Coast Unified addresses concerns over math scores, lack of athletic trainer

Community members raised a broad spectrum of issues Wednesday evening, Aug. 31, when Coast Unified School District presented a public discussion of its Local Control Accountability Plan.

About 30 people attended the meeting, and audience concerns ranged from the student performance in mathematics to opportunities for advanced placement and the lack of an athletic trainer at high school sporting events.

The meeting also served as an opportunity for members of the public to meet new Coast Union Principal Scott Ferguson.

Superintendent Vicki Schumacher began the meeting with an hourlong presentation on where the district stands academically, noting that Coast Unified had seen a 15 percent gain in English/language arts testing scores and an 11 percent gain in mathematics in state test results released earlier this month.

Students in all grade levels tested except for third grade showed improved performance in both math and English/language arts, Schumacher said. (Students were tested in grades 3-8 and 11.) Improvement was seen among both those students considered proficient in English and English language learners, but Schumacher acknowledged that “we still have a long way to go in math.”

Very low percentages of English language learners met or exceeded state expectations in math for grades 5-8, and none did so in 11th grade, according to figures Schumacher presented. Scores were significantly better among English-proficient and English-only students.

Colleges and careers

Schumacher told those in attendance that the district is emphasizing college and career readiness — the third of three LCAP goals she outlined at the outset of her presentation. (The other two: accelerating student academic outcomes in math and expanding communication and critical thinking skills in literacy.)

Among the district’s emphases in preparing students for life after high school will be:

▪  Instruction in written argumentation.

▪  Opportunities to use technology.

▪  “Dual enrollment” courses that offer both high school credit and units applicable at the college level.

“There are students who have skipped the first year of college because they have satisfied so many requirements,” Schumacher said, having accumulated college units while still in high school.

Technology, she added, is key: “Fifteen percent of students’ performance is based on how comfortable they are with technology,” she said, adding that “21st century jobs take place in the realm of technology.”

Coast Union High School currently has two courses — engineering and the “Get Focused/Stay Focused” class required of all freshmen — that qualify as dual enrollment classes, Schumacher said.

Advanced-placement courses also play into the district’s strategy for preparing students for college and career pathways. Schumacher was unequivocal in saying that “every student needs to be offered AP.”

Some members of the audience, however, said students had not been offered the opportunity to take AP courses or, in some cases, had been discouraged from taking AP tests.

“A lot of students are junior and seniors who have never taken an AP test,” said CeCe Lomeli, who serves on the North Coast Advisory Council. “I see students all the time who say no one’s ever talked to them about that.”

Wanted: athletic trainer

Another area of concern was the lack of a trainer at high school athletic contests. Schumacher said that, in the past, the office of Cambria chiropractic doctor Kirk Acevedo has provided an athletic trainer at Coast Union sports events. This year, however, none was available.

Ads placed in The Tribune and The Cambrian produced no response locally, Schumacher said, so the district is considering contracting with a company out of San Luis Obispo or Morro Bay to provide trainer services at “a higher dollar amount than we’ve been paying.”

Lomeli expressed concern that no trainer was on hand during Coast Union’s 75-0 season-opening loss to Hesperia Christian on Aug. 26, noting that one player left the game with a shoulder injury.

“The main issue is probably just safety,” Principal Scott Ferguson said after the meeting. Making sure that athletes are “properly taped, properly prepared for the game … with proper stretching.”

Schumacher said the district wants to have a trainer at all home football, boys and girls soccer and boys and girls volleyball games.

Audience member Steve Kniffen asked, “Is there a legal responsibility for you to have a trainer at the football game?”

Schumacher said she “will get the legal response to that,” adding that “this is an urgent need, absolutely.”

Coast Union’s football team plays on the road for the next two weeks before returning home for a Sept. 16 game against Cate of Carpinteria.

Continued outreach

Schumacher said Wednesday’s meeting was the first of three community sessions on the LCAP planned for this school year, with the others set for Nov. 2 and Jan. 18, also at the district offices in the Old Cambria Grammar School on Main Street.

In addition, she said, Ferguson will lead a meeting sometime in January following up on the district’s vision for the high school.

Also coming up: Santa Lucia Middle School plans a Mexican Independence Day celebration from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 15, featuring food and entertainment, followed by a “meet the teachers” Back to School Night from 5:30 to 7 p.m.

This story was originally published September 2, 2016 at 12:07 PM with the headline "Coast Unified addresses concerns over math scores, lack of athletic trainer."