New Haven Unified presents 2024–25 California Dashboard: math, graduation gains and persistent subgroup gaps

John Matos, the district’s director of digital services, presented New Haven Unified’s California Dashboard results for 2024–25 at the Jan. 13 board meeting, highlighting gains in math, a notable increase in graduation rates and continuing achievement gaps for specific student groups.

Matos explained to the board that the state dashboard uses colored indicators and new growth measures to show performance and year-to-year change. “We’re starting red at the lowest, transitioning up to blue at the highest,” he said, describing how the dashboard combines status and change. He told trustees the district had about 83.8% of teachers with clear credentials, above the Alameda County average, and that math performance drew special recognition in the state superintendent’s announcement.

On outcomes, Matos said the district recorded an improvement in graduation rates, which he described as “a nice pop” for the system and reported the district at about 92% on the graduation indicator. He also said math performance had driven much of the positive attention: “Our math and graduation rates are on the way up,” Matos said. He attributed part of the math gains to school-level efforts including coding and robotics instruction, a math-studio instructional focus and deliberate SBAC preparation.

Trustees and staff noted uneven results for several student groups. Matos flagged long-term English learners, students with disabilities and homeless students as performing lower than other populations; he called English learner progress “a pretty volatile measure” and reported the district’s English learner progress indicator at 43.2%, down about 1.3 points. On chronic absenteeism Matos said the district is at about 18.2% overall and acknowledged the figure was higher than the state average, though he pointed to improvements for some populations: “Our African American students dropped their chronic absenteeism rate by over 11%,” he said.

A trustee asked why a Dakota subgroup no longer appears on the dashboard. Matos replied that the state generates the student-group categories and that the dashboard does not reflect locally tracked groups unless the state defines them. To address gaps, he pointed trustees to site-level actions and the Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP): “I think how we address all our student populations is through good tier 1 instruction and making sure we are using board-adopted materials,” Matos said, noting principals set site improvement goals and intervention strategies.

Trustees pressed for budget connections to targeted supports. Matos said the LCAP contains activities and strategies designed to raise achievement and that many remedies occur at the site level. On New Haven Academy’s high chronic-absence figure, Matos explained the program’s attendance is measured differently because it is work-based and relies on completion of assignments rather than seat time: “It’s not them not showing up. It’s just them not turning in the work,” he said, and he noted the district’s director of education options and the academy principal are working to improve completion rates.

Why it matters: the dashboard shapes public accountability, influences instructional priorities and helps the district target state and local resources. Matos recommended continued focus on site-level instructional plans, targeted supports for lagging groups and efforts to increase assessment participation so subgroup penalties do not depress indicator outcomes.

What’s next: trustees asked staff to provide follow-up materials and site-level explanations for the data; Matos said staff will share more detail on interventions and action steps tied to the LCAP and school improvement planning.