GOSA, Georgia Department of Education Release Lists of Schools Eligible for Turnaround, Comprehensive Support

For third consecutive year, APS sees decrease of schools identified by Governor’s Office of Student Achievement (GOSA) for potential state intervention, while seven APS Title I schools earn “Reward” designation from GaDOE.

[UPDATE (December 19, 2019): The Georgia Department of Education informed APS today that three additional schools — Hutchinson Elementary, KIPP WAYS Primary and M. Agnes Jones Elementary — have been added to its Reward Schools list. The blog has been updated to reflect this news.]

Nearly a month after our EPIC State of the District program, Atlanta Public Schools has some more updates from both the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement (GOSA) and the Georgia Department of Education (GaDOE) that detail the current state of APS.

GOSA – Turnaround Eligible Schools List

This morning, the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement (GOSA) released its updated list of Turnaround Eligible Schools. This marks the third consecutive year in which the district has seen a decrease in the number of schools identified for potential state intervention.

Table 1 below shows the 12 APS schools on the 2019 Turnaround Eligible list. In 2018, APS had 13 schools on the Turnaround Eligible list. With the current list, 10 schools remained on the list, three of our schools (Gideons, Hollis and Finch) exited the list and two (Cascade and Slater) moved on to the 2019 list.

Schools with three-year average CCRPI scores in the bottom five percent of the state are identified as turnaround eligible (excluding non-traditional and state special schools). This year, the list includes schools with a three-year (2017, 2018, 2019) average CCRPI score that is at or below 57.0. Schools on the list are eligible for state-issued interventions through the state’s Chief Turnaround Officer and Department of Education.

Since January 2017, the number of APS schools identified for potential state intervention has decreased from 23 schools to 12 schools.

• 23 APS schools were placed on GOSA’s Chronically Failing Schools list in January 2017 before the list was replaced by the Turnaround Eligible List with the passage of House Bill 338 in spring 2017.
• In 2017, 16 schools in APS were on the first actual Turnaround Eligible list and formed the initial cohort of the ongoing APS Turnaround Strategy.
• Five of those schools exited the list after one year; in 2018 (last year), 13 APS schools were on the Turnaround Eligible list.
• The 2019 Turnaround Eligible list includes 12 schools; of these, eight are part of the initial turnaround cohort and four have been added since 2017 (Douglass and Carver STEAM in 2018; Cascade and Slater this year). Since the implementation of the APS Turnaround Strategy, half of the 16 schools originally identified for potential state intervention have exited the Turnaround Eligible list.

GaDOE – CSI, CSI Promise, TSI and Additional TSI

Last week, the Georgia Department of Education (GaDOE) released its own lists of schools identified for additional supports:  Comprehensive Support and Improvement (CSI), CSI Promise, Targeted Support and Improvement (TSI) and Additional TSI (ATSI). The criteria for these identifications were outlined last year as part of the state’s federally-approved plan for implementing the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).

A school can appear on the CSI list for two reasons: 

1. The school is a Title I school with a three-year CCRPI average in the lowest 5% of all Georgia Title I schools, or
2. The school is a high school with a four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate of 67% or lower.

A Title I school with a three-year CCRPI average in the lowest 6-10% of all Title I schools in the state is identified as CSI Promise. Schools are identified for TSI if any subgroup within the school is performing in the lowest 5% of all schools in at least 50% of CCRPI components, and schools are identified for ATSI if any subgroup within the school is performing in the lowest 5% of all schools in all CCRPI components. Schools identified on these lists will receive state support, including but not limited to additional funding, professional learning and targeted technical assistance. CSI schools receive the most supports, followed by TSI, ATSI and CSI Promise.

Table 2 below shows the 13 APS schools on the 2019 CSI list. Ten of these schools were also on the CSI list for 2018, and three were on the Promise list. No APS schools exited the CSI list from 2018 to 2019. While Finch was not in the lowest 5% of Title I schools in the state based on its 2019 CCRPI score, it did not meet the exit criteria and thus remains on the CSI list. The lists are created using 2019 CCRPI scores; for schools that have closed / merged, APS will decide how to allocate the funding and support.

For 2019, APS had five schools on the CSI Promise list (Cascade, Gideons, Mays, Slater and Toomer) and four schools on the TSI list (Continental Colony, Hollis Innovation, Kindezi Old Fourth Ward and Washington High.

Seven of our schools – Bolton Academy, Garden Hills Elementary, Hutchinson Elementary, KIPP Vision, KIPP Vision Primary, KIPP WAYS Primary and M. Agnes Jones Elementary – were all named Reward Schools by the Georgia Department of Education. Reward Schools are among the greatest-improving 5% of Title I Schoolwide schools and Title I Targeted Assistance schools. Reward Schools also have to maintain the performance of their economically disadvantaged students, students with disabilities, and English learners to be recognized.

Congratulations to those schools!

We anticipate receiving GOSA’s Beating the Odds analysis within 6 to 8 weeks, and I will share that with the APS community as soon as it is available.