Parent Christopher Cooper talks with Erica Renfree, vice principal at Dana and Correia middle schools, Scott Irwin, principal at Dana Middle School, and Laura Caffo, a parent and president of the Point Loma Cluster Schools Foundation during a Local Control and Accountability Plan meeting at Correia Middle School in San Diego. Credit: Karla Scoon Reid

Parent Christopher Cooper talks with Erica Renfree, vice principal at Dana and Correia middle schools, Scott Irwin, principal at Dana Middle School, and Laura Caffo, a parent and president of the Point Loma Cluster Schools Foundation during a Local Control and Accountability Program meeting at Correia Middle School in San Diego. Credit: Karla Scoon Reid

The first typhoon of the San Diego Unified School District's school accountability program includes proposals to expand its transitional kindergarten program to every unproblematic school in the district and boost services at schools with large numbers of "loftier-needs" students.

San Diego Unified, the state's second-largest district, on May ane released the 51-page draft of its Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) on the district website. The plan, which details how the district spends state dollars, is mandated under California's new Local Command Funding Formula. Districts' plans must specify how they will increase services for loftier-needs students – low-income pupils, English learners and foster youth.

Meetings volition be held this calendar month with members of the District Advisory Quango and the District English Learner Advisory Committee to seek their input on the draft plan, in improver to asking for feedback from the public.

Prior to drafting the plan, the district held more than than 40 meetings and forums with parents, customs members and staff to discuss the schoolhouse system's educational and funding priorities. The San Diego Unified School Board is expected to hold a starting time reading of the accountability plan June 10, with final adoption scheduled for its June 24 meeting.

Moises Aguirre, executive director of external district relations for San Diego schools, said San Diego Unified aligned the priorities in its accountability programme with the district's strategic plan – Vision 2020, which the community helped develop in 2009. Among the goals outlined in the accountability plan draft are: closing the achievement gap; access to a broad and challenging curriculum; quality leadership; and creating supportive environments that value diversity.

Aguirre said expanding the half-mean solar day transitional kindergarten program to all schools provides children, who plough five between Sept. 2 and December. 2, a sorely needed, quality educational program. Currently, more than than 100 schools offer transitional kindergarten based on location. In addition, transitional kindergarten teachers at some schools will spend the remainder of their workday leading an intervention programme to heave the literacy skills of kindergartners and offset-graders.

The draft plan also calls for "increased services" to 29 schools that serve a large number of low-income students. Those services include smaller course sizes in grades 3 and lower, transitional kindergarten intervention programs, pre-school classes, nursing services and counseling services. This autumn, class sizes in kindergarten through grade iii will drop from 27.ane students per class to an boilerplate of 25.v students.

To help reduce the district's pupil suspension and expulsion rate, the plan calls for San Diego Unified high schools to develop strategic plans to meliorate schoolhouse climate and pupil behavior. Aguirre said the district is committed to keeping students in their classrooms learning.

What practice you think of San Diego's accountability plan? Share your feedback with EdSource's Karla Scoon Reid.

Karla Scoon Reid covers Southern California for EdSource.

This report is part of EdSource's Following the School Funding Formula project, tracking the implementation of the Local Command Funding Formula in selected school districts around the state.

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