The California Department of Education has released performance overviews of each public school in the state for the 2023-2024 academic year, and the results do not bode very well.
Students struggle in Math, ELA
In the Turlock, Denair and Hilmar school districts, student performance in English and Language Arts and Mathematics are below standard. It’s par for the course as student academic performance is below standard throughout the entire state.
Within the Turlock Unified School District, math results were 73.2 points below standard in 2023-24, a slight increase of 0.5 points from the year prior and nearly 20 points below how students performed in 2019, the year before schools were kept predominantly empty amid the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Seven campuses (Crowell, Cunningham, Julien, Brown, Dutcher Middle, Turlock Junior High and Pitman High) posted low or very low math scores, while four schools (Earl, Wakefield, Osborne, Turlock High) posted average math performance last school year. Medeiros and Walnut elementary schools were the highest performing in the subject, each considered high-performing.
English and language arts performance isn’t merely as bad, but has caused similar concern considering numbers are also below average and dropped significantly from 2022-23. TUSD as a whole is 32.3 points below standard. Eight campuses (Crowell, Cunningham, Wakefield, Brown, Turlock Junior High, Turlock High and Pitman High) have low or very low academic performance in the subject, while Osborn, Julien and Earl are at standard. Medeiros and Walnut were again the lone schools scoring above standard.
“TUSD recognizes opportunities to improve student achievement evidenced by state indicators on the 2023 Dashboard. TUSD approaches these needs for improvement through the lens of its Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS),” said Interim Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services Alice Solis. “During the 2023-24 school year, the District worked to define research-based best practices and expectations at each tier and provide professional development to ensure all educators have the means to meet these expectations through use of best practices. TUSD collaborates with the Stanislaus County Office of Education to provide support and training in the area of mathematics.”
Solis added that the district is continuing ongoing professional development for each subject by providing core curriculum training for all classroom teachers; purchasing supplemental curriculum and provided training for math intervention teachers; focusing professional development and math walks around the Standards for Mathematical Practices and Math Teaching Practices; holding weekly Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) to focus on learning, collaboration and data analysis; focusing on Science of Reading by training teachers and administrators in Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS), and implementing the i-Ready assessment & Personalized Learning platform to provide practice to meet students at their levels to grow academically.
While Denair Unified also ranks low in both subjects, administration is encouraged by recent test scores.
Math continued to be an issue among all students at Denair Unified, as just 18% of students in grades 3-5 met subject standards last spring. The number dipped to 10% in grades 6-8 and 7% of 11th-graders.
“Our students lose ground over time,” Superintendent Terry Metzger acknowledged at last week’s Board meeting. “We need to continue examining why and providing the support students need to stay engaged when math gets harder.”
To address the ongoing challenges with math, Denair has partnered with the Stanislaus County Office of Education this year to provide extensive training for teachers in math, including “deepening understanding of the standards as we approach adoption of new math instructional materials next year,” Metzger said.
By comparison, students continue to perform better in English. In grades 3-5, 24% met standards last spring. The number rose to 29% in grades 6-8 and 37% of high schoolers.
The Hilmar Unified School District, meanwhile, was 80.7% below math standards and 36.4% below in ELA. Each figure was predominantly the same from the school year prior, though math performance is still 14.6 points lower than it was pre-COVID and ELA performance is 13.7 points lower than it was at that time.
Chronic absenteeism remains a problem
Chronic absenteeism at Turlock Unified School District declined last year to 25.3%, a decrease of 12.4% in 2022-23. There were 13,773 students enrolled at TUSD schools in 2023-24. Nevertheless, they have not fully recovered from pre-COVID numbers, when the district had an 8.8% rate. The rate consistently hovered between 8-10% annually prior to the pandemic.
Denair Unified’s much smaller student population of 535 in 2023-24 had a similar rate of chronic absenteeism at 22.1%. According to their performance overview, it was a decline of 14%, which means there’s been significant improvement. There is no comparable data available from the 2019-20 school year.
In March of 2023, the Denair Unified School District Board of Trustees voted unanimously to move minimum days each week from Friday to Wednesday in an effort to improve student attendance, staff development and academic performance. The change seems to be working thus far.
As for TUSD, Solis expressed optimism in the fact that attendance has improved from the first full post-COVID school year of 2021-22 when the chronic absenteeism rate was a whopping 37.7%.
Solis said that the district’s Student Services and the Family Resource Center have combined resources to develop attendance teams at each school site to reconnect families struggling with attendance. The teams consist of administrators, counselors, child welfare and attendance officers, community liaisons and attendance secretaries, who provide interventions and support to families. Interventions may include attendance incentives, phone calls, home visits and counseling. Additionally, schools will also be holding School Attendance Review Team (SART) meetings with families as a way to strengthen connection and collaboration with the families, to work together to determine possible solutions to the current concerns, and to create a restorative attendance plan. The district is also continuing their “TUSD Shows Up” campaign to promote positive attendance messaging to families throughout the school year. The campaign involves postcards, social media posts, student assemblies and other activities to increase the importance of daily attendance and the impact that chronic absenteeism has on academic progress.
In Hilmar, 15% of their 2,313 students were chronically absent last year. It was a decrease of 15% from 2022-23. The rate was 8.7% in 2019-20.
Graduation rates are high
Despite below-standard performance and notable absenteeism, graduation rates at Turlock Unified high schools are higher than they’ve been this decade.
Last school year, TUSD graduated 95% of high schoolers between Turlock, Pitman, Roselawn and eCademy Charter. It’s an increase of 1.3% and is 1.8% higher than what it was following the 2019-20 school year. Solis credits the Roselawn staff for getting struggling students back on track to either graduate from Roselawn or return to the comprehensive high school with enough credits. There have also been additional credit recovery options implemented both during and after the school day that have contributed to the recovery of lost credits that occurred during the COVID shutdowns.
“We continue to analyze our systems in place and are very pleased with the outcomes in graduation rates, but are not satisfied nor will we settle knowing there are still some students not making it to the finish line,” she said.
The opposite has transpired in Denair, where the graduation rate has dropped 8.6% to 85.1% last year. In 2019-20, they had a 96.7% graduation rate, one of the highest in the region.
Historically, Hilmar has also had some of the higher graduation rates in the region. Last school year, 97.4% of their seniors graduated. It’s an improvement of 2% from the year before and a 0.3% increase from 2019-20.
