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S A N TA M O N I C A
REFLECTING THE CONCERNS OF THE COMMUNITY smmirror.com
February 24 - March 31, 2023 Volume CLXXXI, Issue 185
SMMUSD District Officials Explore Ways to Reduce Chronic Absenteeism According to new data, last year 19.3 percent of kindergarten through eighth-grade students in SMMUSD were chronically absent By Sam Catanzaro Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District (SMMUSD) officials are exploring ways to address the growing absenteeism among students, including ramping up home visits and other outreach efforts. The California Dashboard, a database compiled by the California Department of Education, recently reported that chronic absenteeism rates in the district were “high.” In 2022, 19.3 percent of kindergarten through eighth-grade students in SMMUSD were chronically absent, meaning they missed 10 percent or more of the school year. Additionally, another district report showed that the rate was at 30 percent for all K-12th-grade students for the first half of the 2022-23 school year.
Chronic absenteeism was found to be highest among foster youth and socioeconomically disadvantaged students at 26.8 percent and 31.2 percent, respectively. Board of Education President Maria LeonVasquez emphasized that understanding these students’ situations is crucial in addressing their absenteeism. “I think it’s real crucial that we understand the issues at home because that will lead to how maybe the child is not doing well in school because of the home issues – sometimes we’re missing that piece and that’s a big piece,” Leon-Vasquez said during a recent board meeting. To address this issue, SMMUSD used home visits before COVID-19 hit. Although these visits were significantly cut back during the pandemic, according to Director of Student Services Tara Brown they are now slowly resuming with community liaisons, administrators, and security officers helping with these visits. Other measures outlined by district staff include encouraging students to come early to school for free breakfast to get them there on time for class and increasing opportunities for communication between teachers and parents. While acknowledging that attendance
Photo: Sam Catanzaro Roosevelt Elementary School.
issues are severe in SMMUSD schools, board members expressed frustration about including both unexcused and excused absences in the data. This makes it difficult to understand the extent of the problem and what needs further research. “If they’re out sick then we know ‘okay
they’re out sick,’ but who are the students that are not coming to school just because there’s something and it’s not for illness, it’s not for something that’s excused – that’s where we focus our energy,” said SMMUSD assistant superintendent of educational services Jacqueline Mora.
North of Montana Ranks 7th Priciest Zip Code in U.S. With Median Home Sale Price of $4.378 Million Los Angeles County remains the priciest county in the U.S., according to Property Shark report By Dolores Quintana In Santa Monica, the neighborhood north of Montana Avenue has been named the 7th most expensive in the United States. The median sale price for a home in the area is $4.378 million according to a report released by the website Property Shark. North of Montana was ranked 9th in the report last year and has risen to 7th because median home prices increased by $350,000 per home since 2021.
Additionally, other areas on the Westside that made this exclusive list are Beverly Hills which is named the 5th most expensive zip code in the nation on the same list with a median home sale price of $5.122 million. Malibu was listed as the 23rd most expensive zip code with a $3,500,000 median per home average. The city of Venice is ranked at number 63 with a median home price of $2.2 million. The report states that “California remained the unchallenged leader of the most expensive zip codes to buy a home in the U.S., providing 90 zips to our ranking or the equivalent of 70% of the country’s leading zips.” and notes that California has four of the priciest counties in the United State, the country’s most expensive metro, four out of the five priciest cities; and seven of the most exclusive neighborhoods are all in California.