School Desegregation

Executive Summary

The District continues to comply with Consent Decree requirements and is proud of the results of these efforts. For the convenience of the Court, the Court Monitor, and the parties, this executive summary section highlights a number of pertinent areas including desegregation of schools and programs, transitional primary language instruction, and facilities. In addition, the District’s key achievements are summarized.

A. School Desegregation

As reported in prior Annual Reports, the District has fully accomplished its student assignment goals. Accordingly, the Court has discharged the District of its obligation to assign students based on mandatory numerical standards. As a result, the District’s elementary school system has completed the return to a neighborhood-based assignment system with active, integrative recruitment through Grade 4. The District’s middle and high school student assignment is governed by choice and capacity.

B. Transitional Primary Language Instruction

The Academic Language Acquisition (ALA) program design emphasizes more time on task for English Language Development at grades K-3 than the District’s prior model, with a transition to predominant English language instruction by third grade. However, since the K-3 portion of the ALA Bilingual Program still utilizes extensive Spanish language instruction and development of Spanish literacy, it was necessary to obtain Court approval due to a conflict with the initiative, Proposition 227, passed by the California electorate in June 1998. Approval to offer the ALA Bilingual Program was granted by the Court in March 1999.

At the ALA schools, one hundred seventy three classrooms were staffed with bilingual personnel. Of that number, one hundred-one had BCLAD certification and seventy-two teachers signed a waiver committing to completing requirements for the BCLAD. All teachers signing a waiver were assessed for Spanish language proficiency and met the District’s criteria for teaching in the primary language. The Bilingual Department reviews these teachers’ progress toward certification if they enroll in the State Bilingual Teacher Training Program.

The ALA program monitoring process includes the placement, continued assessment and on-going monitoring of student progress. These assessment features include the Parent Exception Waiver process, the multi-faceted assessment for initial placement and assessment of the student as they enter the program, oral fluency measures, academic assessment through both performance based reviews and standardized testing. All of these measures are aligned with both District and State assessment standards to ensure that students are both fluent and academically progressing in both their first and second languages and meeting the benchmarks of literacy development.

C. Classroom Programmatic Desegregation

The District successfully desegregated all elementary level regular education classes in terms of both the Consent Decree’s ethnic and mixed-ability requirements. At the secondary level, all of the District’s regular classrooms are ethnically desegregated.

The District successfully desegregated all ninth grade core instructional courses and allowed ninth grade students to enroll in courses at different stages of a bona fide course sequence.

We are currently reviewing the Gifted and Talented Education(GATE) plan which tests all elementary students and has consistently increased Spanish ELL participation in the GATE program. The current plan uses a non-biased assessment for all students. The number of Spanish ELL students participating in the elementary GATE programs has increased between 1999/2000 and the present.

D. Student Discipline and Dropout Prevention

The District successfully monitors student discipline and continues to identify and implement dynamic dropout prevention programs. Almost all of the dropouts in San Jose Unified School District come from Grades 9 through 12. The District has, for several years, had a very low dropout rate compared with the statewide and county dropout rates.

E. Parent Liaison

The Parent Liaison continues to coordinate several parent training programs and activities. This includes parent orientation classes at the middle and high schools; computer technology courses; Parent Forums; The Leadership Institute; The Parent Education Conference and the second year of the Summer Reading Club for parents and their children. District parents have been notified of these and other parent trainings through direct home mailers, school newsletters, SELAC, DELAC meetings, and through the Parent Education Task Force Committee. As in the previous year, the District Parent Liaison responds to numerous calls from not only parents, but teachers and students, and has met with many dozens of parents to help solve concerns and answer questions.

All Parent Outreach activities continue to be evaluated by parent participants as well as presenters. Follow-up meetings with those involved to improve the programs and participation occur regularly after each training is completed. Feedback is generated and encouraged by participants and presenters. Information is shared with the Parent Task Force Committee who then formulate recommendations and ideas for improvement.

F. Facilities

The District continues to modernize existing schools, taking advantage of Measure F which was approved by voters in 2002.

The design development for the new school at the Horace Mann site is complete. This new school is the first fully urban school in the San Jose Unified School District. The school is on a three-story state of the art building with a playground on the roof. This was a joint venture with the Redevelopment Agency of San Jose, to ensure that it fit into the design of the new Civic Center Plaza.

