Changing Hearts and Minds in Hart County

Case Study: Hart County Schools (Ga.)

How a Focus on Community Pride and Tradition Turned Reluctant Taxpayers into Supporters and Disengaged Students into Graduates

Hart County Schools, a district in northeastern Georgia, was named a dropout factory in 2005, when just over 50% of its seniors graduated high school. Fifteen years later, the district’s graduation rate consistently surpass that of the state’s.

In 2017, nearly 97% of the senior class graduated high school, and 100% of the African American student population graduated. The school had historically and consistently been under-funded by a taxpayer base that tended to vote against tax increases that would support schools. Furthermore, students were not provided sufficient compelling and relevant reasons to engage in, care about, and stay in school.

To turn their district around, leadership would have to do far more than focus on academic initiatives; they would have to change hearts and minds—of students and the greater community that had long-since felt separate from and disinterested in its schools.

Today, almost everyone in the larger Hart County community is emotionally invested in its schools and even supportive of tax increases that benefit students.