Report 2016-114 Recommendation 4 Responses

Report 2016-114: College Readiness of California's High School Students: The State Can Better Prepare Students for College by Adopting New Strategies and Increasing Oversight (Release Date: February 2017)

Recommendation #4 To: Stockton Unified School District

To increase students' access to and completion rates of college preparatory coursework, districts should develop and institute an on track/off track student identification model similar to San Francisco's model that will allow them to determine whether students are completing grade-level college preparatory coursework. The districts should notify parents when they identify students as falling off track and should advise the parents and students of available support and credit recovery options. Furthermore, school staff should be required to meet with and document the support they provide to these students.

Annual Follow-Up Agency Response From June 2018

SUSD has established protocols and systems to increase students' access to and completion opportunities of college preparatory coursework, and developed a on/off track system for the 2017-2018 school year. Full implementation of the monitoring system of our on track/off track support for students will begin with fidelity in 2018-2019 school year. A protocol and web-page was developed to notify parents when their student is falling off track, with the available support, and credit recovery options. Forms documenting student and parent conferences are a requirement which will entail information to each student with the support/services needed to remain on track.

Supporting documents will be emailed to Aaaron Fellner.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Annual Follow-Up Status: Fully Implemented

1-Year Agency Response

Our district is in the process of completing a strategic plan to refine a centralized process to track and document students' on and off A-G status. Counseling staff will monitor student transcripts after each grade reporting period and will identify which students are on/off track. If a student has been determined to be off track, the assigned counselor will meet with the student and/or parent to develop an action plan utilizing the A-G course checklist. The checklist and conference will cover available support and credit recovery options.

An A-G task force is currently working on the implementation plan. Inclusive in the plan is staff training on alignment and monitoring of our A-G notification. The final strategic plan will be uploaded to the email address provided by CSA. Stockton Unified' s Student Assistance Program Specialist (SAP) has been coordinating the activities identified in our College Readiness Block Grant to support A-G awareness for grades 7-12.

The Education Equity Director has been working with our most at-risk school sites at both the elementary and high school level assisting staff with using the data to identify the disparity of student achievement gap among student subgroups.

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

We have reviewed the SUSD strategic plan and found it has taken some concrete steps to implement our recommendations.

6-Month Agency Response

Stockton Unified has hired the Student Assistance Program Specialist (SAP) to support and coordinate the activities identified in the College Readiness Block Grant and assist with A-G initiatives. In addition, the Education Equity director was hired to help close the student achievement gap among student subgroups. Our district is working on a strategic plan to further refine a centralized process to track and document students on/off track status as well as communicating with parents and students about available support and credit recovery options. An A-G task force is currently working on the implementation plan. Inclusive in the plan is staff training on alignment and monitoring of our A-G notification. The strategic plan will be uploaded to the email address provided by CSA.

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

60-Day Agency Response

Stockton Unified School District has created a new position and is in the process of hiring a Student Assistance Program Specialist. The position was Board approved this year. The Student Assistance Program (SAP) Specialist works with site administrators, counselors, teachers, and other educational personnel and community members to develop, promote, monitor/manage, and coordinate successful implementation of the college and career readiness initiatives to meet students' goal. This position will lead the development of an on track/off track model similar to SFUSD.

SUSD's Superintendent, Assistant Superintendent of Student Services, Executive Director of Curriculum, and two SUSD Board members met with the SFUSD team that had developed their model to learn about their policies and processes. In addition, SUSD has recently received a Career Readiness Block Grant which will help fund the development of this process. SFUSD explained that it took a number of years of work, from initially obtaining Board approval of an A-G graduation pathway, forming an A-G taskforce, to the training for staff to the education of parents and students. SUSD is currently in the process of also approving and hiring a Director of Equity and Diversity who will also guide this process to help meet the needs of all students.

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

All Recommendations in 2016-114

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.