KPI Mid-Year Update

This represents the mid-year update of Gwinnett County Public School’s Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). These KPIs were created as part of the district’s 5-year strategic plan Our Blueprint for the Future. The district’s strategic plan includes the following 4 strategic priorities and 12 goals:

Adjustments to the KPIs

At the January 2023 Board Meeting, the district shared 17 adjustments that were made to baselines and/or targets of the district’s key performance indicators. Of the 63 KPIs, adjustments were made to 17. The need for these adjustments came out of a thorough review of each of the KPIs that occurred after the strategic plan had been approved by the Board in the prior July. As part of the district’s ongoing continuous quality improvement process, each of the indicators were reviewed to ensure that the district is providing measures that are meaningful to district performance and in alignment with the spirit of each indicator. Additionally, it is important the measures allow for ongoing comparability – allowing the district to monitor itself against stated targets.

The following 4 types of adjustments were made:

1. Updating baselines with 2021-22 end of year data (8 KPIs adjusted)

2. Updating method for counting teacher (5 KPIs adjusted)

3. Updating method for calculating student enrollment (3 KPIs adjusted)

4. Updating method for counting families (1 KPI adjusted)

See below for more details on each category of adjustment as well as the KPIs that were adjusted.

Some of these adjustments in baselines required adjustments to targets as well. If the baseline value declined(that is moved farther away from the targets) then targets were not changed. If the baseline value improved (that is moved closer to the targets) then targets were adjusted to ensure that they remain ambitious.

Updating baselines with 2021-22 end of year data

Due to the timing of the original release of the Blueprint, baseline data for the 2021-22 school year were not yet available or were not yet final for several KPIs. As a result, for these KPIs, the original release of the Blueprint utilized data from a prior school year (i.e., 2020-2021 in most cases; however, there were a few KPIs that used 2018-19 data as the baseline as that was the most recently available data) to set the baselines. These KPIs have had their baselines adjusted to use 2021-22 school year data. As a result, several of these KPIs required adjustments to the targets to ensure that given the adjusted baseline, the targets continued to be ambitious for the district. The table below shows the KPIs that were adjusted to update baselines with 2021-22 end of year data. For all associated KPIs, both the original baseline value and the updated baseline value are shown as well as any updates that were made to the target.

Using ‘Teacher’ instead of ‘Certified’

There are indicators in our Blueprint that are intended to measure teacher retention. However, at the time of the development of the KPIs, the calculations used certified staff as a proxy. We have adjusted these KPIs to use teacher in our calculations going forward to allow for comparisons with the state and to align with the spirit of this indicator. The table that follows shows the KPIs that were adjusted to use teacher instead of certified staff. For each impacted KPI, both the original baseline value and the updated baseline value are shown as well as any updates that were made to the target.

Updating method for calculating student enrollment

Adjustments were made to the baselines and/or targets of 3 KPIs to use the most appropriate student enrollment count. There are two main ways we count student enrollment and the decision to use one or the other depends on the purpose. One way is to count every single student who attends a GCPS school for even one day during the school year. This is known as our cumulative student enrollment. We use this count with reporting when we want to ensure that every single student who passes through our doors is accounted for. However, if what we are interested in is what a typical day looks like, then it would be more appropriate to use an enrollment count from a specific day. In such instances, we utilized our October FTE enrollment count that is reported annually to the Georgia DOE. In looking at the ratios of support staff (i.e., counselors, social workers, and school psychologists) to students, this is the student enrollment count that we should use to allow for meaningful comparisons across time as it represents more accurately what a typical case load might look for each of our support staff members. The table that follows shows the KPIs that were adjusted to use the appropriate student enrollment value (I.e., typical day count rather than cumulative student count). For all associated KPIs, both the original baseline value and the updated baseline value are shown as well as any update that was made to the target.

Updating method for counting families

One KPI was adjusted to more appropriately and consistently measure family participation. We utilized a more accurate estimate of the count of families at each school and to estimate the number of survey responses we would expect if every family responded to the survey for each school their children attend. The original baseline value used the number of students, however this over-represents the number of families at each school. Instead, we started by estimating the number of families at each school using the distinct number of addresses at each school. To get an estimate for the district for the purposes of calculating a survey response rate, we calculated the sum of the number of families at each school across the district. The table that follows shows the KPI that was adjusted. Both the original baseline value and the updated baseline value are shown as well as any updates that were made to the target.

Dashboard Updates

The KPI dashboard was publicly available as of March 17, 2023 and will be updated twice each year typically in September and January.