While student participation increased during winter assessments throughout Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District (SMMUSD), some students are still lagging behind their counterparts on the standardized tests.
During the March 20 meeting of the district’s Board of Education, Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services Dr. Stacy Williamson and Director of Curriculum and Instruction Dr. Ashley Benjamin took the board through the Q3 Lead Metrics Report. This report included winter diagnostic and interim assessment results, as well as secondary grades for the winter semester’s first marking period as well as winter attendance and discipline data.
Though not reaching a goal of having 95% participation rates for all district assessments, many of the exams taken in the winter months had increased student involvement. Star Early Literacy and Star Reading participation was 90%, increased by 9 and 3 percent, respectively, from similar fall exams. Star Math participation was up by 7 percent, with 92% of students taking the diagnostic assessment.
For the English Language Arts (ELA) assessments, 68% of students were at or above benchmarks in Star Early Literacy testing, while 71% of students were at or above benchmarks in Star Reading. However, areas for growth were also shown, with 38% of English Learners and 18% of African-American/Black students having the highest proportion of those needing Urgent Intervention in ELA subjects.
In Math assessments, 78% of students were at or above benchmark on the Star test, while 75% and 72% of 1st and 2nd graders, respectively, exceeded or met standards on their exams. Once again, though, English Learners (24%) and African-American/Black students (16%) were of the highest need of Urgent Intervention in the area.
Across the district, attendance data showed that 158 students (2% of the district) were deemed "severe chronic" absentees, missing 31 or more days, while 1,217 students (14% of the district) were considered "chronic" absentees, missing between 13 and 30 days of classes. The rest of the district were in the categories of "excellent" attendance (one or fewer days missed), "satisfactory" attendance (2-5 days absent) or "manageable" attendance (6-12 days absent).
To aid students with failing grades, middle and high school campuses have several "next steps" in place as far as support systems, including mentoring groups in middle school and focused intervention during flex-time at Santa Monica High School. Attendance supports were broken down into Tier 1 prevention supports like building an engaging school climate, Tier 2 early intervention strategies like an action plan addressing barriers and increased engagement, and Tier 3 specialized support strategies such as coordinated school and community agency response.
Speaking on the support practices, board member Laurie Lieberman said she "loves" the practices in place but wasn’t sure how to evaluate whether they were working or not. In response, Williamson spoke of a need for pre-practice and post-practice surveys, so that the district can pinpoint which practices are more effective than others.
"It’s a pivotal moment for our teachers to realize that we need to try things, but track it along the way to see which ones are having that great effect so that we can duplicate it," Williamson said.
thomas@smdp.com
