MONTEREY - Monterey Peninsula Unified School District officials are saying they are excited to see improvement by local students in the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress 2024-2025 results released earlier this week.
The district's English Language Arts achievement is rising along with mathematics scores improving. Additionally, fewer students scored at Level 1, the lowest performance band, in both subjects, meaning fewer students are behind grade level.
In English Language Arts, outcomes for all grade levels increased from 38.89% to 41.57% students meeting or exceeding standards. Math outcomes for all grade levels saw a similar increase from 24.11% to 27.43% students meeting or exceeding standards.
"What's really exciting is that we have made some significant progress in English language arts specifically," said Cresta McIntosh, the district's associate superintendent, Educational Services.
The state-mandated tests are given annually to students in third, eighth and 11th graders for English Language Arts and math, and in grades 5, 8, and once in high school for science.
The California Science Test also showed increased scores within the district, with an increase from 22.80% to 24.76% of students meeting or exceeding standard. Additionally, 58.38% of students are now in Level 2 - Standard Nearly Met - in the California Science Test, signaling to the district that "a large portion of students are within reach of proficiency with the right instructional support," according to a press release from the District.
The press release states that MPUSD outperformed similar demographic unified districts and narrowed its gap with the state average.
"We are encouraged by this progress and it confirms one of MPUSD's tenets of powerful teaching and learning," said District Superintendent PK Diffenbaugh in the press release. "It's a reflection of the dedication of our students, families and educators, and a sign that MPUSD is moving in the right direction for all learners."
MPUSD also saw notable student growth across specific grades and demographics.
"I think what we're really excited about is we saw the most growth in subgroups, but overall in our third grade reading scores, which our district has been really, really intentional and focused on improving foundational literacy instruction across our system as well as increasing an expanded early learning for the last decade," said McIntosh. "I think that work is showing up in the improved outcomes for our students, so we're really excited about that."
Third-grade students districtwide showed improvements, including gains for all students, African American students and English learners in both English language arts and math, which reinforced "the positive impact of MPUSD's early learning and literacy efforts," according to the press release.
African American students made double-digit gains in English language arts in third, sixth, seventh and eighth grades. The district said this is "signifying real movement in closing opportunity gaps and improving outcomes for historically underserved students."
English learners in third grade improved from 7% to 15% in English Language Arts (plus-8 points) and from 9% to 18% in math (plus-9 points), "reinforcing the impact of MPUSD's early literacy, language development, and grade-level access strategies," according to the district.
English Language Arts increased 10 percentage points for eighth grad. Grade 6 also saw an increase of 10 percentage points in math. The district said this signals progress extending beyond primary grades and emphasizes the "impact of ensuring that adolescents have access to daily grade-level instruction coupled with strong academic intervention."
"This growth is not accidental. It is the result of intentional system design," McIntosh said in the press release. "We have invested in high-quality instructional materials, ensured grade-level access for every student and strengthened early learning access and foundations at every site. We are seeing the impact and we are committed to accelerating it."
Many districts saw a dive in test scores following the COVID-19 pandemic, but McIntosh said MPUSD didn't see a huge impact. Still, MPUSD is working to accelerate more growth within the district.
McIntosh told the Herald MPUSD partnered with the county to support them better understand their scores in a way that "supported equitable continuous improvement," while taking a holistic look at what students were performing well and what students were not doing as well and finding what disproportionality existed.
The district created leadership strategies and goals both districtwide and site-specific to help improve outcomes for groups of students, with a particular focus on improving chronic absenteeism, to help reduce disproportionality. Reducing chronic absenteeism was also a focus for MPUSD after the pandemic.
"If we know that our students are in school learning the foundational literacy and numeracy and just general content, then ultimately, they'll do better," she told the Herald "If they're not in school, they aren't learning the content."
The other main focus was on the materials students were learning. MPUSD focused on ensuring students had access to "engaging, affirming and meaningful experiences in all of their classrooms in every single grade level," said McIntosh. The district worked to ensure there was high-quality instructional materials for their teachers, and that teachers were supported in both planning and implementing those lessons.
McIntosh said math continues to be "an area of need," for the district. While they saw improvements, they "still need to see more growth for our subgroups and for our students across the system," and are prioritizing it as next steps to ensure teachers feel equipped to provide math instruction at all levels and leaders are creating the conditions to make it happen.
Along with CAASP, the California Dashboard recently posted results. While CAASP focuses on test scores, the California Dashboard looks at a whole data approach, looking at both progress and achievement. The California Dashboard looks at how students are performing in different subgrounds and areas in comparison to the standard and evaluates growth from year to year.
The California Dashboard looks at things including chronic absenteeism, suspension rates, English learner progress, graduation rates, college and career outcomes and English language arts and mathematics.
"What's really exciting is that we have made some significant progress in English language arts specifically," McIntosh told the Herald. MPUSD had no subgroups in the red and all of their subgroups either maintained or increased their progress on the dashboard for English language arts.
McIntosh reiterated how thankful MPUSD is for their educators.
"We wouldn't be able to improve outcomes and reduce gaps for our students if it wasn't for the hard work and determination and commitment of our educators to ensure that that's happening," she said. "We're just really grateful for their belief in our students and their belief of what is possible in our system, to ensure that we have the opportunity to put students on a trajectory of success, and that's within their control and they're leaning in and doing amazing work in our classrooms."