San Diego Unified School District receives report card from CA state

SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — The state of California recently released data showing how well schools around the San Diego area are doing, including San Diego Unified, the largest district in San Diego County.
“San Diego Unified continues to make progress in some areas,” San Diego Unified School Board President Shana Hazan said. “Progress is really significant.”
That’s the takeaway, as Hazan explained, the district’s latest report card from the state.
A positive: the district saw a 3% improvement in their college and career readiness numbers.
Currently, the district is almost 63%, while other comparable-sized districts like Los Angeles Unified sit at 45%.
“It’s not just about how kids are doing- sitting in the classrooms here,” Hazan said. “But how are they doing when they leave our system? Are our kids set up for success for the long term?”
An area the district needs to continue to improve in is absenteeism. Last school year, 21% of students struggled with attendance.
While that number has declined from the year before, it’s still a problem the district needs to tackle.
This year, they’ve tried different incentives for students, such as partnering up with the San Diego Padres to reward the school with the best attendance.
ABC 10News was there when Padres Superstar Manny Machado surprised Paradise Hills Elementary School students.
Another area the district is paying close attention to is graduation rates. They saw a slight decrease compared to the year before. The district connects that to changes to the state’s graduation waivers.
During the pandemic, the requirements to qualify for a waiver were loosened. Now, the restrictions are back.
So, now the question is, what happens next?
“As to how it relates to what’s happening in the classroom, our teachers receive information; they can see how they’re doing,” Hazan said. “Principals can see at the site level how students are doing, [they] use that data to really improve instruction based on the area of growth in their schools.”