Engaging in Two-Way Conversation

In today’s world, school districts have many ways to communicate with families, but one of the most valuable communication tools is engaging with and receiving feedback from those our schools serve. It can turn everyday challenges into opportunities for engagement and growth.

Fulton County Schools has partnered with ThoughtExchange to gather feedback from students, families, staff, and community members. ThoughtExchange is a special and unique two-way process to bring people together on important topics, which replaces the methods used in traditional surveys with a naturally collaborative platform. It can turn everyday challenges into opportunities for engagement and growth. ThoughtExchange will allow participants to share their thoughts and ideas about specific programs and initiatives, and/or gather other feedback about our schools and district. ThoughtExchange is a discussion management platform used and trusted by some of the world's most advanced organizations (including other K-12 school districts, higher education, and corporations).

With ThoughtExchange, participants share thoughts confidentially and anonymously, ensuring that all voices are heard and all divergent views can come to light around a shared topic of interest or concern. ThoughtExchange encourages engagement as people respond anonymously with other participants.

How does it work?

1. FCS poses a broad open-ended question and invites people to respond.
2. Participants share thoughts or ideas anonymously with others participating in the exchange.
   Click here for more information on how thoughts are confidential. 
3. Using a 1-5 scale, participants rate their agreement with different thoughts.
4.  Participants are encouraged to keep coming back to share additional thoughts and read and rate what others think.
5. Participants can view how the thoughts in the exchange have been rated by the group.
   Click here to learn more about the steps of an exchange.
6. FCS analyzes data from the exchange and uses this input for decision-making.

Data, insights, and feedback gathered through ThoughtExchange will help the district gain a better understanding of what students, families, staff, and community members think about key issues, initiatives, and topics. An exchange helps people learn from one another, discover important insights, and make decisions quickly and effectively - all this with fewer meetings and better information. This helps us gather input from members of the community while engaging people in thought-provoking conversations at the same time.

In Fulton County Schools, we are always looking for ways to improve communication and are listening deeply to your feedback and ideas. When we run a ThoughtExchange, our team takes the time to review and consider the feedback from the top thoughts to inform our decisions on how to best move forward.

For more on ThoughtExchange and how it works, watch this brief video.