Forsyth County Schools is excited to announce one of the highest accreditation scores - a 381.13 Index of Education Quality (IEQ)!
After multiple months of work, Cognia, a global network of
practicing and retired education leaders, completed the extensive review in January. Cognia serves 36,000 institutions, 5 million teachers, and 25 million students in 85 countries.
An accreditation review occurs every five years. It measures the overall performance of a school district or school to a set of 31 international standards in three domain areas (leadership, learning, and resources).
Cognia uses a scale of 100 to 400 to provide information about how the institution is performing, stating “an IEQ of 275 and above indicates the institution is beginning to reach the impact level and is engaged in practices that are sustained over time and are becoming ingrained in the culture of the institution.”
According to Cognia, the average IEQ for a school district ranges between 278.34-283.33. FCS exceeded this average by 100 points.
Students who attend unaccredited school districts may have difficulty transferring credits, applying to colleges, and receiving financial aid, including the HOPE scholarship. For the 2021-22 school year, FCS serves 53,300+ students representing 124 countries.
“We have a global student body,” shared FCS Superintendent Dr. Jeff Bearden. “We fully expect once students graduate from our schools, that they are able to learn or work anywhere in the world. It’s important that we rate ourselves on standards that are internationally based, not just standards for one state in the country.”
There are two accrediting agencies in Georgia; one measures state standards and the other (Cognia) measures international standards. The majority of the school districts in Georgia, especially the largest and metro-Atlanta districts, use Cognia for accreditation. FCS is the 6th largest of 181 school districts in Georgia.
The district would like to thank the nine-team members that volunteered to serve on the Cognia External Review Team. Collectively, they had 237 years of experience in education. Cognia External Review Teams are not employees of Cognia. FCS would also like to thank the 353 stakeholders, comprised of the governance team, district leaders, school leaders, certified staff, classified staff, parents/guardians, students, and community members, that were interviewed for the review.
