Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District adopts local control, accountability plan

 

One of the most complex documents prepared each year by Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District officials is a Local Control and Accountability Plan, commonly referred to as LCAP, which involves substantial input from parents and other school stakeholders.

The state-mandated LCAP is an important part of the state's Local Control Funding Formula, a plan initiated in 2013 to direct educational funds to specific areas of identified need. The LCAP for the upcoming school year was approved on a 5-0 trustee vote during a summer meeting.

The unanimous vote on the LCAP, as well as a similar 5-0 vote on the adoption of a new fiscal year budget, is significant, since trustees recently have cast 3-2 votes on several issues, such as a ban on teaching critical race theory and topics related to the coronavirus pandemic.

The LCAP and budget votes demonstrate trustees agree on matters regarding the spending of some $343 million for the school year beginning Aug. 30 for about 23,000 students on 34 campuses.

This year's Placentia-Yorba Linda LCAP document runs to 145 densely packed pages and is similar to the documents produced by other California school districts, county departments of education and charter schools, as required by the state.

Most include written comments by school officials to concerns raised by community members and other stakeholders to issues included or not included in the document. Most districts post the lengthy document on their web sites, which can be found under an LCAP designation.

One interesting aspect of Placentia-Yorba Linda's document is a section outlining areas that need significant improvement, based on detailed data collected from various state and local indicators.

In the mathematics area, the district's overall performance level is proficient, but some student groups score two or more levels below proficient: African American, English learners, Hispanic, homeless, low-income and foster youth.

For reading, local 2021 beginning-of-the-year assessments showed an achievement gap between all students and English learners: 43% at or above grade level versus just 12%.

In a “college and career” indicator, the district registers proficient overall, but a student group, students with disabilities, scored two levels below proficient, with only 8.4% meeting entrance requirements for the state's university systems (versus 52.2% of 12^th grade students).

The district aims to increase the percentage of 12^th grade students who meet University of California and California State University entrance requirements to 55% or higher from the 2020-21 school year figure of 52.2%, which was up from the 2019-20 figure of 51.4%.

Graduation rate in 2019 exceeded proficiency district-wide and the 2021 rate was 96%, but some student groups were lower: foster youth 59%, students with disabilities 81%, English learners 90%, homeless 93% and socio-economic disadvantaged 94%.