Thanks to the release of the latest California School Dashboard results, parents and stakeholders of the Sulphur Springs Union School District can now see how well their local district and schools compare to others across the state.
Most school districts and charter schools in the Santa Clarita Valley were able to access the information as early as last week, and — similar to the leaders of the Castaic Union School District — Sulphur Springs has already began discussing some of its dashboard results, which will be used to facilitate discussion and decisions that could improve student learning, according to district leaders.
After meeting with parents, teachers and students, the California Department of Education opted to no longer reduce its multiple measurements down to a single number, according to the dashboard website. Instead, this year’s tool will use one of five colors — blue, green, yellow, orange and red — to show the success of California’s districts and school sites. Blue is the best and highest-achieving rank, while red means a school or group is on the lowest end of the performance spectrum.
SSUSD Superintendent Catherine Kawaguchi previously mentioned to district trustees that district staff will present more data from the fall 2018 results at a future board meeting, but most of the data is available for parents and the public to view now.
More than half of Sulphur Springs’ 5,395 students fall into the category of “socioeconomically disadvantaged,” which means they are students who are eligible for free or reduced-priced meals or have guardians who did not receive a high school diploma, according to the dashboard. More than 21 percent of students are English learners, or students who are learning to communicate effectively in English, which would be the second-highest local rate when compared to the local elementary school districts of Newhall, Saugus and Castaic Union.
Despite the higher percentage of English learners, Sulphur Springs was able to finish 21 points above standard in the dashboard’s English Language Arts section, which earned them a score of green, according to the website. No subgroups finished in the orange and red, and all but two finished in the range of blue or green, which is where the district wants to score.
The district was able to maintain last year’s score in the mathematics portion of the dashboard, as Sulphur Springs finished a little more than three points below standard, according to the dashboard. The Hispanic, African American and students with disabilities populations were the only groups to finish outside of the green and blue.
To see a complete overview of how each local Santa Clarita Valley school district scored on the California School Dashboard, visit caschooldashboard.org or check the daily edition of The Signal throughout this week for a breakdown of the results from each of the five local public school districts. The Castaic district’s breakdown appeared Tuesday, and remaining districts include Newhall, Saugus Union and the William S. Hart Union High school districts.
