Accountability Progress Reporting (APR)

On Thursday, the California Department of Education issued the much anticipated results of the Accountability Progress Reporting (APR) for every school and district in the state. The report generally demonstrates the status of improvement in educational thresholds developed over the last 6 years since the federal No Child Left Behind legislation was adopted. It involves both the state Academic Performance Index (API), and the federal Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) and Program Improvement categories. In order for schools to receive Title I funds, schools need to achieve a progressive standard from year to year based upon a number of factors. There are a lot of nuances with the reporting requirements so without getting mired in all the details, the standards for our students were raised and while several schools did very well. While a few schools came off the PI list and are to be commended, the district, as a whole, didn’t meet the challenge as we should have for the second year in a row. Thus, the entire San Juan Unified School District is on the Program Improvement list which means that there are a series of corrective actions to be taken by the district to rectify the problem.
There is a lot to figure out right now, and it’s not appropriate to point any fingers of blame until we have a handle on the situation. I urge our school leaders to make the necessary inquiries and decisions to get on back on track to student achievement and excellence and off the PI list.
That being said, this is the time where all parents and voters in the district should stand and be counted with those who want accountability from their schools. This is the time when we should be looking for a better way to teach our children rather than pushing reforms off until later. This is a time where we insist on more flexibility in our categorical spending from state lawmakers so that our teachers can get a larger percentage of the resources they need out of hundreds of thousands of dollars allocated in each classroom each year actually spent in the classroom. If we do not take these steps now, and our district does not improve its situation, there is a potential that the sanctions could dramatically affect our school funding and impact our discretion over allocating resources and developing curriculum for years to come, abdicating that responsibility to the bureaucrats in the California Department of Education. With the fiscal condition of the state, our schools cannot stand to lose any more resources or control of the educational process.
Parents should be notified of the situation in the next week (if you haven’t heard already) most likely after the school board addresses this at their next meeting on Tuesday, September 9. I would encourage you to attend the board meeting, put your name on the list for a 2 minute public comment and ask any questions you have about how this is going to affect your children’s education.
Ask the hard questions, but don’t expect that someone else is going to solve this. Be ready to get involved. This is no time to rest on our laurels. Let’s work together to fix this. If our students continue to fail, we will then have no one to blame but ourselves. Again, it is time to stand and be counted.