2024 MDE Continuous Improvement Conference

Fatme Faraj's academic preparation includes a Bachelor Degree, Master’s Degree in Bilingual/Bicultural Education from Wayne State University, a Master's Degree in Educational Leadership from the University of Michigan-Dearborn, and a Reading Recovery Specialty from Western Michigan University.
Fatme's educational career began in Dearborn in 1994. She has served as a classroom teacher, Reading Recovery specialist, interventionist, coach, assistant principal, principal, director, and Executive Director of Student Achievement.
Fatme is currently the executive director of student achievement and oversees The strategic Plan and school improvement process, Assessment department, and other programs in Dearborn Public Schools district. The Executive Director's responsibility is to supervise the Dearborn feeder track schools, lead and facilitate an internal school improvement process for Dearborn District, facilitate Cognia/MDE accountability requirements, develop and lead Dearborn Teacher University professional development, and provide leadership coaching for administrators.
In addition to serving on previous system engagement reviews, her experience included serving as a co-chair for the AdvancED process in a K-8 school, leading district effort in hosting the Engagement review, presenting at the Michigan AdvancED conference in 2012 and 2017, and participating on a Michigan Department of Education committee to revise the school improvement reporting process under the new accountability (ESSA). As a director of school improvement, Fatme has developed a tool that was used as a formative assessment metric while visiting classrooms as part of a continuous improvement process. This process was published in the District Administration Magazine and received the Districts of Distinction Award.
As a principal, Fatme and her team developed a partnership model with all stakeholders, led a continuous improvement process and increased the school's performance from 12th percentile rank to 70th percentile rank on MDE's Top to Bottom school ranking from 2010 to 2016. The school has received Beating the Odds recognition from MDE, Champion School recognition from Bridge Magazine, and reward school recognition for three consecutive years from MDE. The school’s continuous improvement story was published in District Administration Magazine in March 2019.