State Department of Education updates California School Dashboard

11/22/2024 -

The California Department of Education on Thursday, Nov. 21, updated the California School Dashboard, the state’s accountability tool that measures school and district performance using a number of key benchmarks.

School districts across the state and in Sonoma County showed progress in improving student outcomes across several key indicators, most notably in the area of chronic absenteeism. For the 2023-24 school year, the number of students statewide who missed 10% or more of the school days for which they were enrolled declined to 20.4%, down 4.5% from the previous year and 9.6% from the all-time high of 30% in 2021-22. Schools in Sonoma County generally saw similar improvements, though the rates both locally and statewide are still tracking higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The four-year graduation rate remained relatively flat, rising by 0.2% statewide and falling by 0.2% to 86.5% in Sonoma County.

Other metrics included in the dashboard include:

This year’s Dashboard includes a new student subgroup: Long-term English-language learners. This group represents students who have not obtained English language proficiency within seven years of being initially classified as an English learner.

Most of the Dashboard indicators will use a color (red, orange, yellow, green, or blue) to compare performance to prior years. A handful of indicators, such as science and data for long-term English learners, are new for this year and do not feature prior-year comparisons.

The Dashboard allows users to filter results at both the district and school levels. You may access it by clicking here.