School board ratifies agreement to boost academics at El Camino
The NLMUSD school board determine their next course of action during their board of education meeting. (PHOTO BY VINCENT MEDINA)
NORWALK – The Norwalk-La Mirada Unified School District board of education voted unanimously to ratify a contract with the National College Resource Foundation (NCRF) during their meeting on Monday.
Under this contract, the NCRF will aim to enhance the academic performance of El Camino High School students by providing them with advising and emotional support.
Students will also be given after-school tutoring, assistance to improve their math scores and support to help them on their path to college.
School board member Narcis Brasov expressed concerns over the agreement, questioning whether the contract utilized outside businesses or a district responsibility.
“The contract itself seems like a high school counselor’s job plus tutoring,” Brasov said. “I’m concerned that we’re outsourcing a quintessential district responsibility and public responsibility to a private company.”
The district has agreed to compensate the NCRF with $117,920 for its services between Sep. 2023 and July 2024.
Jessica Medrano, assistant superintendent of educational services secondary, explained the district made a plan of how to use the temporary Comprehensive Support and Improvement funding based on the needs of the school. The goal was to improve student’s academic scores with financing over a short period of time.
“This was a solution the site worked to find that provides a variety of resources, not just math, tutoring, not just language arts, tutoring, but also college career counseling,” Medrano said. “It’s able to help them meet that goal of improving the graduation rate, which was the need initially for the CSI funds and why the school is labeled as CSI.”
A school qualifies for CSI funding if the average three-year graduation rate is below 68%, according to the California Department of Education. The schools must have graduation data for the past three years to be eligible for support in this category.
Mark Hunter, assistant director/principal of El Camino High School, shared that the school qualified for CSI funding during the 2020-2021 academic year when the graduation rate dropped to approximately 45%. He noted this was the year when students were distance learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The graduation rate improved during the 2021-2022 year and increased to 68%. During the 2022 - 2023 academic year, the graduation rate increased to 80%.
“Now the average graduation rate of those three years is 64%,” Hunter said. “So we will meet the three year average requirement of 68%.”
A school can only receive CSI funding for three years, so this academic year would be the final year El Camino High School receives these funds.
After these clarifications, Brasov motioned to pass the contract, which was unanimously supported by the board of education.
The NCRF will service students four days a week between Monday and Friday, from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., for 40 hours weekly. There will be at least three staff members including a site coordinator.