Last Wednesday, November 2, 2016, the State Board of Education unanimously adopted the new & improved LCAP (Local Control and Accountability Plan) template, which goes into effect for the upcoming 2017-18 school year. To help make the transition to the new template a bit easier, we have put it through our unique infographic process to provide a quick and easy summary of its new features. We have also detailed highlights of the changes below.
An obvious and significant change to the template was the restructuring of LCAP document elements. The instructions and prompts have been moved from the beginning of the document to the end. Hyperlinks embedded throughout the template go directly to the relevant section of the instructions, with much work going into making the instructions clearer and more helpful.
In the new template the first element of the LCAP will now be the Summary. It gives readers an introduction to the plan and consists of 5 elements: 1.) a District Overview or “District Story”, 2.) LCAP highlights, 3.) a Performance Review of the greatest needs & progress, and 4.) an outline of Improved Services for English Learners, Low Income & Foster Youth students, and 5.) a Budget Summary.
The next element of the new template is the Annual Update. In addition to formatting changes, there has also been an update to the Analysis section to include four fields for increased clarity, and a requirement for the forthcoming LCFF Evaluation Rubrics data.
The third element is the Stakeholder Engagement narratives, which have been streamlined to just two fields from the previous four.
Goals, Actions, & Services then follow as the fourth element, with updated formatting and display. The Expected Annual Measureable Outcomes for all three years of the plan are now shown side by side, and include a field for baseline data. Several fields have been added to the Planned Actions & Services section. There are two different boxes to designate which students the Action will be serving, and only one of them can be selected, helping show what money is being directly targeted to meet the Increase or Improved services requirements. Three checkboxes have also been added to indicate whether the action is New, Modified, or Unchanged.
The final section of the new LCAP template is the Demonstration of Increased or Improved Services for Unduplicated Students, which did not see any significant changes.
It is also important to note that the LCAP will now be a fixed 3 year plan, with two annual updates, instead of a rolling 3 year plan as before.
Interestingly, some of these changes were already designed into Gobo’s LCAP infographics, and we are working on integrating the remaining changes into our LCAP tools. We are excited to see how these LCAP template changes will help California education and look forward to the continuous improvement of our schools!
See the State Board of Education agenda item with template, or just the new LCAP template in DOC format. And here is the Template Change Summary infographic in PDF format for sharing and printing:
