In a roundtable discussion, APS psychological services leadership shared feedback about the district's experience with SageReport.
Why APS Said Yes
Atlanta Public Schools has always prioritized best practice. But like most districts, APS leadership lives with a tension: compliance and retention are the top priorities, and report quality matters deeply, but those goals can pull in opposite directions. Leadership has always pushed for thorough, legally defensible reports while creating space for psychologists to step into the more dynamic roles they were trained for. Achieving both is possible, but it takes real effort when the same team is responsible for all of it, and the strain shows up in retention. They were looking for a resource that would make both possible without burning people out.
When SageReport approached the district, leadership saw an opportunity to stop making that tradeoff.
"We aimed to ensure the written report was as thorough and comprehensive as the information shared during meetings."
The department had already developed internal templates to support report writing. While helpful, these templates had practical limitations and were not always easy for all school psychologists to use, particularly for those who were less comfortable navigating more complex technology tools. At the same time, the department had good reason to be cautious about the use of AI. Some psychologists who experimented with other AI based report writing tools encountered significant issues. In several cases, the tools lacked the sophistication needed for high quality psychological reports, and errors were not consistently identified during review.
APS needed something that would raise the floor on quality across their entire team without creating new problems.
The Pilot: A Pain Point Laid Bare
District leaders know the risk of purchasing edtech that no one uses. Research consistently shows that the majority of educational software licenses go unused, often because educators are too overwhelmed to learn something new on top of everything else they're managing. School psychologists, buried in caseloads and documentation, are no exception.
So when SageReport launched as a pilot, APS leadership was careful not to add to the burden. They gave psychologists three options after a brief demo of an early beta, bugs and all: opt in now, wait for a more polished version later, or decline entirely. Leadership expected a handful of people to sign up.
53 chose now. 2 chose later. Zero declined.
What Districts Fear Giving Up
Every district leader considering an AI tool for report writing has the same concern: what are we sacrificing for speed? If a platform drafts a full psychoeducational report in minutes, what's being lost in quality, clinical accuracy, or legal defensibility?
APS gained in every category.
Integration
"The integration part is what's so wonderful. It's taking into consideration what the question was, what people said in interviews, and even any discrepancies that exist."
SageReport doesn't summarize data sources in isolation. It pulls together the full picture: what does a score mean in the context of referral concerns, interview responses, rating scale results, and work samples.
Completeness
"The rubric our school psychologists follow outlines all the elements that they have to include in their report. SageReport is very thorough, it includes everything needed from the rubric."
With SageReport, the full picture makes it into the written record every time. The documentation that matters for legal defensibility is in the report, not just discussed at the meeting table.
"SageReport is making report writing less difficult and time consuming, allowing psychologists to produce a well written, detailed report, ready for the readers. and have time back to support schools in other ways that are needed."
Clinical Quality
Leadership describes SageReport as a thought partner that holds the entire case at once.
"It's making all these connections, it is really good."
The psychologist still reads every word, still makes every clinical call. But the starting point is a well-integrated draft, not a blank page.
Staff Quality of Life and Burnout Data
In a survey during the early beta, 89% of psychologists said SageReport makes report writing less stressful. The remaining respondents were those who experienced the most significant technical issues during that early period. On the standard product-market fit benchmark, 93% said they would be "very disappointed" to lose access to SageReport. For context, 40% is typically considered strong.
The following are quotes from SageReport users about the impact of piloting the software:
"I almost broke down in tears because I did not know what I was going to do. The draft I got back was nothing like what I expected. This will give me back my weekend and my sanity."
"For the last two years, I have been vehemently against anything AI. After seeing what SageReport does, it gives me hope that perhaps I can do this job without compromising my mental and physical health."
"My mind is literally blown. Literally insane! Life changing!"
"SageReport healed me emotionally from memories of trying to nurse a baby and write reports, pulling all nighters, and having the start of a hunchback."
"Omg this SageReport is gonna change my life."
What APS Leadership Sees Ahead
For APS leadership, the impact extends beyond report writing. Currently, many districts rely on school psychologists almost exclusively for testing and evaluations. As a result, they hire additional staff to provide services that psychologists are trained to deliver, including behavioral consultation, social-emotional support, crisis intervention, and resources for parents and teachers.
"They are hiring multiple positions to perform services for which we are trained, but the volume of students requiring testing and evaluation limits our capacity to provide those supports."
That's redundant spending driven by a capacity problem, not a skills gap. And it cuts both ways: psychologists didn't enter this field to write reports all day. When they can't do the clinical work they trained for, morale drops and turnover follows.
SageReport drafts an integrated psychoeducational report in minutes. That part is intuitive. What matters more to districts is what APS sees for the future: reports that are more complete and more defensible, a team that's less burned out and more likely to stay, psychologists stepping into the more dynamic roles they were trained for, and districts spending less on redundant positions to fill gaps their own staff could cover.