The Saugus Union School District is proud to announce its 2022-2023 official California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) results. Students in grades 3 – 6 participated in the annual state assessment to measure their English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics grade level proficiency in the spring of 2023. The overall grade level proficiency for English Language Arts (ELA) in SUSD was 63.75% of students meeting or exceeding grade level standards. In the area of mathematics, SUSD students meeting or exceeding grade level standards was 59.24%. Both of these scores are above the state averages (ELA – 46.66% and Math – 34.62%).

In 2022, SUSD saw an increase of proficiency in the area of mathematics (1.22%) over its pre-pandemic (2019) achievement. While this was a small amount the district celebrated being one of a handful of districts across the state to see an increase in 2022. The new proficiency rates released on Oct. 18, indicate that the district continues to see increases in its mathematics achievement (1.96%). SUSD contributes this progress to our staff development program that is focused on California State Mathematics Standards instruction, the foundation skills needed for students to think and reason mathematically, and the supplemental electronic resources used that address student’s individual learning needs.

The district has put a great deal of effort into improving its ELA results and addressing the learning loss experienced during the pandemic through its on-going science of reading training and instructional strategies. Unfortunately, SUSD saw a slight dip(-0.94%) in the ELA proficiency rate for the 2023 school year. As a result, SUSD continues to refine its reading and writing instruction to address students’ abilities to reason with a variety of text (informational and literature) and create written responses for that reason. SUSD uses a multi-tiered system of support to address students’ individual learning needs and are aligning our instruction to the rigor required by the state standards through our Professional Learning Communities (PLC) process. In PLCs, our teachers plan common units of instruction and use common assessment data to address student needs if they have not mastered the content or address how to extend learning if they already know the content.

Preliminary data was presented to the SUSD Governing Board during their regular meeting on August 29, 2023 (agenda information https://www.saugususd.org/Governing-Board). During that meeting, the Education Services team presented the past and current data related to ELA and Math for various grade levels and student groups as well as ways the district would address student needs in the coming year. , has stated about the achievement of our students that

“We are seeing the necessary systematic work being done in our classrooms to help our students overcome the learning loss that happened because of the pandemic,” said Katherine Cooper, Governing Board president. “While we know that we have additional steps to take to see the achievement levels grow, we know that our teachers, school staff, and administrators are doing the hard work to ensure our students rise.”

Attendance

On Oct. 18, 2023, the California Department of Education released the official 2022-2023 Chronic Absenteeism data for the state on DataQuest (https://dq.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/). Saugus Union School District is excited to announce that it is seeing a significant decrease (-2.1%) in its overall chronic attendance rate for the 2022-2023 school year (10.7% overall). This is compared to Los Angeles County’s chronic attendance rate of 26.9% and the state’s rate of 25.4%.

Chronic attendance is defined as students missing 10% or more of their total days enrolled. While ten percent of a 180-day school year is 18 days, students who are only enrolled in a district for 20 days and miss two or more days are also considered chronically absent in this data. Since the return to on- campus instruction, during the pandemic SUSD has had an emphasis on ensuring its students returned to the on-campus school learning experience. Like other districts across the valley, state, and nation, SUSD has struggled with returning to its historical chronic attendance rate of around 5%, but thanks to the efforts of the administration, office staff, teachers, and parents, SUSD are seeing great improvements.

To address chronic attendance, our principals monitor students’ individual attendance weekly to ensure that students do not fall through the cracks. If there is an illness, family need, or individual challenge, the school works closely with the family to ensure the student can return to school as quickly as possible and that they receive instruction through independent study if possible. In addition, each school has incentive programs and community education programs that support positive student

attendance. Whether it is winning Artie the Attendance Giraffe for the day in the classroom, getting a bit of extra recess time at the end of the week, or having their principal slimed for schoolwide improvement, our kids and the families are focused on getting our kids back to school where learning happens and where additional resources can be provided to the students.

SUSD wants to thank our families for their faith in our school district and for their trust in our programs and staff. SUSD wants our kids to thrive. Having them at school, where Saugus Union can meet their basic needs (i.e., health, social-emotional, social skills, physical education, etc.) and their academic needs regularly is the key to ensuring SUSD meets that goal. The pandemic, unfortunately, changed many things but thanks to everyone in the Saugus Union Family, SUSD is returning to our normal.