Duarte Unified reviews 2025 California Dashboard, highlights progress for English learners and students with disabilities

Duarte Unified district leaders presented the district’s 2025 California Dashboard at a study session, outlining where student groups are making gains and where the system must focus next. Doctor Lawson, the district’s senior director of educational services, led the presentation and said the dashboard is designed to show multi-year growth and to spotlight equity gaps so the district can target supports.

The presentation laid out state priority indicators — English language arts, mathematics, science, chronic absenteeism, suspension and English learner progress — and explained how the dashboard’s five color bands (red to blue) reflect year-to-year movement rather than single-year judgments. Lawson said the report shows Duarte Unified’s ELA scores are below the standard and that math remains the district’s most persistent area of concern.

“Sometimes a change in color is the product of where we started the prior year,” Doctor Lawson said, asking trustees to consider both the district’s distance from the standard and the percent of students making growth. She noted the dashboard now includes a growth score ranging from minimal to accelerated progress and encouraged trustees to use both growth and subgroup detail when deciding resources.

Trustees and principals discussed how the district supports long-term English learners (LTELs), whom Lawson said were recently tracked separately and have shown movement after targeted tutoring. The district’s Brain Trust tutoring program, paid for with learning-recovery funds, identified third–fifth graders scoring in the red for 12-week, three-days-a-week cycles; principals from Maxwell, Beardsley and Valley View described scheduling differences and mixed summer attendance for math extensions.

“We identified kids in the red and provided a strategic intervention,” Lawson said of Brain Trust, noting the program had earlier supported LTEL gains in ELA and was piloted for math in summer with varying attendance and outcomes.

Principals described classroom changes under cognitively guided instruction (CGI), emphasizing that CGI helps students build mathematical reasoning and language. A Valley View principal highlighted CGI’s benefits for students with disabilities who use AAC devices, saying CGI’s student-led conversations and manipulatives let students show reasoning even when English is limited.

Lawson also reported improvement for students with disabilities in several areas — declines in suspension and chronic absenteeism, increased college- and career-readiness indicators, and maintained graduation rates — attributing gains to IEP-driven supports, targeted interventions and school-site practices.

The dashboard identified African American students as eligible for differentiated assistance in 2025 because that subgroup scored in the red in two or more priority areas; Lawson said mathematics has repeatedly been the common area of red across subgroups. She told trustees the dashboard directly informs the district’s Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP), driving goals and resource allocation to help subgroups get out of the red.

Trustees asked about curriculum consistency, possible math adoptions, and reading instruction. Lawson said the district is engaging with UCLA Center X on the mathematics framework and considering a K–3 focus on the science of reading, alongside use of a reading screener (adopted locally as “Mirror”) to identify foundational skill gaps. She said a meeting of K–3 teachers is scheduled for March 19 to discuss next steps.

Board members and attendees proposed expanding peer tutoring and restoring a formal AVID program; principals said official AVID had been eliminated years ago because of declining enrollment but AVID-like strategies are used at some sites and the district is exploring future options.

The session was framed as informational and interactive; there were no formal policy votes or adoptions related to the dashboard itself. The board approved routine meeting motions — including adoption of the meeting agenda and a motion to adjourn — by voice vote. Doctor Lawson closed by saying the dashboard is a starting point and reiterated the district’s commitment to continuous improvement and equity.