Otober 2024

The State recently released the 2023-24 standardized test results. These include the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) that measures student proficiency in English Language Arts (ELA) and math for grades 3-8 and grade 11. It also includes the English Language Proficiency Assessments (ELPAC), which measures English language skill development for English learners. 

In SRCS, we are pleased to see gains in both our Elementary School District (ESD, results for grades 3-8) and High School District (HSD, results for grade 11). Below is a high level overview of our improvement over the prior year in the percentage of students who met or exceeded grade-level standards, as well as the overall results for the State of California for comparison. 

When we look deeper into our data compared to the previous year, we are especially encouraged by the improvement in performance of our middle and high school students. In grades 6-8, we saw notable increases of 2.6 percentage points in ELA and 3.1 percentage points in math; in grade 11 we saw pretty substantial gains of 11.1 percentage points in ELA and 5.4 percentage points in math. It is also promising that these trends hold true for our students who are current English learners or who have been reclassified as English proficient.

When looking at the ELPAC results, we are proud that we made gains in both ESD and HSD; this did not mirror the State trends, which saw slight decreases. 

Our teachers are doing outstanding work, and we've been working hard over the last few years to provide professional development aligned with best instruction practices. For our middle and high schools, this PD has especially focused on standards-based learning. We've also leveraged our high school English language development coaches to support and train teachers and work together to design lessons that have effective strategies for engaging multilingual learners. We also recognize that we have more work to do across the District to meet all our students’ academic, social and emotional needs.

While these tests are important, they are only one tool designed to help us better understand how our students are performing, to measure student growth and to implement effective learning strategies tailored to individual students. In order to monitor progress throughout the year, students also take local assessments including iReady and teacher-created assessments. These additional assessments inform instruction and can be helpful for parents to access through Aeries Parent Portal or by talking with the teacher.

This represents high-level preliminary analysis, and over the next few weeks, we will be looking deeper into the data. We also are preparing a summary presentation for the upcoming Oct. 28 Board meeting. The State results are available here. As a reminder, individual student score reports have been available in the Aeries Parent Portal since this past June. Learn more about these reports and how to access them.