The details of funding accountability were not fleshed out when the budget went to the Governor. Instead, the State Board of Education (SBE) was charged with developing a template and guidelines by March 2014 for the parameters of a three-year accountability plan for districts. The plan, called the Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP), must be adopted by each district at a Board meeting after consultation with teachers, principals, school personnel, pupils, bargaining units, parents and with the advice of district-level parent advisory committees.

The LCAP must include a description of:

The district’s annual goals, for all students and for each subgroup, for each of the State priority areas and any additional local priorities areas; and
The specific actions and strategies the district will use to achieve those goals.
The State has identified the following eight priority areas:

Student Achievement
Student Engagement
Other Student Outcomes
School Climate
Parent Involvement
Implementation of Academic Standards, including a focus on English Learners
Course Access
Basic Services, including facilities, qualified teachers, and instructional materials
Examples of measures that could be included in the LCAP to assess progress in these areas are: graduation rates, drop-out rates, performance on State and local assessments, English learner reclassification rate, percentage of students passing AP and IB exams, SAT participation and scores, attendance rates, suspension and expulsion rates, levels of parent participation and satisfaction, reports on facilities and availability of instructional materials, rate of teacher mis-assignment, level of implementation of CCSS, and student access and enrollment in college prep classes.

In January 2012, Governor Brown’s budget proposed replacing most of California’s complex formulas with a weighted student formula. This concept was included in the 2013 budget as the Local Control Funding Formula or LCFF, which when fully implemented will allocate educational funds based on specific student needs and will allow maximum flexibility at the local level.

As part of the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), school districts, COEs, and charter schools are required to develop, adopt, and annually update a three-year Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP).

The LCAP must focus on eight areas identified as California’s educational priorities as well as its own local priorities. The eight areas of specified State priorities are intended to encompass the key ingredients of high-quality educational programs. The plan must describe the overall vision for students, annual goals and strategic actions needed to achieve the goals. In formulating the plan, each school district/county office must engage parents, employees, educators and the community in developing these plans.

The LCAP must demonstrate how the budget ensures alignment of projected spending and services to support the achievement of the goals. Each year the plan must provide data on how well the plan meets the overall goals and the goals for each numerically significant student subgroup.