The newest California school dashboard system broadens the measure of performance for each public school in the state, and helps to better understand the progress that needs to be done in each school.

These were some of the issues talked about at the “Impact of the New California School Dashboard Breakfast Roundtable” held at the San Diego Foundation, on Thursday, March 15.

This roundtable featured Superintendent of the Chula Vista Elementary School District, Francisco Escobedo; and Superintendent of the Fallbrook Union High School District, Hugo Pedroza.

“Events like this are very important for different communities to become aware of the new California Accountability System for our public schools and also to clarify questions and provide additional information,” said Pedroza to La Prensa San Diego.

The dashboard is an online tool that shows how local educational agencies and schools are performing on the state and local indicators included in California’s school accountability system.

It’s objective is to identify strengths, challenges, and areas in need of improvement.

The dashboard is a key part of major shifts in California K-12 schools, changes that have raised the bar for student learning, transformed testing and placed the focus on equity for all students.

“The information recollected with the new dashboard can help superintendents address teachers to tell them what are some of the challenges and what can be improved, but also to address parents and tell them how the school is implementing programs to help their children succeed,” said former superintendent of Oceanside Unified School District and roundtable moderator, Larry Perondi to La Prensa San Diego. “It’s important for superintendents to participate in this type of forums like the roundtable so they can interact with organizations that are concerned about the schools.”

The new dashboard provides information that schools can use to improve. It was created to give parents and the public a better idea of what is happening in the California schools and districts and to identify districts and schools that need extra help.

“What the dashboard is attempting to do is to provide multiple options to look up the success of a school within the district. It’s not just about the performance on a standardized test like mathematics and English, it’s also about other measures, like English Learner progress, which is very important for our district because there is a high number of students that have been designated as English Language learners,” said Superintendent of the Escondido Union School District, Luis Rankins-Ibarra to La Prensa San Diego. “The new California school dashboard it’s definitely a big improvement because it tries to give a bigger picture of what’s happening at each school of each district.”