Credit: Karla Scoon Reid/EdSource Today

Parent Christopher Cooper talks with Erica Renfree, vice chief at Dana and Correia middle schools; Scott Irwin, principal at Dana Middle School; and Laura Caffo, a parent and president of the Point Hill Cluster Schools Foundation during a LCAP meeting at Correia Middle School in San Diego in April.

The San Diego Unified Schoolhouse Commune appeared to face up few challenges when it kicked off a comprehensive endeavour late final yr to craft a state-mandated guide outlining the schoolhouse system'southward bookish and fiscal future.

The district had already methodically charted a form for San Diego Unified's 130,000 students in 2009. The strategic plan, called Vision 2020, included specific goals that mirrored and, in some cases, augmented the state's new funding plan requirements. Community conversations, a hallmark of the state's accountability planning procedure, were already existence held about the challenges and triumphs of California's 2nd-largest school district.

However, with San Diego Unified lath members poised to approve the state-mandated schoolhouse funding proposal June 24, parents and customs advocates are still prodding commune officials for more details almost the Local Command and Accountability Program (LCAP). After reviewing the latest typhoon of the accountability plan last week, they still seek a clearer understanding of how merging the district's vision and this new proposal volition aid all San Diego Unified students go far at the finish line equally winners – loftier schoolhouse graduates who are gear up for college or the workplace.

At the same fourth dimension, at that place has been little public criticism regarding San Diego Unified's goals or strategies. One school of thought is that San Diegans, apparently supportive of the district's strategic plan, were pleased to come across the country-required proposal prefer those same principles. Still others believe the lack of transparency and basic comprehension about the new accountability program has left much of the community in the dark.

Moises Aguirre, San Diego Unified's executive manager of commune relations, said both assessments about the lack of stakeholder feedback hold some truth. He said some people, "broadly speaking," empathize the district's educational priorities, while others are indeed looking for more specifics.

"I recollect that apparently there are multiple demands on the plan itself," Aguirre said, noting that in addition to addressing the concerns of customs stakeholders and employees, the district is responding to guidance from the land Department of Educational activity and the San Diego County Part of Education, which must sign off on the proposal. "Nosotros're trying to be responsive. Only in that location'south merely so much money to go around to support our students."

Using data as a 'flashlight'

California's new Local Control Funding Formula calls on school districts to develop a iii-year accountability program in collaboration with parents, customs members and staff. The Local Control and Accountability Plans also must target specific strategies to improve and increase services for "loftier-needs" students – depression-income pupils, English learners and foster youth. Districts must adopt these instructional and fiscal guides by July 1.

The new funding formula allocates boosted coin for high-needs students. But the formula wasn't a windfall for San Diego Unified, which is hard to explicate to a customs that anticipated more money when voters passed Proposition 30 in 2012. The ballot initiative, which aims to restore instruction funding to 2007-08 levels, only stopped the district's financial hemorrhaging.

SDUSD Three-Year Budget Strategies

For 2014-15, San Diego Unified is projecting a $106.4 one thousand thousand shortfall – the majority of which is expected to be covered by $64 million in one-time real estate sales and $28.half dozen million in additional LCFF funds.

The district, which is in the midst of "correct-sizing" the school system through early-retirement incentives and "strategic staffing" that required schools to reduce their staff at each schoolhouse by 1 instruction position this autumn, as well is projecting deficits in backlog of $sixty one thousand thousand for both 2015-sixteen and 2016-17.

For 2014-15, San Diego Unified did receive a $31.3 million increase in state funds to enhance services for high-needs students, bringing that budget total to $51.seven million. (About 63 percent of the commune'due south students are identified as loftier-needs youth.)

Regardless of San Diego'due south financial outlook, the district is forging ahead with its efforts to improve the academic achievement of its littlest learners and high school students. The goal is to close the achievement gap and guarantee that every neighborhood has a quality school – key components of the Vision 2022 program.

The district's 29 neediest schools serving mainly low-income children will receive more nursing, intervention and counseling services in add-on to a smaller Thou-3 class size ratio of 24 to 1. (The average K-3 course size for the remaining San Diego Unified schools will be 25.5.) Similarly, district administrators will create an English language Learner Chore Strength to develop a cadre of support for schools enrolling high numbers of long-term English learners.

