There is now an Internet site that lets you look up hundreds of districts’ Local Control and Accountability Plans – and to add your district’s LCAP to the mix.
“The state embarked on the LCAP effort and asked everyone to have faith that it would meet the goals of the new funding system,” said Valerie Cuevas, Education Trust-West’s interim executive director. “LCAP Watch is an opportunity to make early observations of whether we are hitting the mark.”
The LCAP is a three-year plan, updated annually, that lays out how a district will meet the conditions for school improvement and goals for student success that the Legislature set out in creating the new school funding formula. It also lays out a process of community engagement that is integral to the shift from state to local control.
LCAP Watch is the creation of Education Trust-West, a nonprofit group that advocates for low-income, minority students, along with three-dozen organizations and groups that have agreed to share information on districts’ newly passed accountability plans and to spread the word about the new repository.
LCAP Watch currently has LCAPs from about 250 districts and charter schools and plans to add hundreds more. It is collecting each district’s LCAP drafts, the version that school boards approved and eventually the final LCAPs that county offices of education have signed off on. There is also a demographic profile of each district. State law also requires that the state Department of Education provide links to districts’ and county offices’ LCAPs on its web site.
Education Trust-West plans to do a first-year LCAP evaluation to see what districts are planning for student improvements. It will include an in-depth analysis of a dozen districts’ LCAPs, said Carrie Hahnel, the organization’s director of research and policy analysis.
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