County LCAP midyear: staff cite reclassification gains, flag metric limitations on counseling access

Dr. Jen Gonzales presented the county office’s midyear Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) update, emphasizing five LCAP goals including academic growth, social-emotional support, college-and-career readiness, countywide support for foster and expelled youth, and juvenile-hall equity funding. Gonzales highlighted staff changes, data caveats, and metric-specific issues that make some indicators hard to interpret.

Gonzales told the board, “We were able to hire an ELD teacher this year. Her name is Andrea Roth,” and credited the staffing addition for accelerating English-learner reclassification. She also cautioned that some locally defined survey questions can produce misleading results: “When they're reading the question, sometimes they're asking like, if they they're thinking, does that mean I need counseling? ... They're answering it as no opinion, as opposed to we're trying to gauge, like, did you know you have counseling?” Gonzales said staff will consider revising wording and tracking approaches for the counseling-access metric and other local measures.

Trustees asked about WASC accreditation, free-and-reduced-meal participation and direct certification, and how to measure counseling access more reliably. Staff described outreach to families to improve completion of free-and-reduced-lunch forms (which drive Local Control Funding Formula supplemental grants) and explained that some community-based contract invoices post late in the year, making midyear spending appear under target even when programs are active.

Gonzales framed the LCAP as a continuous cycle and said the midyear report helps the board understand interim fiscal and programmatic status while staff refine measures and continue implementation.