Board hears LCAP study session as trustees press for clearer results from $30 million in supplemental funds

Assistant Superintendent Dr. Carol Acastra presented ABC UnifiedUnifieds Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) at a board study session on Oct. 8, walking trustees through the binder components, the districtthree-year plan (2024'7 cycle) and the districtbudget structure for aligning resources to unduplicated pupil groups.

Acastra said the LCAP serves as the districtcompass for the strategic plan and breaks state priorities into five local goals: academics; student connectedness; college and career readiness; special education; and an equity multiplier goal that currently applies only to Tracy High School. She flagged key deadlines for monitoring and revision, including the statewide dashboard release on Nov. 15 and a midyear review in February.

Several trustees focused their questions on outcomes for unduplicated pupil groups and on how roughly $30 million in supplemental and concentration funding is spent. Board member Dr. Rios said the continued low performance of the districtunduplicated groups creates urgency: "The fact that only 17% of our students are achieving academic outcomes concerns me," she said, and later pressed staff to explain how the $30 million can be redirected to improve reading and math results.

Acastra pointed trustees to detailed line items in the districtEducational Partners Guide and to page references in the binder, noting, for example, $1.4 million assigned to summer-school programs and $750,000 targeted for literacy supports. She also described how LCAP-funded services are split into four buckets: site-specific allocations (school-controlled discretionary funds), district-provided resources, enhanced supports targeted to schools with higher concentrations of unduplicated pupils, and the equity multiplier allocation for eligible schools.

Trustees also pressed on staffing choices. The district has had four math coaches funded with one-time learning-recovery dollars, Acastra explained, and one of those coaches left the district. Because hiring during the school year can leave a site with a long-term substitute, the district proposed a stopgap that several trustees asked about: contracting with an outside tutoring provider to deliver "high-dosage" small-group instruction during the school day. Acastra said the district vetted vendors and would use pre/post assessments aligned to benchmark math measures to monitor impact.

The presentation included examples of early indicators of progress from preliminary benchmarks (not yet publicly released CAST results), with several sites showing growth in targeted areas. Acastra cautioned the board that public CAST/CAASPP releases lag by a year, and said the district uses monthly MTSS/LCAP committee meetings to monitor implementation and determine midyear adjustments where needed.

Next steps: staff will return with the dashboard-aligned midyear review, the more detailed disaggregated data once the state window opens, and metrics for any contracted tutoring programs. The board did not take a formal vote on the LCAP at the study session; the item was presented for information and for trustees to direct follow-up reporting.