Two weeks ago, the principals of Benicia’s four elementary schools presented their Single Plans for Student Achievement (SPSA) at Benicia Unified School District’s governing board meeting. On Thursday, the principals of Benicia’s middle and high schools will be presenting their goals.

The SPSA is established by school site councils to develop goals, aligned to BUSD’s Local Control Accountability Plan, which would support the academic performance of all students. At the high school level, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) goals act as the SPSA, with the goals and actions updated each year to represent continuous growth cycles. Each site team studies state and local measures to gauge progress and put together plans that represent the uniqueness of each school.

For its plan, Benicia Middle School Principal Damian Scott has outlined five goals as well as provided progress on the goals from the 2015-16 year. For example, one of the previous year’s goals was for students to increase their literacy proficiency by 10 percent on the CAASPP English Language Arts Assessment. Scott noted that the school did not meet this goal, as African-American, English-learning and socioeconomically disadvantaged students performed lower than the overall average. However, one of the previous year’s goals to establish Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports was met, and Scott noted that suspensions and incidents had both decreased by more than 50 percent.

The goals for the 2016-17 year are as follows:

*Increase literacy proficiency by at least 10 percent in reading and writing comprehension, as measured by writing benchmarks and CAASPP ELA scores.

*Increase math proficiency by 10 percent on local math benchmarks for middle schoolers—administered once in the first semester and once in the second– the UC Davis Readiness Assessment and the UC Diagnostic.

*Provide a safe and supportive learning environment for all students and staff as evidenced by 80 percent satisfaction reported in the school climate and culture survey results.

Likewise, Liberty High School Principal JoAnn Severson’s SPSA provided updates on the previous year’s goals. One of the goals was to empower students to successfully transition to college or a career, with a specific target being to increase the number of students enrolling in a college or trade program after graduating by 10 percent. Following the 2015-16 school year, five students enrolled in community college and two in trade schools, a slight decrease from the eight students who enrolled in college classes after the 2014-15 school year. However, the school did well in empowering 75 percent of students to participate in at least two extracurricular activities, exceeding the 70 percent baseline.

Liberty’s goals for 2016-17 are as follows:

*Increase math and ELA CAASPP scores by 5 percent before June 2017 through the use of 1:1 Chromebooks and Google Apps for Education.

*100 percent of students will complete a digital portfolio through engaging the implementation of the project-based learning task “The Good Life” during Advisory time.

*Reduce office referrals and suspensions by 5 percent by the end of the school year due to an improved school culture through implementation of PBIS and quarterly cultural events.

Finally, Benicia High School’s goals last year included increasing the graduation requirements to include three years of math and three years of science and increasing technological devices for student use. At present, there are still only two years required for both math and science, but eight Chromebook carts were added in 2015-16, an increase from the two Windows carts that were available in 2014-15.

Principal Brianna Kleinschmidt outlined five goals for Benicia High in 2016-17:

*100 percent of staff will participate in data-centric meetings each month.

*100 percent of new teachers and 80 percent of staff will feel connected to the campus.

*Preparing for the new bell schedule in the 2017-18 school year.

*100 percent of staff will use Illuminate, and 80 percent or more of parents will use Naviance.

*Providing improved communication to and receiving input from the school community.

In other business, the board will be voting to approve the course outline for a new class at Liberty titled “The Environment and You,” in which students learn about the environment by going outside and exploring. The course will fulfill an elective or P.E. requirement for graduation.

The board will meet at 7 p.m., Thursday, in the Benicia Unified School District Board Room at the district building on 350 East K Street. There will be an earlier closed session at 6 p.m.