Garden Grove USD highlights SBAC gains, higher A–G and graduation rates; expands supports for English learners and students experiencing homelessness

At its board meeting, Garden Grove Unified School District staff presented the district's annual data and instruction update, reporting consecutive-year gains on SBAC English language arts and math and noting the district outperformed county and state averages in multiple measures.

Director of Evaluation and Research Melissa Saiz told the board the district saw growth in SBAC ELA and math over the prior year and has outperformed its core comparison districts for several consecutive years. Saiz said the district served more than 37,000 students last year, including roughly 11,000 English learners, and reported an unduplicated pupil count of about 81 percent. "When we consider ourselves among the top 10 performing large California districts, for the fifth year in a row, we have ranked fifth among other large California districts," Saiz said.

The presentation covered three district goals. For academic goal measures, staff highlighted that the district's A–G completion rate reached 65.1 percent for 2024'25, its highest recorded rate, and noted improvements in English learner progress and maintenance of green ratings for graduation rate and college-and-career readiness. Saiz also said the district recognized 606 students with the Seal of Biliteracy in 2023'24 and, for the first time, awarded the honor for American Sign Language.

Special education and inclusion were a central focus. Director of Special Education Tricia Chin described the district's ongoing inclusion model and said additional educational specialists were added this year to reduce elementary caseloads to an average of about 12:1 (down from more typical ratios cited at other districts). The district said it authorized roughly $8 million in staffing additions to expand supports and added an IBI (Intensive Behavioral Intervention) team member at each elementary site. "We want to maximize staff to support students in the least restrictive environment," Chin said.

The district also reviewed behavioral supports and safety reporting. Marvin Atkins, who oversees behavior supports and MTSS, outlined Multi-Tiered Systems of Support and the district's Stop It anonymous reporting platform. Atkins reported 1,098 Stop It reports last year and 177 so far this year, a partial-year total staff said will be compared to full-year data before drawing conclusions. "Stop It empowers students and staff to keep students safe," Atkins said, and staff noted they respond immediately to emergent reports.

Trustees asked for more detail on the Stop It numbers and on language- and subgroup-level results for the Seal of Biliteracy; staff said they would provide further breakdowns and post data to the district website and annual report materials. The district's IT director also reported high parent portal enrollment (reported at 99.76 percent) and multilingual communications through ParentSquare and the ARIS/Aeries portals.

Board members praised improvements but asked staff to return with more granular data on incident types, the Stop It year-over-year comparison, and the distribution of Seal of Biliteracy awards by language. Staff said some differences are explained by course and AP test availability for certain languages and by partial-versus-full-year reporting for safety incidents. The board also discussed workforce and budget considerations tied to vendor price increases and directed staff to supply further vendor- and category-level details to inform budget monitoring.

The presentation closed with an invitation for trustees to follow up; staff said slide decks and more palatable LCAP charts and the annual report are posted on the district's public website for review.