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NVUSD says year‑2 strategic dashboard shows modest academic gains and broad survey participation
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Summary
Napa Valley Unified presented a year‑two strategic plan dashboard combining CAASPP metrics and a 7,818‑response community survey. Officials reported modest gains in college‑and‑career readiness and student safety while flagging persistent issues in chronic absenteeism and multilingual learner reclassification.
The Napa Valley Unified School District on Friday showcased its year‑two strategic plan dashboard, reporting statistically measurable gains in academic indicators and broad community participation in a new public data tool.
Julie Bridal, the district’s chief communications officer, and Peter Abboud, executive director of data, research and assessment, presented the dashboard, which combines quantitative California assessment metrics and an anonymous perception survey completed by 7,818 people — more than 4,000 students, roughly 3,000 parents, about a third of staff and 315 community respondents. "We increased participation by 7% this year over last year," Bridal said, describing efforts to translate the survey into Spanish, Tagalog and Vietnamese and make it available across school and district channels.
Abboud walked trustees through headline results: the district’s composite indicator for students "prepared for college and career" rose about 3% from the baseline year; English language arts performance increased about 4% and math about 2% on the CAASPP; and the share of students in the lowest performance band fell about 5% in ELA and 3% in math. "Two years of data for both quantitative and perception indicators are on our public dashboard," Abboud said, noting the dashboard mixes hard metrics and perception measures.
The presentation highlighted several perception results the district labeled "bright spots": 93% of surveyed students said their learning helps them achieve the district’s graduate portrait; 93% said career and job programs will prepare them for life after graduation; 91% reported a sense of belonging; and 85.5% of students reported feeling emotionally and physically safe. The dashboard also reports improvements in facilities work and community confidence that bond funds are being spent responsibly.
Trustees and staff also discussed areas that need continued focus. Participation in career‑related activities fell by 6% year‑over‑year despite high confidence that such programs are valuable. The board also noted a small decline in the reclassification rate for multilingual learners — a change linked to new state reclassification guidance affecting dually identified students — and a chronic absenteeism rate the panel said remains about 19% after post‑pandemic improvements.
Looking ahead, the district said strategy leads will convene a work session in June to set year‑three implementation goals and prepare an annual report; the district will host a "state of the district" event May 12 to share highlights with the community. The dashboard is publicly accessible on the district website (nvusd.org/dashboard), officials said.
The board did not take a binding action tied to the dashboard; trustees praised the transparency and called the tool useful for tracking progress and prioritizing next steps.
