California’s public school students are continuing to rebound from the pandemic, with more showing up for class, more graduating and fewer misbehaving at school, according to new data released on Thursday.

The California School Dashboard, a color-coded snapshot of how students and schools are faring, showed improvements in many categories during the 2023–24 school year — a relief for schools trying to help students recover academically and social-emotionally after the 2020 campus closures.

The most notable improvement was in attendance. The percentage of students who were chronically absent, missing more than 10% of school days in a year, dropped to about 20%, a significant decline from when it peaked at 30% three years ago. Prior to the pandemic, about 12% of students were chronically absent.

“This is good news,” said Hedy Chang, director of Attendance Works, a nonprofit that advocates for school attendance. “I’m pleasantly surprised. … To benefit from all the services that schools are offering, kids have to show up.”

Since the pandemic, schools across the state have been doubling down on efforts to lure students back to school. Many used their federal and state COVID-19 relief money to hire outreach workers, add bus routes, host pizza parties and otherwise make it easier and more enticing to come to school. Some districts had social workers connect directly with parents to solve transportation and other obstacles.

Those efforts paid off, Chang said. While the pizza parties helped, she pointed to many schools’ focus on improving campus climate overall. That includes counseling, social-emotional learning, stronger relationships between school staff and families, and health and wellness services.

Pandemic relief grants expired this year, so some districts will be scrambling to maintain these programs going forward. But the state’s recent investments in community schools, arts education, transitional kindergarten and other services will help, Chang said.

Recognition for long-term English learners

Another noteworthy item in the dashboard is the inclusion of a new student group: long-term English learners or students who were not fluent in English after seven years. The reasons for these students’ delays vary, but in general, they’re not receiving adequate help learning English and, as a result, lag far behind their peers academically.

About 10% of students who were ever classified as English learners were considered long-term English learners last year, according to state data. Those students had some of the lowest math and English language arts scores of any of California’s 13 other student groups.

“We’re celebrating this significant milestone, that long-term English learners get the spotlight they deserve and they are no longer invisible,” said Martha Hernandez, director of Californians Together, which advocates for students who are English learners. “But now the work begins to ensure their needs are met.”

Schools need to do a better job helping families who are recent immigrants by finding translators, providing counseling to students, boosting bilingual education and bringing in tutors to help with English and academic skills, said Lindsay Tornatore, director of systems improvement and student success at California County Superintendents, which represents county office of education superintendents.

“We should be mindful this is a student group that’s in the greatest need of support,” Tornatore said.

‘Not good enough’

Elsewhere on the dashboard, the graduation rate was 86.4%, up a bit from the previous year and higher than the pre-pandemic rate of 84.2%. However, a related item on the dashboard raised alarm bells with researchers. The number of students meeting the requirements for admission to California’s public universities was up only slightly — an increase of just 3,700 students among a graduating class of 438,000. Close to half of high school graduates are ineligible for the University of California or California State University.

“That’s just not good enough,” said Alix Gallagher, interim managing director at the nonpartisan think tank Policy Analysis for California Education. “It means the recovery has been anemic, and that’s a problem. We need a different approach, starting at the state level.”

She pointed to some districts’ policies of placing students on math tracks that don’t allow them to meet the college admission requirements by their senior year. While not all students should be expected to enroll in four-year colleges, they should at least have the option available, she said.

The Department of Education hailed a drop in the suspension rate among all student groups. Student misbehavior increased after schools reopened, and schools struggled to maintain a positive atmosphere for staff and other students. The rate dropped from 3.6% to 3.3% last year.

No major changes to format

The dashboard itself has been under fire recently. The data is too hard for parents to navigate, and the color coding can be misleading, according to a report from the Center for Reinventing Public Education at Arizona State University.

For example, a school might earn an orange color, the second-from-lowest designation, for showing slight improvements, but its scores might actually be lower than schools that earned a red, the lowest ranking. The state said it would consider making some changes but hadn’t made any major alterations to this year’s version.

The dashboard was released a few weeks earlier than it was last year. By 2026, the dashboard’s release will coincide with the Smarter Balanced test score announcement in mid-October.

CalMatters data reporter Erica Yee contributed to this reporting.