Atlanta Public Schools (APS) continued to show overall improvement on the College and Career Readiness Index (CCRPI), according to the 2025 CCRPI data, released by the Georgia Department of Education.
The CCRPI includes five components: Content Mastery, Progress, Closing Gaps, Readiness, and – for high schools – Graduation Rate. APS scored 100 on the Closing Gaps component in elementary schools and improved Readiness and Content Mastery scores at all grade bands. Additionally, students with disabilities and who are economically disadvantaged made gains in 11 of 12 areas.
Principal Kimberly Gibbs details how Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School achieved its gains:
Q: What specific strategies or initiatives did your school implement that you believe contributed most to the CCRPI improvement?
A: We moved away from analyzing data in the aggregate and became highly intentional about which specific students we needed to move. During weekly PLCs, we used APS graphs to identify “Nudge/Cusp Groups”, small clusters of students who were just points away from proficiency or who showed consistent gaps in foundational skills. To support this, we provided specific coaching support during planning blocks to help teachers map out five-day instructional cycles tailored specifically to these students, ensuring that the ESOL and students with disabilities populations received precise interventions before they fell behind.
To ensure instructional equity across our student population, we eliminated the “luck of the draw” regarding teacher quality by implementing a Schoolwide Lesson Plan Template. Every teacher utilized a standardized “I Do, We Do, You Do” framework. This also includes a Connection Before Content, which each teacher is expected to do at the beginning of each class. Keeping in mind that students don’t learn from people they don’t like or don’t feel like them. The template requires teachers to explicitly plan for Academic Vocabulary (crucial for our ESOL learners) and Evidence of Learning (Exit Tickets). This guaranteed that every classroom, regardless of the subject, maintained high rigor and consistent pacing.
It has been our goal over the last few years to shift our school culture, making the King a highly desirable and supportive environment for all staff and students. Implementing the IB and WICOR framework, which not only supports academic structures but also helps stimulate positive social-emotional learning. By prioritizing a positive climate and implementing PBIS, we reduced disciplinary referrals, keeping students in the classroom and increasing instructional time. We empowered student agency by creating a Principal Advisory Committee that meets monthly and offers opportunities for students to share their feedback and provide input on school and classroom decisions. All teachers are encouraged at the end of a unit to do Reflective Circles to maintain or improve teaching strategies and activities for future lessons.
Q: Can you share examples of how your teachers are driving student growth and achievement, and any practices that have been particularly effective?
A: Our teachers are driving growth through a “Total Participation” mindset, moving away from whole-group lectures toward individualized mastery. They are using common formative assessment data, and teachers create “Nudge/Cusp Groups.” Instead of teaching to the middle, they provide targeted instruction to specific students identified as being on the cusp of proficiency.
In our co-taught classes, teachers use Station Teaching Coteaching to cut the student-teacher ratio in half. One group works on a rigor-based application with the General Education teacher, while the other receives scaffolded support from the Special Education teacher, ensuring our SWD population receives high-level instruction.
To support our ESOL population and students of color, teachers embed explicit academic vocabulary into every lesson, using sentence frames and visual anchors to bridge the gap between social and academic language.
Using the Schoolwide Lesson Template, teachers conclude every lesson with a standard-aligned exit ticket. These are graded quickly to determine who needs re-teaching the next day, ensuring no student falls too far behind.
Q: What is something impactful/innovative happening in the area of teaching and learning at your school that sets your school apart?
A: Most schools use stations as an occasional “fun” activity. We have transformed Station Teaching Coteaching into a universal standard for all co-taught classrooms. We have removed the “One Teach, One Assist” barrier that often leaves students with disabilities as passive observers. In our co-taught classes, the student-to-teacher ratio is instantly halved. Students are constantly interacting with a content expert, ensuring that our students with disabilities are receiving the exact same rigor as their general education peers and providing a higher level of rigor for our students who need more of a challenge, which directly resulted in a significant jump in our Closing Gaps score.
We also provide intensive systemic support to make differentiation happen. Instead of teachers working in isolation, they are coached on task analysis and specific scaffolding strategies before the lesson begins. This ensures that “differentiation” is a planned reality rather than a reactive attempt.
Q: What are your hopes or expectations for student achievement moving forward, and how do you plan to build on this recent success?
A: Our future expectation is to move from closing gaps to exceeding standards, ensuring that the explosive growth seen in our student populations becomes our permanent baseline. We anticipate double-digit gains in Content Mastery as we shift our focus from moving students to proficiency to pushing them toward distinguished performance. To build on this success, we will arrange our instructional playbook, formalizing the Schoolwide Lesson Template and Station Teaching models to ensure every new staff member is immediately proficient in our proven methods. Furthermore, we plan to empower students by having them track their own data, fostering ownership of their “Nudge Group” interventions. By evolving our Saturday School to include enrichment tracks and implementing peer-to-peer coaching cycles, we will sustain our momentum and ensure that high achievement is a guaranteed outcome for every student in our building.
