More than a year of preparation turned golden for officials with
the Aromas-San Juan Unified School District.
In November, ASJUSD officials received the results of their
Coordinated Compliance Review from the state Department of
Education. After a year of meetings and training, the district
received good marks on and compliance with 154 of 158 items.
”
If you’re not compliant, they can take their your money
away,
”
said Superintendent Jackie Munoz.
”
The bottom line here is to make you better
– make sure your programs are serving the people they’re
supposed to.
”
More than a year of preparation turned golden for officials with the Aromas-San Juan Unified School District.
In November, ASJUSD officials received the results of their Coordinated Compliance Review from the state Department of Education. After a year of meetings and training, the district received good marks on and compliance with 154 of 158 items.
“If you’re not compliant, they can take their your money away,” said Superintendent Jackie Munoz. “The bottom line here is to make you better – make sure your programs are serving the people they’re supposed to.”
Every four years, a team from the California Department of Education (CDE) visits a Local Educational Agency, or school district, to conduct interviews and on-site observations. The goal is to monitor the implementation of certain programs operated by the agencies – to make sure agencies are in compliance with requirements of each program and to ensure that program funds are spent to increase student performance, according to the CDE Web site. State and federal law require the review.
The reviewers looked at uniform complaint procedures, adult education, the English Language Learners (ELL) program, teacher quality, child development and the district’s state preschool, Mi Escuelita. The programs were randomly selected for review. The ASJUSD was out of compliance with four items under adult education. There were 47 items under adult education and 158 total.
“It was very heartwarming,” Munoz said. “The ELL review reassured me that we are in the right direction. Our children are learning and progressing.”
The four areas of non-compliance in adult education were: not having official approval of an attendance accounting system on file; not having a management information system and recording attendance of students in the program; not identifying instructional sites with visible signage; and not having a log of supervision of the program.
Already, the district has the official approval on file and officials have ordered signage to identify adult education instructional sites at Aromas School, Mi Escuelita and Pride of San Juan.
There are more than 170 people participating in the district’s adult education program that includes teaching English as a second language and offering citizenship and parenting classes.
Munoz noted that she was surprised to be 100-percent compliant in ELL since hardly any school districts are. In fact, the review team commended Aromas School – and the district as a whole – on its dedication, teamwork, creative approaches and providing various layers of interventions.
The reviewers spent two days in November at the district office and Aromas School. The state randomly selected which site was reviewed. They interviewed Munoz, principals, teachers, students and parents as well as observed the programs in action. For each area being reviewed, district officials had to provide evidence of compliance.
“During the preliminary interview, I told them that we graduate all our students and redesignate all our students,” Munoz said. “It’s hard to believe – they want to see the evidence, which is in the (paperwork) and the classrooms.”
The high points of the review were the findings on ELL and high quality of teachers, Munoz said, because, “that’s where No Child Left Behind is hitting the hardest.” Because No Child Left Behind regulations on highly qualified teachers are fairly new, Munoz said she wasn’t sure how the district would do in the category.
“Teacher quality – this is all new law. I thought that’s where we’d fall apart,” she said. “… We’ve done this forever. The Legislature is just now making us accountable. The review lets us know if we’re not within the law or if we’re going in the wrong direction.”
Officials with the district began preparing for the review in September 2003 with training to update them on new laws. They then divided the work and began a self-review to find and fix areas of non-compliance. It gives the officials a chance to “clean up stuff before the reviewers come,” Munoz said.
The district has 45 calendar days to submit a plan on correcting the areas of non-compliance.
Most other school districts, or Local Educational Agencies, in the county have undergone Coordinated Compliance Reviews.
