DeKalb County, GA — The DeKalb Board of Education presented a holistic look at how upcoming initiatives were interconnected at their recent retreat.

The board meet April 18 and April 19 at the GA Tech Hotel downtown.

Sarita Smith, executive director of student assignment for the district, gave the “Student Assignment Project” Presentation. Smith is a social worker by trade, and this came across in her presentation. She discussed how DeKalb County Schools will be approaching redistricting, or what Superintendent Dr. Devon Horton and his staff deemed “reimagining”. 

While the name change may seem semantic, Smith said this new name is more accurate.

Smith said, “Redistricting is strictly about the boundary lines. ‘Consolidation’ is about pushing schools together for often financial reasons… but what we are doing involves family input, it involves new programs. That’s not to say that none of those things will happen, but we are engaging in a more holistic process.” 

The board talked about how the “Student Assignment Project” will be informed by the current situation, but will be more based on future forecasts. This process will be central to almost everything else the district will be doing.

Smith talked about how in reviewing the data and current modus operandi of the district, the need for “managing enrollment” became evident. Smith, who was hired in February, heaped praise on the district’s data collection, but said implementing ways to make decisions based on the data was crucial. 

The “millions of dollars“ the district is spending on mobile classrooms or trailers, for example, were cited as a knock on effect of this lack of management.

“Right now kids register and registrars enroll,” said Smith “There is nothing bridging these processes, we need to start saying ‘Let’s look at numbers’ ‘Are we at capacity?’ ‘Is the school under capacity?’ that management piece of data is not happening…”

What this will look like in practice is a live enrollment dashboard, so that the district can see enrollment by school by grade. Smith was highly complimentary of the district’s data records, saying that DCSD was already collecting the data she needed, and her role was to take it all and put it under one roof to make it accessible to answer or inform the district’s answers to questions that arise.

School clusters, for example, is a model the district may be moving away from, but the decision will be based on whether it’s working as a framework for doing what it is trying to do. 

Smith said the staff is asking the board, “What is the district trying to achieve with clusters?” 

Once clearer parameters are passed down, this data evaluation process will involve the creation of the Student Assignment Project Committee. This committee will have two parts: an internal team and a “community-based” team. 

The internal team will consist of representatives from across district staff, particularly people likely to be the ones implementing any changes. They will receive the data first, review it and make a preliminary report to the public. 

This report will then go to the “community-based” team, which will be made up of community stakeholders who will apply to participate via an application set to be released in May. The district will be looking for a broad array of stakeholders, not strictly parents. These meetings will be public, recorded and content experts will be invited to participate. 

After that, proposals will go back to the internal team where feedback will be implemented before being presented to the board. 

Smith talked why it was important to have both of these committees and to work through the process in stages. 

Acknowledging the ”reimagining” process as a sensitive one, she said it is set up the way it is to make sure any recommendation that ultimately gets put forward to the board has received community feedback, is backed up by data and when released, is released with all the supporting data accessible.

The board acknowledged that the process is going to be unpleasant, and is likely to garner some negative response, but Smith said it’s worth it.

“It’s not gonna be fun, but it is really, really imperative to talk to the people you’re impacting before the people that are going to vote on who we impact,” Smith said. 

Smith continued, “It’s really about give us feedback…That’s fine, if you don’t like it, but tell us why? Tell us something else that we can consider.”

After the initial proposal is sufficiently iterated the board votes on it, and then staff, who have been a part of creating the proposal, get to work on enacting it.  

“It is also best practice to tell families six months ahead of time before we make a decision or a change…this is so they have time to process, to be upset and then to come back and have the meeting, after the meeting,” Smith said. 

School Board Member Whitney McGinnis said specialty programs have to be a part of this process. 

McGinnis said it was crucial to use a context based approach to program evaluation, specifically regarding magnet school. She said instead of considering closing a school because it is under enrolled, school leaders should ask why it’s under-enrolled. The district should also generally focus on publicizing the district’s specialty options more, she added.

Smith said that this will probably be achieved as a part of enrollment management, making sure that specialty schools are advertised on registration pages.

Horton told a story summing up why he felt the work of the district was bigger than just “redrawing the lines.” 

He talked about a parent in South DeKalb who was sending their kid north in order to access a “better” Spanish program. Horton said this story showed that it wasn’t an issue of the district not having access to a quality educational program, but “not being strategic, in the way we identify and place it.” 

Generally, though, there was lots of discussion about not rushing through the process just because it has parts that are uncomfortable. 

“If the community has to live a few more years with overcrowding, then we have to be transparent with that,” Smith said. “Doing nothing may be the right call, but we have to be clear about the why.”

The Student Assignment Project process is expected to be fully in motion by Fall 2027. 

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