Superintendent shares 90-day progress report
NLMUSD superintendent Natasha Baker delivers her 90 day entry plan summary report to the board of education during their public meeting on Monday, May 19, 2025. (Photo by Vincent Medina)
After 90 days as superintendent of Norwalk-La Mirada Unified School District, Natasha Baker presented her 90-day entry plan summary report to the board of education on Monday evening.
The report aimed to illustrate what the new superintendent and her administration have achieved since being appointed. It also gives an overview of areas the district can focus on and improve during the next school year.
Baker, who has a doctorate in educational leadership from the University of Michigan-Dearborn, told the board to consider a guiding question while she explained the community’s sentiments about ways to resolve issues in the school district.
“Why is it important to understand and address implementation science?”
“What implementation science is speaks to what we do to get methods and strategies into routine practice,” said Baker. “There are a lot of good ideas that will fall flat if they don’t include a collaborative effort.”
Focus areas, SMART Goals, Key Performance Indicators and Strategic Priorities
The superintendent’s presentation provided a draft of the district’s key areas of focus, the S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) goals to be completed, key performance indicators (KPIs) and strategic priorities. The focus areas are broad concentration areas that show how to achieve the mission and vision.
The first area Baker addressed was achieving academic excellence through prioritizing (among others) literacy, science and mathematics, special education students and dual enrollment. She explained that the S.M.A.R.T. goal was to have all the strategic priority areas measured on the California State Dashboard to see improvements by at least five percent from the baseline year starting with the 2026-27 school year. Key performance indicators would revolve around students meeting districtwide benchmarks for literacy, science and mathematics, and measure if students are performing at level or above on that benchmark.
“Academic excellence speaks to us being exceptional,” said Baker. “It’s not just about improving a test score, because when you’re exceptional, you’re paying close attention and measuring your progress along the way.”
Priorities for achieving fiscal sustainability include reducing operational costs and generating revenue by implementing a district-level fundraising organization and leasing available school district buildings to renters for event space. This will increase facility use in an effort to boost revenue and reduce overspending. The goal is to reduce the operational deficit annually by at least $1,000,000 and improve student attendance.
Performance indicators will involve tracking monthly revenue generated from fundraising and new leases and the reduction in the projected deficit in multiyear financial estimations.
The district is also trying to create better relationships with parents and community members by establishing districtwide customer service expectations and interaction protocols, with an evidenced-based model for parent partnerships.
They plan to meet with parents quarterly, embed community partners in after-school programs, and increase parent involvement in classroom support and training.
The S.M.A.R.T. goal is to grow parent satisfaction by 25% across all high school families each semester. Performance indicators will measure the percentage of parents who volunteer at school events, satisfaction with district services and participation in fundraising.
“Many of the parents and community partners felt like we needed to make them feel welcome when they come to a campus and create opportunities for them to be engaged with their children,” said Baker.
90-Day Plan Accomplishments and Survey Data
Superintendent Baker set three objectives she wanted to address during the first three months of her tenure. She aimed to engage stakeholders to build relationships and trust, sustain excellent teaching, learning, and performance. She also emphasized planning with partners to foster student and staff well-being.
Multiple sections were established to achieve each objective. Under her first goal, a key strategy was establishing regular one-on-one meetings with board members, connecting with parents, including the PTA Council and District English Learner Advisory Committee (DELAC) and meeting with community leaders such as the city council and the chambers of commerce.
The superintendent also intends to plan a board retreat facilitated by a third party to help better understand district expectations. She hopes to meet with some former and interim superintendents of the district.
Under her second goal, key accomplishments included the careful review of districtwide academic and behavioral expectations, support systems and the broader organizational structure. Baker aimed to further engage with the community and worked with the school community to plan a “State of the District” event.
Baker is continuing to work with the school board on annual targets for strategic focus areas, such as national benchmarking and those of comparable districts, to determine the strategic plan’s measurement of success.
The actions undertaken to advance her third goal included evaluating the effectiveness and range of existing after-school, summer and co-curricular programs. Baker also examined the processes for gathering and addressing feedback from students, staff, parents and community members regarding school climate and safety concerns.
The superintendent is continuing to try to organize a series of board study sessions to address expectations for student achievement and support systems, declining enrollment, special education and fiscal sustainability.
Survey Data from Students, Parents and Staff
To gain further insight into the climate at schools in the district and areas of improvement that may have been overlooked, a comprehensive survey was conducted within the district, gathering feedback from 5,591 respondents including students, teachers, parents, administrators, and classified employees.
The survey’s primary focus areas were gauging relationships and trust, academic achievement, safety and community engagement within the district. Students comprised 67.7% of respondents (3783), followed by teachers at 15.2% (852), with parents accounting for 6.2% (349). Classified employees made up seven percent (430), site/district administrators comprised 1.6% (87) of respondents and an additional 1.6% (89) of respondents did not specify their position.
The survey found elementary students had high teacher support satisfaction, and most felt safe at school. 412 responses were sent from students about their sentiments, with the most concern around food quality and science camp costs.
Middle school students shared very different experiences with their schools. Teacher support remains high in middle school at 55%. However, students said that academic challenges with concentration were emerging. There were also findings from the 1,196 responses that there were more concerns with the number of fights and violence that occurred in school, lowering the number of students who felt safe at school.
The largest group of survey participants were high schoolers, with 1,625 respondents. The group reported the lowest level of positive sentiments (28%). Critical issues were shared among high school students, such as poor food and locker quality. The survey showed that fights were something that they were used to in their school lives.
High school students also expressed waning teacher support, with only 45% sharing positive feelings toward their teachers. 17% of students’ responses focus on teacher improvements.
The response gathered from parents brought forward three themes. 24.4% of mentions expressed the need for creating student-centered opportunities such as internships and mentorships. 22.9% of parent respondents wanted additional community events and gatherings the district should organize.
They also felt there should be a district presence at city events with information booths. The third theme that 20.4% of parents wanted was improved communication and outreach, including connecting with local businesses, more transparency and a more visible presence of administrators at community events.
Similar sentiments were gathered from district employees. They felt there was a need for improved engagement and clearer communication since employees shared that there was a communication gap between them and executive staff. There is a strong demand for structured community involvement, as employees want more regular meetings, events and forums with community leaders.
The survey showed that district employees also expressed a need for proactive, two-way communication. They feel the district needs to be proactively reaching out to civic and business leaders in the community.