Christina
Hello everyone. This is Christina Kishimoto at Voice4Equity. We have an exciting leader with us today, DeNelle West, who is doing tremendous work at Gwinnett County Public Schools in Georgia. Welcome DeNelle.
DeNelle
Thank you. I’m glad to be here.
Christina
It’s great to have some time to talk to you. I know you are leading in tremendous ways at Gwinnett County, and you have a long history of contributing to public education and to our kids in this nation. As the chief learning officer, there’s a lot for you to share with other leaders throughout the nation. So let’s jump right in. I’d love to learn a little bit about Gwinnett County.
DeNelle
Gwinnett County Public Schools is the largest school district in the state of Georgia. We’re just a little bit north of Atlanta, and we have 142 schools, about 81 of those schools are elementary, 29 middle schools, 24 high schools, and seven what we would call special entity schools. So that would include some of our alternative programs, our online campus, in addition to special programs that are designed to serve students who may have special circumstances and may have left the public education system. It’s been our opportunity to recover and continue to support them. We also have one charter school here in Gwinnett. And it’s been really exciting to see how we’ve been able to partner with this charter school where they’re a part of all of our leadership training. It’s their line to our instructional initiatives. So it’s just been a really exciting and unique partnership to see how that works in this school system, in a district our size, and how they’ve integrated into the model that we have here in Gwinnett.
Christina
That’s fantastic. And so it’s a very diverse community and a pretty large school district. I was over in your district visiting with the US Department of Education and the whole group that went down there to learn about what’s happening there and the work that you’re leading, and it’s really exciting. I’d like to dig in a little more because I heard you speak on the STEM computer science panel, and you were talking about the kind of vision you have and the way you’ve been leading in this space. So what’s been happening in terms of computer science in Gwinnett County?
DeNelle
So a few years back, the state of Georgia actually passed a bill that basically required school districts in the state of Georgia to implement a plan phased out over a series of years, where the requirement was students would have access to at least one computer science course in high school. They would have access to a computer science exploratory course in middle school. And then, it was strongly recommended at the elementary level that school districts consider offering computer science courses as well.
So although in Gwinnett, we didn’t necessarily go the policy route or procedural route for what our implementation could potentially look like in our system, we really thought about what it is that we want to see for each and every student to ensure that there’s equity and access for all. If you are familiar with the band orchestra pathways in a school system, if students don’t have access early on in elementary to learn an instrument and have time to practice and begin to perfect that at an early level, when they are ready to enter into some competitive high school program if they didn’t have that exposure in elementary school, there’s a lot of work that has to happen to get them ready in high school. We’ve approached our computer science work very similarly.
We’ve decided and taken on a relatively ambitious campaign in Gwinnett to ensure that we created equity and access for each and every student and opportunity and access for each and every student in the area of computer science and STEM beginning with our elementary students. We are close to 100% of our schools. And that includes pre-K-12, offering computer science as a course or a special within their schedules.
In our blueprint for the future, which is in our district strategic plan, we’ve called out a very specific key performance indicator that outlines that by 2024, one hundred percent of our elementary schools will have computer science in place. And I have to say, I think we’re going to hit that target. I would be remiss if I didn’t recognize our director of artificial intelligence and computer science, who’s been really spearheading this program. She has a very, very small and mighty team. They’ve been doing some incredible work to get the resources in the hands of each of our teachers to develop the teacher prep and training opportunities that help really develop that capacity of our staff to move, maybe shift a little bit outside of what would have been a traditional elementary certification realm and pursue a computer science endorsement that allows them to teach this course, feeling confident, and competence-based on the learning opportunities and skills that they’ve developed over time.
Christina
You’ve shared a lot of exciting components and how you’ve been thinking about this. When I led in Hawaii, we got a computer science K-12 policy passed. The policy front is one you do proactively to initiate change, or you kind of back into it. And it sounds like you decided to go into the learning design first and put it into your strategic plan. That must mean that you did not have policies that necessarily inhibited you from doing this work. And I think sometimes we forget that policies don’t have to be developed first and that our policies tend to be, especially in the learning area, broad enough for us to innovate. Is that what you found? That you really didn’t need to change policy to innovate?
