ClassLink Plays a Critical Role in Fulton’s Move to Remote Learning

Fulton County Schools, Georgia’s fourth-largest school system, serves 94,000 students and 7,500 educators across 106 schools. The district is dedicated to providing equitable learning experiences with robust digital resources. During the spring of 2020, Fulton County Schools faced the challenge of quickly transitioning to remote learning. With students, staff, and parents needing to remain engaged, the district required a seamless solution for accessing educational tools and tracking participation.

Determined to maintain their commitments to teaching and learning, Dr. Emily Bell, the district's Chief Information Officer, says they delivered devices, Wi-Fi, support, and, most importantly—access to learning. 

The district issued over 60,000 devices and 4,500 Wi-Fi hotspots to students and quickly shifted to digital learning. With ClassLink's Single Sign-On platform already in place, Bell says they didn't have to worry about access issues. Teachers, students, and parents could quickly and easily access lessons, content, apps, and programs in one place with just one username and password.

"Single sign-on is an important element in our success, whether we are in school or in a time of remote learning," says Bell. "A district our size just simply has to have a single sign-on platform to achieve great results and have efficiency. So, for us, ClassLink was the standard operating procedure, whether we're in school or out of school."

As remote learning forged ahead, the district rolled out learning expectations to keep students engaged and on-track. Bell says ClassLink helped track that engagement and learning.

"ClassLink became very important in terms of inspecting what we expected," she explains. "Teachers used ClassLink Analytics to monitor student engagement, how much time they were spending in an application, and how many times they logged into it."

ClassLink’s Single Sign-On (SSO) platform played a pivotal role by enabling students to access their learning resources with just one login. This ease of access helped maintain engagement and learning continuity. Additionally, ClassLink’s Analytics allowed teachers and administrators to monitor student participation and adjust instruction accordingly. The district used these insights to ensure that students stayed on track and reached out to families when necessary to offer additional support.

The integration of ClassLink transformed remote learning into a more effective and manageable process, with engagement data helping inform teaching strategies. While the unexpected shift to remote learning was challenging, Bell says it was an opportunity to grow and move forward with digital learning.

"My absolute hope, as a lifelong educator and education technologist, is that remote learning is never weird again. It's never an opportunity to wonder, "What do we do?" because we know what to do. I hope, going forward, we are motivated to have more digital learning days regardless of circumstances."

Whether students are in school or learning from home, Bell sees a future at Fulton County Schools, where digital and remote learning with tools like ClassLink is the norm. She believes a leap forward in digital learning will provide students with the skills they need for college, careers, or wherever else their learning paths lead them.