Report 2012-108 Recommendation 1 Responses

Report 2012-108: School Safety and Nondiscrimination Laws: Most Local Educational Agencies Do Not Evaluate the Effectiveness of Their Programs, and the State Should Exercise Stronger Leadership (Release Date: August 2013)

Recommendation #1 To: Fresno Unified School District

To ensure that it is effectively preventing and addressing incidents of discrimination, harassment, intimidation, and bullying in its schools, Fresno Unified should continue its efforts to implement methods to measure the effectiveness of school safety programs at both the district and school site levels.

1-Year Agency Response

The Department of Prevention and Intervention in collaboration with the Research Evaluation and Assessment department has completed a full program evaluation of the Safe and Civil Schools program at 14 focus elementary school sites across the district. Additionally, an evaluation has been completed at a middle school site. Sites were prioritized after a district wide data review.

The evaluation included the following components:

-Site Self-Assessment Implementation Survey - December 2013- February 2014

-Staff Interviews and Site Visits - March - April 2014

-Synthesized archival data - June 2014

-Completed Safe & Civil implementation summary report - July 2014

Updates have been made to the Single Plan for Student Achievement(SPSA) document which includes a section within the document for site leaders to evaluate program effectiveness. In addition, the information can be found online at http://rea.fresnounified.org/spsa-completed.cfm. A Safe & Civil Schools utilization index score was piloted with a region of Principals to assist them in the process of evaluating program effectiveness and resource planning. The index compiled the annual survey result questions from the staff and student surveys in addition to longitudinal data on student behavior, attendance and academics. All District schools completed the SPSA process in April 2014. The SPSA document was modified to include sections which address pupil engagement, social emotional needs, and school climate (including safety and connectedness).

California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Fully Implemented

6-Month Agency Response

The Research Evaluation and Assessment department is in the process of presenting the recommended evaluation components and school sites to conduct the full program evaluation of the Safe and Civil Schools program across the district. Next steps include the following:

Survey result document reviews December - February 2013

Interviews and site visits March - April, 2014

Synthesize archival data June 2014

Complete evaluation report July 2014

Updates have been made to the Single Plan for Student Achievement (SPSA) document which includes a section within the document for site leaders to evaluate program effectiveness. Moreover, a Safe and Civil utilization index score was piloted to a region of principals to assist them in the process to evaluating program effectiveness. The utilization index compiles the annual survey result questions from the staff and student surveys in addition to longitudinal data on students behaviors, attendance and academics. The estimated SPSA completion date is April 2014.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Pending

60-Day Agency Response

The Research Evaluation and Assessment department has begun the process of preparing for a full program evaluation of the Safe and Civil Schools program across the district. The program evaluation timeline includes the following milestone dates:

- Document reviews - October 2013 - December 2013

- Interviews and site visits - November 2013 - March, 2014

- Synthesize archival data - June 2014

- Complete evaluation report - July 2014

The Research Evaluation and Assessment department has also begun to work with the State and Federal Programs department to make updates to the Single Plan for Student Achievement (SPSA) document. An additional section which will be incorporated into the SPSA is called "program effectiveness as measured by improvements to school safety". This section of the SPSA will require school sites to analyze suspension and expulsion data along with parent, staff, and student survey data. The review will provide school sites with a mechanism to evaluate data results and connect results to program effectiveness. The estimated SPSA completion date is April 2014.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Pending

The district's milestones indicate that it has started to implement the recommendations from our audit report, but will not be complete this work until July 2014.

All Recommendations in 2012-108

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.