Parents made suggestions in the form of post-it notes at an LCAP forum in San Diego Unified. Credit: Karla Scoon Reid, EdSource.

Parents made suggestions in the class of mail-it notes at an LCAP forum in San Diego Unified. Credit: Karla Scoon Reid, EdSource.

State and county education officials are seeking to reassure school districts that might be worried that county superintendents will refuse the new accountability plans they'll submit past July one for the 2014-xv twelvemonth. Tighter scrutiny will come, just not for the initial programme.

"The approval process is fairly objective, at least this twelvemonth" and should be non-judgmental, Christine Swenson, manager of the state Department of Education's Improvement and Accountability Division, told the Land Board of Education last month.

School district officials are in the procedure of putting together their starting time Local Control and Accountability Plans (LCAPs), which are required nether the land'due south new financing system. (County offices of education provide services for special-needs students, students in juvenile detention and students in alternative schools. Their LCAPs for those students will demand approving from the Department of Didactics.)

Peter Birdsall, executive director of the California County Superintendents Educational Services Association, backed up Swenson'due south perspective.

"At that place is the expectation of a good-organized religion effort (past schoolhouse districts)," he said. "This is the offset year, so nobody should have a budget denied for lack of legal compliance."

He said he expects the "overwhelming majority" of districts will have their LCAPs and budgets canonical by Aug. 15, with possibly a few given a provisional approval.

All school boards must pass an LCAP past July 1 detailing how they will spend dollars from the Local Control Funding Formula over the next three years. The LCAP must respond to eight bookish and schoolhouse-climate priorities that the Legislature listed in the new finance constabulary. The LCAP should listing measurable goals, backed by data.

Examples might be lowering the dropout rate by X percent or raising the reclassification rate of English learners by Y percent. The plan should specify how the commune will reach those objectives for all students besides equally for low-income students, foster youths and English language learners, who volition get extra money under the formula. One section of the LCAP asks districts to describe what they did to solicit views of parents, students and others from the community and if or how they incorporated those suggestions.

The LCAP is intended to concord the commune accountable for making progress. County superintendents, who must approve districts' LCAPs, will determine if districts must take action to better and whether to impose stronger sanctions if they are chronically failing to meet goals. But not this year, Swenson, Birdsall and others agreed.

The State Board is still 18 months abroad from adopting an evaluation rubric, which will provide the criteria for determining whether a district's LCAP passes muster. And the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence, the new agency that the funding law established to piece of work with districts on areas of weakness, has yet to get going despite a $10 one thousand thousand cribbing to launch information technology. Gov. Jerry Dark-brown and the Legislature accept withal to name appointees to the governing board.

Limited oversight this year

For the initial LCAP, Swenson defined the county offices' circumscribed role as verifying whether a district has met three criteria under the regulations that the State Board of Instruction adopted in January:

  • Did the district adhere to the LCAP template, filling out all of the sections roofing parent appointment, goals and deportment?
  • Does the district have sufficient revenue to meet the commitments it fabricated in the plan?
  • Does the LCAP meet the police'southward "proportionality requirements" – laying out how the district will improve or expand services and programs for low-income children, foster youths and English learners proportional to the extra dollars that these students bring to the commune?

Districts' responses will vary. Some will set up ambitious goals, others minimal. Some will concentrate new resources on a few priorities, such as hiring counselors or creating after-school or career-oriented programs. Others may allot bits of money for many purposes.

It's not the county'south function this time to decide whether the district has chosen the right goals and the smartest use of resources, said Anne Campbell, San Mateo Canton superintendent of schools.

"As long as districts have done stakeholder engagement, addressed the eight state priorities, set reasonable goals and allocated resources, that'south what's required this year," she said. "When nosotros get to next twelvemonth and accept some information to show on achieving goals, then we tin can say, 'Are you lot making progress to your goals?'"

Campbell said that she's also aware of "the really compressed timeline" facing districts. While some districts – Redwood City School District in detail – started holding parent and community meetings last fall, others waited until the Country Lath adopted regulations in Jan to beginning the LCAP process.

Rather than wait for districts to submit their LCAPs in June, Campbell said that the San Mateo Canton function has been in contact with the 23 districts in its jurisdiction. Her function has paired an administrator who works in schoolhouse finance with i who works in programs and instruction – two divisions that in the past had little collaboration. As a team, they take met with superintendents and lath members, she said, and they will review individual districts' draft LCAPs well before they are submitted for approval.

"If districts accept not been out to engage stakeholders, we will requite suggestions," Campbell said.

Birdsall said other county superintendents have been proactive likewise. "We want an canonical template, so nosotros promise that when the LCAP arrives, there are no surprises," he said. The counties will use a standard of "reasonableness," he said. "If yous are maxim you have a counseling program for 8th and ninth grades for students performing below grade level, how many counselors volition yous need? We will inquire where are resources?"

Quest for consistency

County oversight is nothing new for school districts. Since 1991, county offices have monitored districts' budgets and finances to verify that they can meet their brusque- and long-term obligations. With the settlement of the Williams v. California lawsuit in 2000, county offices began monitoring depression-performing districts' facilities and educatee access to qualified teachers and textbooks.

Overseeing programmatic and bookish goals is new, however, and those districts that have had tensions with county superintendents over budgets may be feeling nervous about the LCAP oversight, said Wes Smith, executive director of the Association of California Schoolhouse Administrators.

He and Birdsall have met several times to discuss consistent standards for approval LCAPs. With 58 counties, there should not be 58 different expectations, Smith said. Birdsall said that his organization will release LCAP guidelines for county superintendents by the end of April.

Campbell said that her impression is that districts are working hard and taking the LCAP seriously.

Only in testimony last calendar month before the Land Board, several civil rights advocates cited bug of concern. The quality of parent engagement among districts has varied essentially, students' concerns weren't being heard, and districts weren't making enough accomplishment data bachelor, they said.

Smith agreed that districts should exist doing these things, but said they should not be punished for it if they aren't up to speed this year. Next yr, he said, they should have a plan reflecting those commitments and "be held accountable for engaging the community in meaningful means."

John Fensterwald covers education policy. Contact him  and follow him on Twitter @jfenster . Sign upwardly here  for a no-price online subscription to EdSource Today for reports from the largest education reporting squad in California.

You can follow other EdSource articles on how selected districts are implementing their Local Command and Accountability Plans through the Following the Schoolhouse Funding Formula project.

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