For the first time, the Los Gatos-Saratoga Union High School District (LGSUHSD) earned a perfect score on the California School Dashboard and was the only K-12 California district to do so.
The Dashboard is a state-wide public school accountability system that uses school data and compares it to previous years across multiple categories, which are ranked by color, with blue as the highest-achieving.
For the mathematics and English categories, the Dashboard uses data from the CAASPP (California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress) and measures whether the scores have improved, declined or been maintained. Districts provide data about schools’ graduation rate, number of suspensions, English learners’ (EL) progress and college/career preparedness. The more improvement and points above the standard, the more blue categories they earn.
LGSUHSD earned blue in every state indicator, accredited to student and staff’s outstanding performance.
Still, that doesn’t mean there isn’t work to be done, principal Greg Louie said. Unlike the overall district, SHS individually was not able to receive a full score on the dashboard due to decreased performance in mathematics, which gave SHS a green ranking for that category, though still far above the state average. Similarly, LGHS received a green category for its suspension rate.
Over the years, SHS has had consistently high scores — this past year, there were improvements in English, College and Career preparation and a higher percentage of English Learners (EL) who progressed at least one English Learner Progress Indicator (ELPI) level or maintained the highest one.
Louie said there’s no clear reason for the improvements — slight fluctuations in results may be due to various factors such as student participation, curriculum changes and the level of effort juniors put into the CAASP test.
However, a noticeable factor in the California Student Dashboard scores over the past several years was the lasting effects of the pandemic learning loss.
Achieving a high in 2019 prior to pandemic learning loss, both mathematics and English scores have dropped slightly, and have yet to fully recover.
According to Louie, data from the school’s scores on the CAASP test indicates nearly a 10% decrease in the number of students who are meeting or exceeding standards since 2020, when scores were around 95%. Today roughly 85% of students are achieving at that higher level.
Compared to the overall success of the school, these decreases may seem insignificant, but Louie emphasizes that every student deserves individual support on their educational journey.
“We’re looking at all the different information available to us to help us figure out some solutions for things,” Louie said. “It’s our job as teachers to make sure that everybody has the best opportunities possible.”
For now, in school site council meetings, board meetings and more, staff are using the data collected from the Dashboard to formulate specific skills, direction or focus for school improvement, such as listening skills, English learners and special education.
Though Louie is glad that the school and district are consistently doing well in these measurements, he said it’s something to evaluate cautiously, especially when there was no single, concrete effort that led to the improvements. Instead, he traces the district’s strong performance to communities that are focused on academics.
“We benefit from the fact that we come from a really good community. You guys, as students, [can] focus on being students,” Louie said. “You don’t have to worry a lot about bullying, racism, drugs, alcohol, fights or gang affiliations.”
He also said the schools that perform better on such examinations tend to be in higher-income areas with fewer underrepresented groups — the ones that have a greater capacity to focus on academics.
“If we don’t have the same demographics and the same socioeconomics as schools that are struggling, I can’t necessarily be super proud of our results when it’s sort of like we fell out of bed getting them,” Louie said. “Would I be super disappointed if we were in a bunch of yellows? Absolutely. But at the same time, I’m not going to get super excited by it until we have addressed the students who are still struggling.”
