Data, Our GPS
Determining what students need and working together
to provide direction are the keys to this district’s success.
Rich Smith, Marcus Johnson, and Karen D. Thompson
Sergio entered the Sanger Unified School District as a kindergartner not yet fluent in English. As a 9th grader in 2010, he still had
not scored high enough on measures of
English language ability and academic
achievement to shed the English learner
label. For years, students like Sergio
flew under the radar in our district,
gliding from one grade to the next. But
since 2004, Sanger Unified has undergone a dramatic transformation. Now
district educators know exactly how
all their students are doing, and they
work relentlessly and collaboratively
to discover what each student needs to
succeed.
Thus, when we, as school leaders, sat
down with Sergio’s parents in spring
2011 for a chat, we knew where Sergio
stood; this knowledge gave us a start-
ing point for conversation. Sergio’s
parents told us that Sergio’s language
abilities in Spanish had faltered since
a farm accident several years back. No
one had ever asked Sergio or his parents
why they thought his academic prog-
ress had stalled. With data that alerted
us to Sergio’s lack of progress and a
commitment to asking questions that
would help us understand his needs,
we gained the necessary information to
design an appropriate learning environ-
ment for him. Conversations like these
have enabled our district to experience a
dramatic turnaround.
From Struggling to Exemplary
Located in California’s Central Valley,
Sanger Unified enrolls approximately
10,000 students, 82 percent of whom
are students of color (primarily Latino,
with sizeable black and Hmong popula-
tions and a growing Sikh population).
Half of the district’s students speak a
language other than English at home.
Unemployment in our area currently
stands at approximately 30 percent,
and three-fourths of students qualify for
free or reduced-price lunch. In 2004,
Sanger was named one of the lowest-
performing school districts in the state.