G. Monitoring

The District has been operating successfully under a self-monitoring plan for several years. In fact, on June 12, 2002, plaintiffs stipulated that the District had now become fully self-monitoring. The Administrator and Director of Desegregation exercised their duties designed to achieve Consent Decree compliance. The District uses the School Profiles as its school-level system of accountability, the analysis of English Language Learner academic performance, the three-year study of the effectiveness of the Academic Language Acquisition Program, and a variety of other reports to monitor other areas of the Consent Decree and the District. The District also maintained the data fields required by the Consent Decree.  We currently work with the Voluntary Integration Plan Committee comprised of a board member, directors, principals, parents, and community members.

H. District Successes

The San José Unified School District is firmly committed to ensuring that all of our students meet rigorous academic standards, and continually examines progress toward closing the achievement gap for our at-risk students. Comprehensive student achievement data is shared with staff and parents throughout the District on a regular basis, and District goals for improvement are clearly articulated to foster a shared accountability for students outcomes.

Student acquisition of the District’s rigorous core standards is measured via classroom assessments by California’s Standardized Testing and Reporting program (STAR) and by the District’s program of performance-based assessments in writing and mathematics. STAR assesses how well students are meeting standards in reading, language, and mathematics at grades 2-11, spelling at grades 2-8, and science and social science at certain grades. STAR’s major components include the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT9) and the Spanish Assessment of Basic Education (SABE2), two standardized achievement tests with national norms. SABE2 assures basic skills in Spanish for students who are not yet proficient users of English. STAR also includes California Standards Tests in mathematics, English/language arts, science, and social science, which focus directly on state standards that go beyond what is assessed by the SAT9. At grades 4 and 7, these tests include performance assessments in writing.

The District’s performance-based assessment in writing expects all students to produce a coherent composition and demonstrate control of writing conventions. In math, the performance-based assessment measures the depth and complexity of mathematical reasoning that students possess when solving multi-step, complex problems.

The District is proud to report that, in almost all subjects, the performance of students district-wide has moved above the national average. Over the past three years, the District has met or exceeded projected improvements in achievement on the State’s Academic Performance Index.

The composite growth at the elementary level has increased in reading and math as well. At the secondary level, the composite has increased in reading and math.  Data over the past three years indicates that our students consistently perform above the state average for students scoring above the 50th percentile in reading and math. This is particularly evident at the high school level where reading and math scores exceed the state average. Most significantly, recent data indicates that noticeable gains were made in the performance of our Hispanic student population.

At all levels of our learning community, we are committed to using research-based self-assessment processes to create the most effective environments for learning.

California Awards for Performance Excellence

The District has been using the Malcolm Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence to benchmark our continuous improvement efforts. We have been awarded the Prospector Award by the California Awards for Performance Excellence (CAPE) in recognition of our commitment to excellence, quality, and outstanding customer service. Based on the Baldrige Criteria, the CAPE application process offers us a framework for assessing our progress in achieving the goals of our Strategic Plan.

Blue Ribbon and Distinguished Schools

Our schools are benchmarking their improvement processes using the rigorous self-assessments that are the backbone of the highest national and state exemplary school recognition programs. The National Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence and California Distinguished School Awards Programs identify comprehensive criteria common to exemplary and inspirational schools. Schools receiving these awards demonstrate a commitment to furthering the intellectual, social, moral, and physical growth of all students, including those with disabilities and English Language Learners. These schools offer instructional programs that meet the highest academic standards, have supportive and learning-centered school environments, and achieve significantly above average results.

District appreciation for the schools that have been recognized by these programs includes receptions, staff awards, school signage, flags flown over the US Capitol and media coverage. Teams from each school attend ceremonies conducted by the state and federal government to honor the annual selections.

SJUSD Hall of Fame

To celebrate the exemplars of our community, we have created a Hall of Fame immediately outside the District boardroom. Display cases house colorful exhibitions of outstanding student work. Posters feature our Teachers of the Year, High School Valedictorians, Blue Ribbon and California Distinguished Schools, as well as regional and national awards commending outstanding SJUSD achievements. This past year, the District’s Public Engagement process was recognized as national model by the National School Boards Association, and our Annual Report to the Community was awarded the top prize in the State by the California School Public Relations Association. Also receiving special commendation was our District newsletter “Unified”.