LBUSD finalizes five-year goals to achieve student success

The four goals and three guardrails prioritize reading, algebra and graduation requirements.

In a continued attempt to create a student outcomes-focused agenda, the Long Beach Unified School District has identified four board governance goals to focus its efforts on.

During the Oct. 4 meeting and after discussion at previous district workshops, the LBUSD board condensed its list of six goals to just four.

These goals will create guidelines for the board to shape their planning and decisions over the next five years. 

The goals include: 

1. Reading Proficiency 
2. Reading Acceleration 
3. Algebra Proficiency 
4. College and Career Readiness 

They also agreed upon three guardrails to hold the superintendent accountable when implementing these goals:

1. The Superintendent may not allow resources to be allocated without evidence of their equitable distribution aligned with the Excellence & Equity board policy.
2. The Superintendent may not allow major district-wide initiatives to go forth without engaging students of color and their families, following stakeholder engagement principles that utilize current adopted best practices.
3. The Superintendent may not allow the implementation or adoption of any classroom curricula or programming that does not prioritize educational and racial equity.

Districts can choose between one and five goals, but AJ Crabill, an education reform advocate who has been assisting LBUSD with this process, recommended the board decide on three. 

“Fewer goals give you more ability to focus your resources and accomplish larger improvements,” Crabill said. 

Focus on Reading, Algebra and A-G Requirements

The board originally explored the idea of combining the two reading goals, but given that they address different demographics, it proved difficult to integrate them.

The reading proficiency goal seeks to increase the percentage of third-grade students who meet or exceed grade-level standards for reading from 48% in June 2023 to 70% by June 2028. The reading acceleration goal is to decrease the amount of fourth through eighth graders who were one or more grade levels behind from 4% to 0% in the same timeframe.

Board member Erik Miller wanted to prioritize fourth through eighth grade students who need intervention, while board members Maria Isabel Lopez and Doug Otto said prioritizing third-grade students would create a stronger foundation so that fewer fourth through eighth graders would test below their grade level.

Ultimately, the board unanimously agreed to keep both goals as they considered them equally important. 

“I don’t see a way of combining them because they represent two separate ideas and they’re both good ideas,” Otto said. “I’m not worried about us having two goals here … I just think we need to keep these two because reading is so foundational.” 

The board’s other two goals address inequities among Black LBUSD students. Goal three addresses algebra proficiency for Black students and hopes to decrease the academic disparity from 4% in June 2023 to 0% by 2028. 

Similarly, in an attempt to have more than 66% of Black graduating seniors meet their A-G requirements, the board’s fourth goal plans to address the academic disparity with a decline from 13% in June 2023 to 0% by June 2028. 

Next Steps

Now that the board has its final goals, Superintendent Jill Baker and her team will develop interim goals and guardrails built upon the board’s goals and create a monitoring calendar.

The board cannot officially vote on the goals until after Baker presents her interim goals, which she said should be completed within a month and will be added to a future board agenda.

Crabill said it’s normal among districts to change their overall goals upon seeing the interim goals, so he recommends the board look over them before the approval meeting.

“​​I know it’s been a long process, but we want to get it right,” LBUSD board president Diana Craighead said. “The bottom line is that we do right by our kids and that’s why we embarked on this journey.”