Sweetwater Union High School (SUHI) continues to strive to ensure each student receives an education that is rigorous and prepares them to be college and career ready. As we continue to assess not only our students, but also our systems in place to identify what is working toward providing academic success for our students, we turn to the California Dashboard to analyze some of this data.
In mathematics, SBAC scores have differed very little between year 2015 and 2016. For example, there were a total of 22% of students who met or exceeded standards in 2016 and 21% in 2015. In 2015, there were 37% of students that nearly met the standard, in comparison to 31% in 2016. Unfortunately our largest percentage of students score within the “not met standards” category. Understandably, the mathematics curriculum has undergone a major shift in teaching strategies and a new textbook adoption. Although, we recognize that mathematics is an area of work, we are strategizing and planning interventions for our students as early as Integrated Mathematics I.
In English Language Arts, our students had a 2% increase in 2016. In 2015, 52% of our students scored “met” or “exceeded standards,” and in 2016, 54% of all students “met” or “exceeded standards.” Moreover, our English Learners—a targeted group—improved one percentage point from 2015 to 2016. This year, our 11th grade teachers have continued to make strides working within their professional learning communities to better align their curriculum and assessments for all students (students take the SBAC during their 11th grade year).
Our graduation rate has increased for many years due to the programs and opportunities that have been given to our students. To increase our A-G graduation rate, SUHI has provided the following programs and opportunities for our students:
- Credit Recovery
- Summer School
- Intersessions
- Tutoring
- Eliminated classes that are not A-G
- Other Interventions
Our A-G graduation completion rate percentage has grown from 22.7% in 2007 to 40.9% in 2015 (Data Quest). In 2007, SUHI administered 418 AP Exams and in 2016, 1772 exams were administered with a pass rate increase of 39%; SUHI also saw an increase in SAT tests taken by students from 164 tests in 2007 to 393 tests in 2015.
SUHI has worked to develop a culture of respect between students and staff. We are working to decrease discipline problems and suspensions by introducing a restorative team who will work with students to correct behavior and mend relationships among students and staff. Our suspension rate has remained relatively steady over the past two years but we believe that this new practice will lead to a decrease in the need for punishment by excluding students from school and increase our overall attendance and student time in class. We look forward to working with our students to solve these problems together.