Santa Ana Unified board reviews 2025 California School Dashboard, notes gains and equity gaps

Superintendent Dr. Lorraine Perez told the Santa Ana Unified School District Board of Education that the 2025 California School Dashboard shows progress the district "hasn't seen in many years," with graduation and the college-and-career indicator moving into the state's green band and academic indicators such as English language arts and math improving from orange to yellow.

The presentation, billed as Dashboard 101, explained how the state assigns a 5-by-5 performance color (status) and a change measure (increase, maintained, decline), and how those combine to produce a card for each indicator. Perez warned against parsing colors alone and urged the board to use the dashboard as a starting point: "This data is not the end all be all... it actually gives us an overview of how we've done," she said, stressing the need to pair dashboard results with other leading indicators.

Why it matters: board members said the dashboard must inform budget priorities, staffing and school-level interventions. Trustee Mr. Bustos and others urged leaders to translate the board conversation into resources and supports at school sites so that teachers and families can act on the findings.

Key details and follow-up

- Subgroup disparities. Perez walked trustees through equity reports that break district-level colors into student groups. She highlighted that current English learners were listed roughly 114.8 points below standard while recently reclassified English learners were about 4 points below, a contrast she used to argue for intentional reclassification and for viewing multilingualism as an asset. Perez said the district will examine which student groups drive color placements and why certain groups—such as foster youth or students experiencing homelessness—may lag on the college-and-career indicator.

- Definitions and thresholds. Trustees asked for precise definitions and technical thresholds. Perez clarified that, under educational definitions derived from McKinney-Vento guidance, a student can be identified as homeless if they are "doubled up" with another family, live in motels or cars, or otherwise lack stable housing. She also explained state thresholds for color assignment: at the school level a student-group color appears when the denominator is 30 or more; at the district (LEA) level some programmatic groups (homeless, foster youth, long-term English learners) receive colors with denominators as low as 15 for privacy reasons.

- Literacy coaches and staffing. Perez disclosed the district currently has six state-funded literacy coaches and said it learned the previous day that state funding would likely add 21 more coaches, bringing the total to 27. She noted the district still has about 35 K–8 schools, meaning staffing placement and equitable distribution remain outstanding operational decisions.

- Budget and LCAP link. Perez urged the board to use the Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) to concentrate supplemental and concentration funds on student groups shown to need extra support rather than on unrelated capital requests. Trustees pressed for this linkage to be explicit in upcoming budget proposals.

- Assessment and special education. An unidentified assessment staff member explained the state uses alternate assessments (the CAA) for students with significant cognitive disabilities and that those students are included in reporting but are assessed differently; the board asked staff to provide disaggregated reports so trustees can compare like programs and better understand school-level contexts.

- External reviews and school follow-up. Perez described recently completed equity audits by an external vendor (Orenda) at participating schools; audit reports were returned to principals as a diagnostic tool that some sites have used to change practices, increase grade-level collaboration and implement targeted interventions.

Content and next steps

Board members asked the superintendent to (1) provide written definitions and threshold tables for public distribution, (2) show disaggregated school-level dashboards accounting for special programs and alternative assessments, (3) outline how LCAP proposals will be tied to dashboard-identified gaps, and (4) present a staffing plan for literacy coaches once state allocations are finalized. Perez said district staff will design accessible family-facing materials and virtual/onsite teacher workshops to help schools and parents interpret dashboard data.

No formal motions or votes were taken during the study session. The board closed with a moment of silence for a community member and adjourned; the next regular meeting was announced for 01/27/2026 at 6 p.m.