California’s alternative education system — particularly its Dashboard Alternative School Status (DASS) schools — is a vital but often overlooked pathway for historically marginalized and vulnerable students. A recent report from the UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools analyzes 2022–23 data from 894 DASS schools, representing 150,009 students, to evaluate the effectiveness of these settings.
DASS schools provide flexible, supportive pathways to graduation for students across many settings. For instance, students enrolled in continuation schools, which comprise nearly half of all DASS schools, are often credit-deficient or in need of a flexible schedule due to employment, family obligations or other needs. Community day schools, the second-largest category of DASS schools, cater to high-risk students, including those expelled from traditional schools, referred by a School Attendance Review Board (SARB) or probation, or requiring a more specialized setting to meet their academic and social-emotional needs. County community day schools operated by county offices of education serve K-12 students who are homeless, expelled from their schools, referred by a SARB, requested by parent/ guardian, referred by probation, on probation or parole, or not in attendance in any school.
Other forms of DASS schools include juvenile court schools, special education schools and more.
The report notes that DASS schools serve a significantly higher proportion of vulnerable student populations compared to traditional schools, including low-income youth, students with disabilities, foster youth, children experiencing homelessness and English learners. These students often experience greater barriers compared to their peers leading to higher suspension, absenteeism and dropout rates, and lower rates of graduation and academic performance.
Recognizing the diversity of DASS schools and the student populations they serve is essential to building differentiated policies and resource strategies that honor local contexts and avoid one-size-fits-all mandates, according to researchers.
“California’s alternative education system plays a vital role in supporting students whose educational journeys have been shaped by systemic instability, exclusion, and under-resourced environments,” the report states. “These students, who often navigate complex intersections of poverty, high mobility, and structural racism, bring determination, adaptability, and unique strengths into learning spaces that too often fail to recognize or nurture them. Alternative schools provide not a last resort, but a renewed pathway for dignity, growth, and re-engagement.”
Recommendations
To support DASS schools in a comprehensive way that will allow them to better meet the extreme needs of the students they serve, researchers offered several recommendations designed to address systemic inequities, support educators and better align state resources with the unique needs of students in alternative settings. The report calls on state policymakers to:
- Develop a Local Control Funding Formula category for alternative schools that specifically reflects the intensity of students’ needs and structural barriers, particularly in juvenile court schools, community day schools and county community schools. The current formula does not match the complexity of student needs nor account for the level of additional funding necessary to provide strong wraparound services, counseling, transportation and academic support.
- Build and sustain a specialized educator workforce for alternative schools to ensure these sites are staffed with credentialed teachers in core academic subjects like English language arts and math, as well as educators with specialized expertise in working with students who require accelerated credit recovery, individualized learning and intensive support. Investing in specialized training programs and offering greater salary and career incentives for educators who choose to work in alternative settings would be a good place to start, according to the report.
- Prioritize school stability and reduce student mobility with targeted technical assistance for alternative education schools as part of the Statewide System of Support (SSOS). With no current strategy to provide targeted assistance for alternative education schools in the current SSOS, researchers found that there’s an opportunity for the state to better assess the needs of alternative school sites by school type, geography and performance to inform a state plan for targeted by region.
- Establish meaningful measures and accountability systems unique to alternative education schools that incorporate broader and more meaningful indicators, such as positive transition rates, growth or progress over time, access to support services and social-emotional development.
- Expand access to high-quality, differentiated instruction that matches school type, grade level, and student and staffing needs, including access to vocational training, apprenticeships, work-based learning, and partnerships with local industries, community organizations or higher education institutions in addition to strong academic instruction and social-emotional learning.
