Dear Parents and Caregivers,
You may have heard that yesterday, the State of California released data for the 2022-23 California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP). These tests are aligned with the California standards and provide valuable insight regarding how well students and school districts are performing academically and student growth toward meeting expectations for the California standards in ELA, Mathematics, and Science.
Our Education Services team will provide a deeper analysis of this data, along with early literacy and Advanced Placement test results for the community at our November 14 Board of Education meeting. We welcome our community to join us in person at 6:00 p.m. in the Board Rooms at 699 Old Orchard Drive, Danville; or watch the live stream or subsequent recording, available on our SRVUSD YouTube page. Additionally, your Principal will also be reaching out to provide an opportunity to review site-level data. Your student’s individual data is now available and instructions on how to access the information in the Infinite Campus Parent Portal are at the bottom of this email.
Just like school districts and students across California, SRVUSD students are still dealing with the ramifications of the pandemic. In the 2022-23 school year, while we have results that show areas of growth, our slower-than-desired growth in some grade levels and content areas coupled with significantly higher rates of chronic absenteeism are areas for our collective focus.
Districtwide, 2022-23 overall performance for students who scored meets or exceeds standards is 78% in English Language Arts (ELA), 72% in Mathematics, and 62% in Science. Compared to the 2021-22 CAASPP results, performance remained the same in Mathematics, decreased by 2% in ELA, and in Science a slight increase from 61%. Though SRVUSD students meeting or exceeding standards is considerably higher than the state in Mathematics (35%), ELA (47%), and Science (30%) and those of Contra Costa county in Math (40%), ELA (51%), and Science (35%), we know that improvement is necessary. Strategies are in place to improve our students’ achievement, and these will be shared at our November 14 board meeting.
Assessing students' reading abilities in the early grades does not happen through CAASPP. Instead, we use validated assessments and screeners to determine how our youngest students are progressing. Our assessments indicate that across grades K-2, students demonstrated a reading proficiency of 88% during the 2022-23 school year. This is a positive sign that we are helping students build foundational literacy skills, supported by the reading instructional strategies we are employing. We trust that we will see improvements in future third-grade CAASPP ELA assessment results as a result of the early reading skill monitoring.
Another important indicator of college and career readiness is our high school students' performance on Advancement Placement (AP) exams, and we have a lot to celebrate in this area. In English, 88% of our students scored 3 or higher; and in Math, 94% scored a 3 or higher. These impressive AP scores don’t align with our CAASPP scores for the 11th grade, and we need to better understand why this is the case. Overall, we had 4,325 students take 9,575 AP exams in spring 2023.
In addition to the CAASPP results, the State released updated rates of chronic absenteeism for the 2022-23 school year. We want to bring this to your attention because there has been a significant increase from pre-pandemic 2018-19 of 3.3% to 12.3% district-wide for 2022-23 in SRVUSD. A student is considered to be chronically absent if more than 10% of the academic school year is missed, regardless of the type of absence. Chronic absenteeism not only affects student academic growth, but studies show a correlation with the social emotional well-being of chronically absent students. The District is reviewing our attendance data to better understand the causes of chronic absenteeism and will be working with students and families to improve in this regard.
Your insights and engagement are invaluable to us, and we look forward to partnering on how we can further enhance the educational experiences for all students. It is with your support that we can reimagine success and help all students thrive. If you’d like to learn more, attend our Board Meeting on November 14 - virtually or in person. Information about the board meeting is posted on the District’s website.
Kind Regards,
Christine Huajardo
Assistant Superintendent,
Educational Services
Kit Bragg
Director, Assessment, Research and Evaluation
