Board hears LCAP update: district reports meeting state local indicators and pushes co‑teaching expansion

District staff presented the annual Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) local indicators and responded to trustees’ questions about equity and implementation on June 25.

Vanessa Galey, speaking to the board, explained that the local indicators report (covering 2022‑23 outcomes) shows the district met state requirements for priorities including basic learning conditions, implementation of state academic standards, family engagement and school climate. “We have 0 misassignments of teachers for English learners,” staff reported, and noted only two general‑education misassignments district‑wide in the dataset presented.

School climate presenter Sarah Coley described administering the California Healthy Kids Survey annually (elementary is opt‑in; older grades are opt‑out) and cited variable response rates: fifth grade response about 61% (opt‑in) and satisfactory rates in grades 7, 9 and 11. Coley said elementary student safety measures declined slightly while middle/secondary safety indicators improved and that the district will pursue targeted work on transitions and connectedness in middle school.

Board members pressed for detail on a‑g (UC/CSU) eligibility, specialist staffing and credit recovery options. The district said counselors conduct 4‑year planning on intake; students may later pivot from a‑g pathways for various academic reasons. Staff described a petition for outside courses that allows students to request approval for up to 30 credits from outside providers, and said the district is working to expand counseling capacity: two additional middle‑school counselors were added for 2024–25 (Ensign and Costa Mesa Middle Schools, and a 0.5 at CDM was expanded to a full counselor at another site).

Special education and co‑teaching were a focus. Staff described co‑taught secondary classes where general‑education and special‑education teachers share instruction, cited training provided (recently a full‑day co‑teaching professional development with three‑hour UDL training options) and noted examples of existing teams (one high school reported 8 co‑taught classes; another had plans for several more teams). “When you bring those talents together, the opportunities of students being more successful … becomes much more successful,” a district speaker said.

Trustees requested site‑by‑site breakdowns for family‑engagement and school‑level indicators and asked that staff return with materials explaining specific definition fields in older data sets. Staff agreed to provide clarifying data and to schedule trustee small‑group review sessions over the summer or early fall.

The board later unanimously adopted the LCAP and the LCAP federal addendum as part of the consent agenda.