DeNelle
Yes, and it’s really interesting, particularly in a district our size; everyone may not be ready to jump on right away. And then you’re also trying to balance that with several other initiatives and priorities, so we were really surprised to see, just by planting the seed, working really closely with our stakeholders in the development and design for this, we were able to generate so much buy-in, just by saying and the messaging that this is something that we’d like to see for all of our students to have access to. We really believe every student deserves access to a high-quality and inclusive computer science education.
And we believe that’s going to be one of the biggest levers to help make all of our kids more competitive with students who may have attended a school that really specializes in this work. So this is really expanding the floor for all of our students. They’re all going to have this common foundation. It’s not just reading, writing, math, science, and social studies, but really, when we’re thinking about and envisioning the future world that our students will be living in, we know we are kind of experiencing that right now. We know what that feels like. So what can we do to make sure that they understand? How do they use the wealth of technology that’s going to be at their fingertips in the future, to use that responsibly, and also know how to use it to expand their own career and professional opportunities?
Christina
I love how you’re leading through this. We know because there are new research studies around this, that girls and students of color are not necessarily pursuing the STEM areas or computer science areas to the degree that we’ve put effort into it because it’s not infused into the whole environment, the learning environment where they’re seeing it and feeling it and seeing that it’s part of the world. But instead, it’s the added class, or it’s an after-school program. And you’re really talking about embedding it into the whole learning design and construct of Gwinnett County’s public education system.
DeNelle
Yeah, absolutely. I think we learn more about the limitations and boundaries that you need to put in place so when you’re trying to teach students about those ethical practices, particularly like, if you’re thinking about AI and just Internet safety, all of those pieces, it’s really critical for us to try to be as best we can, to just be aware of what’s all out there. Sometimes there are challenges when you’re developing everything in-house, on your own. But also, the beauty of that is that you’re able to look at what that student experience is like in time and make adjustments so that the next year, we’re making it just a little bit better.
Our consumers are our best customers, and our most loyal folks who are gonna give us feedback are our students. And we’re hearing from them, like what’s working and what’s not.
Christina
They will certainly let us know as adults how out of touch we are with the reality of the world around them. And we love that about them, right? We love the authenticity that they bring to learning. Now, AI is something you’ve mentioned a couple of times. That’s a world that can be scary because we are all in learning mode right now. But the whole generative AI tool provides an opportunity to engage both students and teachers very differently and to think about how to embed that differently in our learning design. Where are you with this? How are you playing in that space and looking at whether there are some things you want to jump into? I would love to hear about that.
DeNelle
So, I am proud to say Gwinnett County Public Schools is one of the K-12 leaders in this area. This work started before I became a part of the GCPS team. But I am certainly a proud partner in the work since I’ve rejoined the GCPS team. In Gwinnett, we do have a cluster that is dedicated to this focus. It’s our second-year cluster, and I use cluster as it really is like equating to sets of elementary and middle schools feeding into one high school. In each of those schools, they have an AI-themed AI framework that they follow. And AI is sort of embedded in all that they do. We had a collective group of teachers and leaders, we’ve worked with national organizations to help develop a robust AI framework that’s implemented in each of those schools within that cluster.
One of the key messages that our AI team developed to help support a mental model for what this AI work would look like starts with future readiness, which is critical for every student. And it doesn’t matter what their career pathway or learning pathway might be post Gwinnett County Public Schools; we want to make sure that every single student is ready.
And we use this sort of analogy like all students must swim. They have to understand what AI is and can recognize it and see how it impacts the world. All students will snorkel. They are proficient users and can make informed decisions about the use of AI. Some students will scuba. They have the skill sets to develop and kind of navigate new and innovative technologies.
Now, like I kind of talked about, like the specialized cluster within GCPS. We are also looking at the high school level to think about some of our special entity schools that have a specific CTE model to provide some of our more specialized CTE programs. We’re also looking to expand some of the AI work into those schools in the upcoming years because those schools are like hubs where any student in the district has the opportunity, if they like, to be able to participate in those schools. We are really digging into this as a system to think about how we level set. How do we expand our floor? What’s going to be on our dance floor around this work to make sure that some of it naturally comes up in the computer science work that we’re doing? But we want to make sure that we’re really intentional in how we design and talk about making sure every student is future-ready. If you want to invite members of my team or me back for a follow-up conversation, we’re hoping to have some things really mapped out and ready to share more publicly in the spring.
