The Castaic Union School District is pleased to share its results from the spring 2008 Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) Program. For the 2007-08 school year, CUSD’s district-wide Academic Performance Index (API) rose 9 points to 822 with three of Castaic’s four schools scoring above the statewide performance target of 800 as follows: Castaic Elementary at 837, Northlake Hills Elementary up 8 points to an API of 849, and Castaic Middle School up 15 points to 817. Live Oak Elementary School, CUSD’s only Title I school, landed just 2 points short of the statewide target of 800, achieving an API of 798, a 12-point increase from their 2006-07 API of 786.

Although the state of California uses the Academic Performance Index as their measure of school and student achievement, other performance indicators are required by the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001. This legislation utilizes Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) as its student achievement measure with rising targets for proficiency year-to-year. For the 2007-08 school year, although all CUSD schools and subgroups maintained continual growth in both English/Language Arts and Mathematics, some subgroups fell short of the NCLB targets which were raised by 11 percentage points from the previous school year. In spite of these shortfalls, CUSD’s lowest performing students improved the most, moving out of the Far Below Basic and Below Basic performance bands and “closing the achievement gap”, a primary goal for both NCLB and California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell.

The Castaic Union School District continues to support the academic needs of all its students with research-based programs designed to facilitate student progress and academic proficiency at all grade levels. The success of these programs is evidenced by the ongoing academic growth within all student subgroups and all schools approaching or exceeding California’s API target of 800.

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