While acknowledging the myriad obstacles commune administrators faced to develop a cohesive accountability plan, some customs advocates described San Diego's current proposal as "vague" and lacking "transparency."

About costs in the plan are represented as lump sums accompanied by a list of actions. During a public hearing on June 10, board member Richard Barrera asked district staff to "drill down" budget figures to show how the money is beingness spent. Throughout that hearing, almost everyone who addressed the board provided little if any feedback nigh the programme's goals or actions. Nigh of the discussion involved requests for more data, more upkeep figures and more explanations.

San Diego Unified Superintendent Cindy Marten said changing the way the commune uses test score and accountability data can lead to "messy" withal necessary conversations. She said the accountability plan publicly acknowledges that using one data point to determine the quality of a school is woefully inadequate. Simply Marten said the district must work diligently to identify a mix of quantitative and qualitative data to effectively measure out the school system's progress.

"Data tin be a weapon or information technology tin can be a flashlight," Marten told lath members during the public hearing. "We want the data to exist a flashlight to shine the light on the priorities that we agreed to."

Creating a 'transformative' plan

Matthew Yagyagan, a special projects organizer with Brotherhood San Diego, said in an interview this calendar week that the community advocacy grouping, along with a coalition of local groups, purposely focused almost of its recommendations on the plan's procedure, accessibility and implementation. The other groups that advocated for those changes included the San Diego Didactics Clan, the Clan of Raza Educators and the ACLU of San Diego and Royal Counties.

The San Diego Unified School District prepared a more graphic presentation of its Local Control and Accountability Plan to share during a June 10 public hearing. Source: The San Diego Unified School District.

The San Diego Unified School Commune prepared a presentation of its Local Command and Accountability Programme to share during a June 10 public hearing. Source: San Diego Unified Schoolhouse Commune

Yagyagan said he was pleased that the commune acted on some of the group'due south suggestions by producing an executive summary along with a user-friendly guide of the accountability plan. At the alliance'due south urging, the district also is working toward making the accountability plan interactive by adding Internet links to additional data and information, like suspension rates.

"We feel that if the procedure is correct, the LCAP represents a clear opportunity to transform the schoolhouse district into ane that meets the needs of all students," he said. "For San Diego Unified, there's political momentum to achieve that kind of transformative spirit."

Aguirre agreed with Yagyagan's assessment, calculation: "It hasn't been an like shooting fish in a barrel conversation and it's been challenging at times. But everybody is focused on student achievement and how we support our community together."

Nevertheless, Amy Redding, chair of the Commune Advisory Council for Compensatory Education Program, said nigh parents are finding it hard to provide feedback almost the program considering the district "has not exactly been transparent about how it volition spend the money." (Read San Diego Unified's response to the advisory council'south recommendations and comments here.)

Redding, a schoolhouse board candidate and mother of two San Diego Unified students, said while the new funding law affords the commune more than spending flexibility, advisory council members want a detailed caption of those expenditures to hold district officials accountable.

"Isn't that the whole point of the LCAP and LCFF?" she asked.

While David Yeager, operations manager for the San Diego-based United Parents for Education, acknowledges that the district can't please everyone with the accountability programme, "no one can tell from this document that they are doing anything differently."

Yeager, whose son attended San Diego Unified in eye school, said that there is a level of understanding and respect amid some parents and community advocates that San Diego is grappling with multiple changes. In addition to the new funding formula, the district is implementing the Mutual Cadre State Standards and transitioning to new leadership. Superintendent Marten, a onetime teacher and principal with the commune, has been on the job for 1 year.

"San Diego is a big ship to turn around," Yeager said. "The superintendent is trying to right the ship. But parents desire what they desire now. I don't know how much longer parents are going to be willing to wait and see."

Karla Scoon Reid covers Southern California for EdSource.

This written report is function of EdSource'due south Following the School Funding Formula project, tracking the implementation of the Local Control Funding Formula in selected school districts around the state.

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