The LCAP (Local Control and Accountability Plan) is a district plan to set goals, plan actions, and allocate resources towards improving student outcomes as a community, LCAP lead and Executive Director of Learning and Innovation Priti Johari said at the MUSD board meeting on May 13, 2025.
The committee extracts its data from 38 LCAP metrics, three district committees (Community Design Team, Differentiated Assistance, and LCAP), and four surveys (Climate and Culture, Educator, Family Engagement, and Thought Exchange), Milpitas High School teacher Brett Webber said at the board meeting. The committee plans some of its actions based on the survey results and responses, he said.
People are generally positive about the academic programming and curriculum in the MUSD schools, Johari said at the board meeting. The committee is also looking into professional development and more support staff for specialized students, she added.
The LCAP metrics list the district as having highly qualified teachers and a 99% teacher retention rate, Coordinator II, English Learners and Math/Literacy Intervention Programs Dr. Shannon Soza said at the board meeting. The committee is also strengthening its tier one and tier two systems of support, she added.
“We know that there are a wide range of needs in the classroom, and one of the ways we’re trying to support that is through high-impact tutoring and professional development for our teachers,” Soza said. “With high-impact tutoring, we have offered over 4500 hours of tutoring to our students, and for April Academy, we have offered an additional 30 hours of instruction. So we’re really trying to create these unified systems of support for our students.”
Community members say what needs improvement and what works in the surveys, Parent and Community Design team member Elaine Silveria said. A topic that stood out in recent years was mental health awareness, she added.
“We want to look at mental health, and that’s part of academics and part of staffing,” Silveria said. “You need counselors to provide mental health services. When someone’s in good mental health, their academics will typically go up. But right now, we are looking at a budget that we’re not too sure of … we might be able to say we’ll get more counselors, but what do we give up for that?”
Aside from bolstering mental health awareness in the district, the LCAP committee also seeks to help English learners, Soza said at the board meeting.
LCAP committee member and junior Nia Gupte primarily works with English learners, she said. We focus on long-term English learners and their graduation rate, and whether or not they pursue an education after high school, Gupte said.
“We’ve been coming up with ways that staff can support these students, ways that we could probably modify the reclassification process (testing if a student is proficient enough in English to move up from an ELD class), so it’s not as difficult or confusing for a long-term English learner to reclassify,” Gupte said.
The committee aims to personalize support for long-term English learners to raise their graduation rates, Gupte said.
“A lot of the things we’ve been discussing is how can we support these students so that the graduation rate increases for them,” Gupte said. “We’ve been deciding on individualized support for these students, and also what’s on the staff side, like how they can get more support with their material, and how they (staff) can make it accessible for these English learners as well.”
A large majority of student and parent feedback concerns facilities, resources, and food, Johari said in the board meeting.
In the most recent surveys, students wrote about keeping breakfast and lunch free, and for longer lunch breaks, Director of Nutrition Services Sandy Huynh said. In a district-wide lunch survey a few years ago, over 700 high school students complained that lunch lines were too long, too many students cut in line, and that there was a lack of line supervision, she added.
“At the high school, we have over 3,000 students, and there is only one lunch period,” Huynh said. “We have continued to have conversations with the administration. We have brought it up with the previous administration, but we also recognize that changing the bell schedule is a challenge.”
The LCAP is the district’s strategic plan, and there isn’t just a single goal they focus on, Johari said.
“It’s (LCAP) the district’s entire budget, so there isn’t one main goal,” Johari said. “It’s got three goals. And it’s really about making the work of teaching and learning, and how we support our students, transparent to our educational partners.”