The enrollment rate for the Santa Barbara Unified School District has continued to drop. Yet, more than 70% of students graduating from the district are prepared to attend state universities across California.
Those were some of the statistics shared at the most recent State of Our Schools on Thursday.
The event was held at the Carrillo Recreation Center in Santa Barbara. Hosting the meeting was SBUSD Superintendent Hilda Maldonado.
Maldonado highlighted the district’s successes during the past year as well as some challenges.
“Our district goals are that all students will be proficient at reading and math by third grade,” Maldonado said.
Furthermore, she said the long-term goal is to have kids graduate as “A-G ready,” which means they are ready for college.
The number of students prepared to attend a four-year school increased during the 2023-24 school year to 77%. The number of college-ready students has grown in the past four years from 64% in 2020.
Test scores through the district seem to fluctuate, showing growth in some areas and decline in others.
Regarding test scores, students continue to do better in math; 39.29% of students in grades 3 through 8 are passing their tests, an increase from the previous school year.
Yet, the number of students who are not passing has stayed roughly the same with a small increase.
Overall, the results continue a trend of increasing scores since the 2021-22 school year.
Signs show that students are doing better in English. Even though the number of students who passed dropped from 50.08% to 49.39%, the number of students who have improved their scores to close to passing has increased since last year.
Student enrollment also has continued to drop, showing a decline that began in 2014.
The current demographics for the district show that Latinos make up 61% of students, with white students coming in second at 31.1%.
The presentation also stated that 61.1% of the student population is classified as socioeconomically disadvantaged, 8.3% as homeless and 13% as disabled. The amount has stayed stable compared with last year’s numbers.
The number of emergent multilingual speakers also has remained steady at 15%.
In her speech, Maldonado stressed the value of public education for students trying to learn English by sharing her story of moving to the United States from Mexico.
“I immigrated here at the age of 11 years old, not speaking English,” Maldonado told the crowd. “And thanks to the promise of public education, I am standing before you here today as superintendent.”
Also discussed was the increase in pay and benefits for district faculty, who won a new contract in July. Under the new agreement, staff will receive a 10% increase in salary and additional health benefits.
According to Maldonado, the hope is that higher pay and benefits will make the district more competitive and allow SBUSD to attract more teachers.
One of the challenges the district faces is a lack of math and special-education teachers. Maldonado stated that the district struggled to compete with other industries that paid more for graduates with math degrees.
Another issue she mentioned was the cost of living in Santa Barbara and the struggle to find housing.
“We’ve had people that really want to work for our district and are ready to sign or have signed, and then tell us, ‘I can’t find housing,’” Maldonado told Noozhawk.
One way the district hopes to address that is by supporting housing projects for employees, including the Parma, Tatum and Glen Annie sites, which will provide housing to faculty.
Despite the challenges that Santa Barbara Unified faces, Maldonado said she is proud of how far students have come and called SBUSD an “incredible district.”
“I want parents to know that we appreciate them trusting us to educate their child. We don’t take that responsibility lightly,” she said. “And we doing everything we can to graduate all students and (prepare) them for life and beyond.”
