The Governing Board of the Benicia Unified School District heard an update on the Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) at Thursday’s school board meeting.

The LCAP is a plan that is required by all public schools in California to receive funding provided through the Local Control Funding Formula, which was signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2013. BUSD’s LCAP has outlined three goals for the district:

*To create a collaborative team of highly engaged staff that supports the academic, emotional and social success of all students for college and career readiness.

*To modernize and improve infrastructure to provide a learning environment that offers opportunities for 21st-century teaching and learning.

*To increase community and parental involvement through awareness and engagement.

Assistant Superintendent Dr. Leslie Beatson and Educational Services Coordinator Stephanie Rice presented an update on the LCAP, which Beatson described as “a wrap-up from last year’s (strategic) plan.”

“We like to present our progress along the way throughout the year, and in June we did not have all of our data in to let you know, ‘Did we meet our targets,’ ‘Did we not meet our targets?,’” she said. “We still don’t have all of the data yet for various reasons but wanted to wrap up last year’s plan and give you a reminder of what we have set for ourselves this year.”

The document consists of a three-year plan summary— which Beatson described as a “Cliff Notes” of the LCAP’s strategic plan, an annual update on progress toward measurable outcomes, a section on stakeholder engagement; a list of goals, outcomes, actions and budgets; and services for unduplicated students, which includes foster youth, English learners and socioeconomically disadvantaged students.

In terms of the first goal, some data could not be provided because the results of the Smart Balanced Assessment Consortium test has continued to be embargoed by the state.

“The SBAC data was set to be released about a month ago,” Beatson said. “It has been on your board agenda and then pulled. What happens is the state says to us, ‘OK, you can look,’ and they usually give us 24 to 48 hours to look at the data and say ‘Does it look right?’ We have to know if there’s anything that looks a little off. Typically, they have a date set for public release which is pretty quickly after the preview period. What happened this year was the preview period, and the public release was supposed to be that following Tuesday, and they sent a message saying, ‘It’s not going to go for public release, we’re continuing to embargo.’”

Beatson said the public release date had not been set.

In most measurable outcomes for the professional learning goal, the target was missed by very small percentages. However, the district was able to meet its goal in the number of high school students taking Advanced Placement courses and the district providing courses aligned to Common Core standards.

For the second goal, the district met or exceeded its targets in all measurable outcomes, including high schoolers having Google Drive portfolios, being enrolled in Career Technical Education classes and the schools having facilities in good repair.

For the third goal, the district met its targets in attendance and parent participation categories, including increasing the number of parent/school information events and maintaining a 95 percent attendance rate. However, the district did not meet its goals regarding increasing parents’ satisfaction with BUSD or reducing the chronic absenteeism. There were two additional goals regarding decreasing the dropout rates at the secondary level and increasing the high school graduation rate that will not be verified until data is provided by the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System in October.

Trustee Peter Morgan asked if there was a way for the district to flag a population within the data as an outlier to the standardized data.

“If the dropout rate averages less than 3 percent, but among one segment it was really high,” he asked, “would you flag that for us?”

Beatson said the data was spelled out in the LCAP.

“This coming year, there’s several groups we’re looking at, and the way our data comes out is really great. It’s broken out and we look at suspension and all the different metrics through the lenses of multiple student groups.”

“In the areas where we’re struggling, we have set a particular metric for that student group,” she added.

Rice noted two new Wildly Important Goals (WIGs) for the district: increasing the overall student scores on the Relationships, Effort, Aspirations, Cognitions, Heart survey from 65 to 75 by October 2018 as well as the BUSD Healthy Organizational Culture & Engagement Survey score from x to y by that same period.

As part of the professional development goal, the district is working to implement Next Generation Science Standards, installed two CTE Pathways at Benicia High School, hired an instructional coach for math at Benicia Middle School and ninth-grade science and implemented a new bell schedule at Benicia High. For the 21st-century learning goal, the district is continuing to increase technology use and ensure that all students are future ready. For the third goal, the district is continuing to issue surveys and increase parental attendance at workshops and events. To serve the unduplicated student populations, the district is providing the Summer Jumpstart reading and math program, and provide library support for its Title 1 schools— Benicia Middle, Mary Farmar and Robert Semple elementary schools.

In other business, the board unanimously reappointed Ron Arrants and Pat Lopes on the Citizens’ Bond Oversight Committee. It also voted 3-1— Morgan voted no and Trustee Stacy Holguin left early— to approve the 2016-17 Unaudited Actuals Financial Report for the district.