Board discusses achievement, testing, restroom renovation
District has good numbers in some areas of achievement, needs help in others
Achievement data and standardized testing, and a restroom renovation were the main topics of discussion at Wednesday evening’s Chico Unified School District board meeting. The event was held at Marigold Elementary School’s multipurpose room at 2446 Marigold Ave.
Tim Cariss, director of assessment and accountability, spoke to the board with a review of student achievement data.
He referred to information published on the district’s online “dashboard” as it relates to the Local Control and Accountability Plan, a California Department of Education system that allows individual districts to “set goals, plan actions and leverage resources to meet those goals to improve student outcomes,” according to the department’s website.
Cariss said the dashboard contains information from the plan’s multi-tiered student support system, and is part of accountability system put into place in California in 2017 to meet priorities of the Local Control
Funding Formula.
He added that “it also provides metrics for the federal Every Student Succeeds Act,” signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2015. Local accountability. The dashboard gives measurements of achievement in 12 areas in relation to the funding formula.
Cariss mentioned results from seven state indicators, in addition to five local indicators which CUSD staff compiles after self-evaluation.
The dashboard was put on hold during fall 2020 and fall 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Cariss said.
Indicators — or “metrics” — address funding formula priorities, Cariss explained.
In areas of academic engagement the CUSD’s performance was mixed. They included chronic absenteeism at 8.1%, which the dashboard described as moderate; the suspension rate, with 3.4% of students suspended at least one, moderate; the graduation rate, 90.8%, a good performance;
English language arts, 0.8 above standard; mathematics, 24% below standard; college/career, 55.7% of students are prepared, the highest performance level.
English learner progress broke down to 25.4% welldeveloped (level 4), 38.3% moderately developed (level 3), 24.9% somewhat developed (level 2) and 11.4% at the beginning stage (level 1).
Locally, the CUSD meets standards in categories of teachers, instructional materials and facilities; parent and family engagement; and local climate survey, measuring topics of school safety and connectedness.
The other main topic of the evening was a discussion of a $400,000 renovation of the boys and girls restrooms at Fair View High School at 290 East Ave.
Julie Kistle, CUSD’s director of facilities and construction, addressed the board. She said the issue stemmed from the school’s desire to install two “sun shades” — areas underneath strong, high-durability woven material designed to block the sun to make outdoor events and gatherings more comfortable.
The district said “no” to the idea of the sun shades without first addressing Fair View’s restrooms, which are not compliant under the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act. As they’re currently configured, the restrooms do not provide sufficient space for wheelchair users to very easily enter the doorways. In addition, the boys room does not feature enough space between urinals to comply with the ADA.
There are no other codecompliant restroom options on the Fair View campus, Kistle explained.
Fair View occupies the campus which opened as Jay Partridge Elementary School in 1953, and as a result, many of its facilities have space constraints that cannot easily be solved because of the placement of weight-bearing walls and other issues.
Kistle said there aren’t enough funds remaining from Measure E (approved in 2012) and Measure K (approved in 2016), which the voters passed to fund school construction and improvements, to renovate these restrooms. She requested the board move the project into the Master Plan, allowing for more flexible payment options. The board voted to approve this request.