District staff tell school site councils to use dashboard data to target attendance and long‑term English learners

Julie, a district staff member, told a School Site Council gathering that the council is the local body charged with overseeing Title I funds and deciding how those federal dollars are deployed to support students. “School site council is the body that oversees our Title I funds and how we spend those funds to support our students,” Julie said, urging councils to use the California School Dashboard and local assessments to guide spending.

Julie reviewed the district’s Dashboard results and internal measures, saying the district saw notable improvements in several areas between the 2022–23 and 2023–24 reporting periods. Students with disabilities showed gains — an 8.4‑point increase in English language arts and a 3‑point increase in math — while overall suspensions fell and chronic absenteeism for all students declined about 9.9 percentage points, she said.

At the same time, Julie warned that long‑term English learners (LTELs) represent a growing concern on several indicators. She said roughly 38% of LTELs were chronically absent (defined as missing 10% or more of the school year), ELPAC progress for that group declined by about 27.9 percentage points and math scores fell about 5.7 points. “That’s 18 days or more,” Julie said of the chronic‑absence threshold, and she asked principals and site councils to…