Campuses throughout Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District (SMMUSD) saw marked improvements in several categories in the 2024 California School Dashboard.
The Dashboard, released annually to assess student success across key indicators, is a crucial component of the state’s school accountability system. The data ranges from categories like graduation rates and suspension rates to test scores and English learner progress.
Broken into five color-coded categories, “red” being the lowest performance and “blue” being the highest, SMMUSD’s Dashboard metrics remain largely unchanged from 2023. The district has two metrics at the highest “blue” level in 2024, one being a Graduation Rate of 97.4%, up 2.2% from the prior year and outpacing the state rate of 86.7%.
Another high-placing metric was English Language Arts (ELA), based on student performance on either the Smarter Balanced Summative Assessment or the California Alternate Assessment for grades 3-8 and grade 11. SMMUSD students were noted as being 56.2 points above grade-level standards, way above the state average of 13.2 points below the standard.
The one change on district Dashboard metrics is English Learner Progress going from a “green” score to a “yellow” one, a decline of 6.9% of current EL students making progress towards English language proficiency or maintaining the highest level.
On Summative English Language Proficiency Assessments (ELPAC), the amount of English Learners who progressed at least one English Learner Progress Indicator (ELPI) level declined from 45.3% in 2023 to 44.2% in 2024, while English Learners who decreased at least one ELPI level went from 15.7% to 21.3%.
Despite the drop in level, the EL metric for SMMUSD is still ahead of the state, which sits in the “orange” level with 45.7% of students making progress in 2024, a decline of 3%. To hone in on EL improvement, the District English Learners Advisory Committee recently gave a report to the SMMUSD Board of Education recommending hiring staff who work directly with families of EL students, as well as provide additional EL parent training.
Looking at individual campus performance on the Dashboard, assessment scores in ELA and Mathematics had marked improvements district-wide. Six SMMUSD campuses each went up a level in both areas, including increased performance for both at Edison Language Academy, Franklin Elementary School, Lincoln Middle School, Malibu Middle School and Malibu High School.
On the state level, officials lauded significant increases in attendance, with a 16.7% year-over-year decline in chronic absenteeism. Six SMMUSD campuses also improved a level in the category, though Lincoln Middle School was noted as having a rise in absenteeism.
Another highlight of the state report was college and career readiness, something SMMUSD has at a “green” level, with increases for student groups like Black/African-American students in the category noted as a success.
“(The) Dashboard results show California continuing to make important strides in post-pandemic recovery - we’re getting students back to school, getting more of them prepared for college and careers, and graduating them in greater numbers,” California State Board of Education President Linda Darling-Hammond said. “We are also supporting stronger gains for Black students, Native American students, students in foster care, and others who have been furthest from opportunity in many years.”
To see the SMMUSD report in full, visit caschooldashboard.org.
