Promoting Shared Accountability and Monitoring between District Leadership and External Partners

Abstract

Duval County Public Schools (DCPS) is the 20th largest school district in the United States, serving approximately 125,000 students. Under the leadership of Dr. Diana Greene, DCPS underwent significant improvement prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. During the 2022-2023 school year, the district faced ongoing staffing challenges and heightened political tensions within the Florida education system, inhibiting its ability to shift back to a proactive approach to improving performance and supporting student needs. Another significant obstacle facing the district was the upcoming reduction of the district’s budget due to expiring ESSER funds.

For my strategic project, I partnered with the Office of Strategic Planning to develop and implement an internal continuous improvement process that promotes collaborative and ongoing measured evaluation of initiatives and services from launch. I designed tools and protocols that would guide the process, establish environments for dialogue, and empower district representatives to lead the continuous improvement efforts. The process was piloted to measure internal initiatives and contracted vendor performance that support the district’s strategic plan, primarily focused on academic performance and school improvement.

This capstone explores how districts can empower practitioners to play a leading role in monitoring and evaluating program effectiveness through shared goal setting and collaboratively defining quantitative and qualitative metrics. The capstone includes research that demonstrates that creating collaborative networks and embedding improvement practices in daily work help build a culture of shared accountability. In addition, when continuous improvement and internal reflection is valued at the district level, sustainable change can and will occur. Based on evidence and analysis, recommendations are presented for how Duval County Public Schools and other districts can improve ongoing monitoring by embedding best practices in existing workstreams, elevating and incorporating student and teacher voices, and utilizing the growing practice of outcomes-based contracting.