Newport-Mesa Unified School District earned a "Blue" graduation rating on the 2026 California School Dashboard, the highest of five color-coded performance levels the state assigns.
Blue is the top tier in California's accountability system, which weighs both a district's current-year graduation rate and its change from the prior year. The California Department of Education sets the color using a five-by-five grid of those two factors. The district reported a 93% graduation rate on the 2024 Dashboard.
NMUSD also maintained "Green" ratings, the second-highest level, in five other categories for the 2025–26 school year: English language arts, mathematics, science, English Learner progress, and college and career readiness. Science was included as a Dashboard indicator for the first time in 2026, as the Contra Costa Herald reported.
"Our District is proud of the increase in graduation rates to the highest possible performance level in the state (blue), and we remain focused on continued improvement and excellence across all areas," said Socorro Shiels, assistant superintendent of achievement, innovation and continuous improvement.
The results were not uniformly positive. Shiels said chronic absenteeism remains an area the district must continue to address, calling its partnership with families and the community important to improving attendance. The district's announcement did not disclose a specific color rating for that indicator.
The California School Dashboard, first introduced in 2017, is the state's primary accountability report card for every public school and district. Each school also has its own dashboard with campus-specific data. More than three-quarters of California districts have qualified for the state's "differentiated assistance" designation at least once since the Dashboard launched, according to the Contra Costa Herald.
The district said the results will inform its work under its Strategic Plan, which covers 2026 through 2031.
Families can view NMUSD's full results, including school-level breakdowns for Newport Harbor High, Corona del Mar High, Ensign Intermediate and other campuses, at caschooldashboard.org.
