District dashboard shows strong ELA and science but flags English learners and students experiencing homelessness
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Summary
Assistant Superintendent Dustin Haley told the board that Rescue Union's dashboard shows high marks in English language arts and science but identified declines or stagnation for English learners and students experiencing homelessness; the district expects to pursue differentiated assistance and will present an LCAP midyear update with targeted interventions.
Assistant Superintendent Dustin Haley presented the district's California School Dashboard and told trustees that, while the district ranks high in English language arts and science, certain student groups require targeted work.
Haley said the dashboard uses a 5-by-5 matrix and that the district is generally "in the green or the blue" for academics but has seen a 10% decline in the English learner (EL) progress indicator. He explained that the state no longer allows redesignation of some students, which affected prior reclassification strategies, and that some EL students' performance was stagnant in grades three and four rather than making the one-level jump the metric requires.
"If you look at our academic assessments, you can see a lot of green, a lot of blue," Haley said. "But when you move over toward chronic absenteeism and suspension data, that's where we need to dig into the why." He identified students experiencing homelessness as a district-level group that qualified for differentiated assistance because they met red-category criteria in two or more indicators.
Board members questioned the dashboard matrix and comparisons to other districts; Haley said the county provided an 18-district comparison based on two data points (enrollment range and unduplicated pupil rate) and acknowledged limits to those comparisons.
The district will bring a midyear Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) update at the next meeting with proposed interventions for English learners and students experiencing homelessness. Trustees and staff emphasized the need to dig past the front-page colors and focus on individual student-level supports and restorative practices following suspensions.
Next steps include county coordination for differentiated-assistance planning, continued MTSS/EL interventions at school sites, and an LCAP midyear report to the board.
