Sausalito Marin City School District absorbs mixed state results

Students in the Sausalito Marin City School District had uneven results in both internal tracking of academic growth and in state test scores released this month, according to a senior administrator.

Elizabeth Henry, the district’s director of instruction, reported an overall year-over-year decline in both English literacy and math skills in the district’s first use of the Measures of Academic Progress test, or MAP.

However, she said that last year’s assessments used a different standard, and the student group this fall was not the same cohort as last year.

“There are overall trends, but it’s not exactly apples to apples,” Henry told district trustees at their meeting on Oct. 10.

Henry said that 54% of district students who took the MAP test this year met or exceeded the standard for their grade levels for English proficiency, compared to 57% last fall. In math, the figure was 45%, compared to 53% last year.

Lisa Bennett, president of the district board, said she was disappointed that there wasn’t more improvement.

“I have a hard time looking at these results,” Bennett said. “From a big-picture societal perspective, I’m furious. But I’m tempering that with critical thinking and the understanding of what we can do differently going forward.”

In the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress scores, released statewide last week, 42.18% of Sausalito Marin City School District students who took the test met or exceeded the standard for their grade levels in English, compared to 49.26% last year.

In math, 40.11% of students met or exceeded the standard, compared to 35.36% last year.

Statewide, the CAASPP results showed that 47.04% of students met or exceeded the standard in English this year, compared to 46.66% last year. In math, 35.54% of all students met or exceeded the standard for their grade level this year, compared to 34.62% last year.

Henry said she will give a full presentation the CAASPP results at the board’s meeting in November. The CAASPP is administered to students in grades three through eight and in 11th grade. The Sausalito Marin City School District, which has about 280 students, only goes up to eighth grade.

David Finnane, principal of the district’s school, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Academy, noted positive signs in some individual grade performances in the MAP testing, specifically among African American students.

He pointed to an increase from 53% last year to 54% this year in English proficiency scores among African American first-graders. In math, he cited a rise from 33% to 35% proficiency among African American students from first to fifth grade.

“We are definitely seeing some movement,” Finnane told trustees. “It’s maybe not the movement some of us want to see.”