{"id":3766,"date":"2016-02-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-02-24T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/blog\/cw_post\/henry-county-schools-four-big-takeaways\/"},"modified":"2020-02-05T12:57:25","modified_gmt":"2020-02-05T17:57:25","slug":"henry-county-schools-four-big-takeaways","status":"publish","type":"cw_post","link":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/cw_post\/henry-county-schools-four-big-takeaways\/","title":{"rendered":"Henry County Schools: Four Big Takeaways"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"henryWe are going to try something different here. Our case studies are getting longer as we learn more. So instead of our releasing one blog post in a series at a time, we are going to release all of them at the same time with interlocking links. <\/em><\/p>\n

Post #1: Four Big Takeaways<\/a> (includes background)<\/em><\/p>\n

Post #2: Ensuring Success for Each Student<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Post #3: Scaling Strategies for Mid-Size Districts<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Post #4: What All of This Means for Schools<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Post #5: Impact Academy<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Let us know if this works better for you. You\u2019ll need to dedicate ten to fifteen minutes to read it. Our hope is that it will make it easier for you to draw out the insights that are important to you while still building more background in competency education. <\/em><\/p>\n

Overview<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just outside of Atlanta, Georgia, Henry County Schools (HCS) operates fifty schools serving 42,000 students. It covers a mix of four cities and towns, some rural and others more suburban. The district is the largest employer in the area (over 75 percent of workers leave Henry County for work daily), with many people commuting to Atlanta or other suburbs to work.<\/p>\n

Historically, HCS has performed relatively well, but enormous changes over the past fifteen years\u00a0\u2013 including enrollment nearly doubling, the percentage of students who are FRL tripling to 60 percent of the population, and increases in racial diversity (HCS is now 33 percent white, 51 percent African-American, and 9 percent Hispanic)\u00a0\u2013 created an opportunity for change. In 2013, the district created a strategic plan to transform their schools to personalized learning by 2020<\/a>. One of the five pillars of this plan is competency-based learning. Although it\u2019s always hard to determine causal relationships, Henry County has already had a 6.4 percent increase in their four-year graduate rate since they began this work. They are certainly going in the right direction.<\/p>\n

Under the leadership of Superintendent Rodney Bowler, the school board identified multiple reasons for turning to personalized learning, including:<\/p>\n