District presents mixed dashboard results: chronic absenteeism down, some academic indicators slipping

A district presenter reviewed the California School Dashboard for the 2023–24 school year and highlighted status and change across multiple indicators.

The presenter said chronic absenteeism remains a concern but improved year over year: the district’s all‑student chronic‑absence rate was reported at about 36.2%, a decline of more than 5 percentage points from the prior reporting period. The presenter described chronic absenteeism as a measure of student connectedness and said the decline suggests some improvement in belonging and engagement.

On academic indicators the presenter explained the ‘distance from standard’ metric used in English language arts and math and said the district’s all‑students English language arts score was reported at 74.4 points with a change of -3.4. Math results were described as challenging, with reported declines for some student groups. The presenter also noted this was the first year the state included a science indicator, and the district showed a score 25.2 points below standard with a reported decline.

English learner progress was cited as a bright spot: about 48% of multilingual learners were reported to be making expected annual progress, and the indicator rose about 1.8 percentage points (the presenter said a 3.0 percentage‑point gain would have changed the color rating). On suspension the presenter said the all‑student group rate was 6.6% with a small increase of 0.1 percentage points; the presenter emphasized work to prevent repeat suspensions and restorative approaches.

The presenter said the dashboard is intended to drive decision‑making and equity‑focused interventions and invited further discussion at upcoming town halls and in development of the Local Control and Accountability Plan.