Christina
Well, I hope you’re going to be at the When Women Lead conference so that we can get you to present these frameworks and the approach you’re taking, which is so exciting. But again, instead of talking about starting with policy, which we’ve seen some districts start there and get caught up with, just not sure how they want to move with policy language, you started out with the learning framework. You started out with instruction and learning and how students are going to experience these new areas, regardless of the fact that this is an area that is going to keep changing, and really embracing that innovation and learning space. What do you advise to those who may be stuck on the policy language? Policy may need to change in some areas, but in most areas, our curriculum policies tend to be broad enough. You did talk about things like safety, and all those things need to be considered. But what do you say to them about jumping into the innovation work first and the instructional design
DeNelle
To have a really clear policy around this work first, that’s going to create the mindset shifts that we need to make sure that we’re able to move this work and implement at high levels. And I think where we’ve seen that and where we’ve had starts and stops nationally in education is around equity work. We may start with a very stringent policy, equity policy, and then we’re hopeful in that process. Some of the mindset and practices are going to follow along with that, where that work requires a shift in thinking first in order to see that really come to life in what you do every day.
What has been really critical and a learning experience is that when you start with your customers, with the stakeholders, who are the ones who will be the beneficiaries of the work that happens in this area, it makes the work go faster. It makes the work more enjoyable because there is nothing like tinkering with something. That’s the child in us. We want to pick things up, move it around, and play around with it a little bit before we decide what’s going to be the best way to make it work. And when you get that final product, there’s a level of pride in ownership that comes with that. That makes the work move at a more accelerated pace.
And that’s been the beauty of this. Even though it hasn’t made its way into policy, not to say that it won’t show up sometime in the future, it’s been really amazing to watch this journey where you start with ideation and design thinking, and you come up with this product, and it turns into this cluster model that starts with the high school and then filters back down to the middle and elementary schools.
And just being able to build that buy-in and knowing that it takes time to get there. You have to have policies that actually allow innovation to happen. That’s always been something that’s been really appreciated here in Gwinnett. County Public Schools. This idea of managed- performance-empowerment. That model really allows the folks who are closest to the work, who are having success, have that opportunity, that freedom, that space to explore and ideate, and innovate, which has really been sort of a hallmark of our organization for quite some time.
Christina
I love the performance empowerment approach, certainly, how I’ve led through my districts, and it’s something that every community is not necessarily comfortable with, depending on what their approach has been historically. But it’s amazing to create that space to play, like you said, to innovate, to try it out. And policy is not a straight-line policy. You can actually jump in at any point, whether it’s going in and starting out with language that’s codified or whether it’s looking at what it looks like on an implemented design and determining whether the codified language needs to change. Because the fact is that Gwinnett County has broad policy language around instruction. And so you’re basically redefining without changing the language you’re seeing goes as far as innovating and having space to play and to try it out. And that’s what learning is about. What I love about the whole generative AI opportunity, the whole AI opportunity, thinking about AI-enabled curriculum, and where we’re going with this is that it does force us to go back into looking at innovation first; looking at the opportunities this provides for our students. And our students have equal power in the space as their teachers to be able to innovate. How exciting!
Absolutely. So as you think about where you are right now, as the chief learning officer, what do you envision are the impacts you’re going to have by really focusing on, you know, stem and computer science and being willing to jump right into the generative AI space and explore that. What does this mean in terms of outcomes for students to you, from your vision?
DeNelle
What’s really been incredible and inspiring about this type of learning experience is the thinking skills that are fostered in the process of learning in this way. When you look at the workforce data or jobs of the future data, these are all the skills that employers want their employees to have. So the opportunities to collaborate and work on a common problem and bring some ideas to life, that process of testing, editing, retesting, and that cycle of improvement, that students have the opportunity to engage in, the ability to answer questions and test theories, these are all lifelong skills that, regardless of whatever path our students choose to take, they are ready. And I think our job in terms of shifting the trajectory is to ensure that every student leaves not just ready to take that next high-stakes test, because sometimes it feels like we’re just practicing and practicing for the next test, but really ready to change the world. I think our efforts with computer science and our efforts in AI are really designed to prepare our children to change the world. Because that’s been their learning experience. That’s what they know. That’s all they know. When every student has that opportunity, it just really sets us up for a better future.
Christina
Thank you so much for joining us. You’ve given us a lot to think about and thank you for being willing to share what’s happening at Gwinnett County. There’s so much exciting work happening across the nation, and you are one of those leaders to watch. We thank you for spending some time with us today.
DeNelle
Thank you. My pleasure.
