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San Bernardino City Unified sees gains on state dashboard; chronic absenteeism flagged as concern
Summary
District leaders reported year-over-year gains in graduation, college-and-career readiness and English learner progress on the 2025 California School Dashboard, while chronic absenteeism slipped and remains a targeted focus for interventions and new attendance tools.
San Bernardino City Unified School District officials on Dec. 8 told the board that the district’s California School Dashboard results for 2025 show steady, multi-year improvement in several key indicators but continuing challenges with student attendance.
The presentation, led by Assistant Superintendent Mrs. Applegate and Dr. Cleveland, highlighted that graduation and college-and-career readiness moved into the green category, English learner progress improved, and suspension rates declined into green. "We have at least a 5% gain overall," Mrs. Applegate said, summarizing multi-year progress in academic indicators.
The presentation placed math and English language arts in the yellow band — a sign of maintenance and modest growth — and credited sustained instructional work, professional development and a "math revolution" of focused coaching and curriculum alignment. Dr. Cleveland said the 5x5 dashboard chart reflects both proficiency and growth and that the district remains in yellow for ELA and math after consistent, small gains.
At the same time, officials warned that chronic absenteeism moved from yellow into orange. Dr. Cleveland and staff described targeted efforts led by the Positive Youth Development (PYD) department, expanded home-visit supports for homeless and foster youth, early-risk literacy screening and a planned attendance-response pilot that uses automated outreach to parents to correct absences within minutes. "We are investing in an AI attendance response…so we will be able to alert parents around if their student is absent so that we can correct that chronic absenteeism," a district official said during questions from the board.
District leaders described specific program investments that they said have supported improvement: MTSS coordinators at every school, additional reading and math teachers for small-group intervention, literacy coaches tied to a state literacy grant, equity counselors for targeted supports, expanded STEAM labs and early-college/A–G supports that they linked to increased college-and-career readiness.
Board members praised the progress while pressing for data-driven follow up on attendance. One member asked for a root-cause breakdown of absences at the school-site level; staff said the district’s current student information system requires data exports to analyze patterns and that the planned attendance-response system will expand analytic capacity.
What happens next: the district said it will return with additional analyses on attendance drivers, metrics that qualify students for the college-and-career indicator and planned timelines for the attendance-response pilot and rollouts of targeted supports.
Why it matters: The dashboard colors determine public accountability and guide where the district directs staff and funding. Gains in graduation and college readiness affect students’ postsecondary opportunities; persistent absenteeism can undermine those same outcomes and is a policy priority for the district’s next steps.
