Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton say provides "a set of measures that gives top managers a fast but comprehensive view of the business." (Kaplan & Norton, 1992)

Fulton County Schools is truly leading the way in using data to measure engagement and inform decisions. I am proud of our data team’s work to help visualize key metrics and improve the user experience.