SACRAMENTO, CA – Sacramento City Unified School District announced today a major new agreement with U.C. Davis, Sacramento State, U.C. Merced, and the Los Rios Community College District to collect and share data that will enable the district to identify the challenges that prevent students from obtaining a high school diploma and transition successfully to a college or university. Click here to watch highlights of the press conference.

“I’m incredibly proud that for the first time, our K-12 system in Sac City, and all of the region’s major higher education institutions will work in partnership to align our systems in a way that ensures students will experience a seamless transition from high school into and through higher education,” said Jessie Ryan, President of the Sacramento City Unified Board of Education.

The agreement will help the district identify barriers to college success. It will also help higher education institutions gather data about students before they enter their system, to accurately place students into college-level courses sooner and decrease the need for remediation. Eliminating these barriers is expected to lead to more students completing their degrees, and doing so in a more timely and affordable manner.

“When too many of our graduates need remedial courses once they enter college, or when too few students are able to complete their bachelor’s degrees on time, Sacramento City Unified has not done enough to prepare our students,” said Superintendent Jorge Aguilar. “This partnership is about ensuring we keep our promise that students will graduate with the greatest number of postsecondary choices from the widest array of options.”

As part of the agreement, Sac City Unified will adopt the following student-centered strategies aimed at removing the barriers that prevent students from reaching college success:

1. Successful Transition: Ensure student readiness and effective transitions from secondary school to college, and from community college to four-year college and universities;
2. Aligned Institutions: Create inter-segment partnership which aligns leaders, resources and decision-making and data-sharing among school districts, colleges, and their partners to advance student progress toward college degrees; and
3. Improved Policy and Practice: Work with practitioners and policymakers to address gaps between policies and practices at all levels affecting student success.

At the core of the agreement is enhancing the ability of all partners to access “real time” student data, develop critical indicators, and enable monitoring of student achievement from all educational resources. With enhanced data collection and sharing abilities, Sac City Unified can strategically create the most effective policies for programs and services to improve outcomes of high school graduation, increase A-G completion, increase transfer rates from community college and improve four-year degree completion rates.

Currently, Sac City Unified has no system in place that can track information once its students leave its high schools. The district now has the ability to track students beyond graduation, monitor their college enrollment and matriculation, and progress towards the completion of their bachelor’s degree through an aligned instructional system driven by formalized data sharing mechanisms. The district now leads one of the most ambitious efforts in California to use and exchange data between K-12 and higher education institutions.

“This agreement is monumental for our students, as all students, regardless of their socio-economic status or family background will now be ensured a level playing field and equal opportunity to move through college at a rate that matches their potential,” said President Ryan.

Click here to view a copy of the agreement between the district and its higher education partners.