WHITTIER – Four Whittier Union High School District schools earned recognition from CORE Districts for achieving high academic growth in English language arts and math, with students consistently making gains faster than similar students at comparable schools throughout the state.

CORE Districts – a collaboration of eight California school districts ¬– built and maintains a comprehensive school improvement and accountability system that provides educators a clear view of progress using data on student-level academic growth, high school readiness, students’ social-emotional skills and schools’ culture-climate, along with traditional measures of test scores, graduation rates and absenteeism.

Pioneer High School was honored with the 2019 Academic Growth Award for achieving three years of student success in math. California High, Santa Fe and Whittier high schools earned High Impact Badges for their success over a one-year period in English language arts (Cal) and math (Santa Fe, Whittier).

“This honor reflects the incredible work of our teachers and staff who provide exceptional classroom instruction and are dedicated to supporting our students in their efforts to succeed,” Superintendent Martin Plourde said. “We will continue to use this data to refine our efforts and grow success among all of our students.”

According to CORE Districts, growth – combined with test scores, English learner progress, chronic absenteeism and other indicators – shows a more complete picture of school progress.

Growth shows the acceleration of student achievement by accounting for how much each individual student learns over time and measuring progress for the same set of students from one year to the next, rather than comparing test scores from year to year.