District presents Panorama survey results and outlines attendance interventions

District staff presented fall Panorama survey results and a districtwide attendance update at the Dec. 17 board meeting, highlighting both areas of concern and steps the district plans to take.

Natalie Romero, who led the presentation, said the district received the survey results the morning of the meeting and will provide school‑level breakdowns to principals. On school climate for grades 3–5 she reported, “59% answered in a favorable way,” a one‑percentage‑point drop from the prior year. She also summarized other Panorama metrics for students, families and staff and noted that family response rates were low in some cases.

Romero described attendance work that includes defining chronic absenteeism (missing 10% of school days), tiered interventions ranging from universal supports to targeted family outreach, and the district’s use of Student Success coaches (funded by Title IV) and partnerships with United Way and the Public Education Department to support attendance teams. She told the board some schools have seen modest improvements of about 1–2 percentage points in attendance and that principals will receive school‑specific data for deeper review.

Board members emphasized the need to increase family response rates for the survey before drawing firm conclusions and asked staff to provide disaggregated school data. Staff said they will drill down on school safety items and noted some family‑survey items showed declines; they also said the survey is nationally standardized and may not capture district‑specific nuance without local follow‑up.

The district framed next steps as targeted communication to improve response rates, school‑level analysis by guiding coalitions, and continued attendance workshops and interventions through partnerships with regional providers.