Voices College-Bound Language Academies West Contra Costa avoided losing its permission to operate this week due to low test scores and was granted two years in which to make improvements.
The dual language immersion charter school, which also has locations near San Jose and Stockton, serves 421 students in transitional kindergarten through eighth grade.
Charter schools are required to periodically seek renewal from their local school district, with the terms dependent on performance. Voices WCC had requested a five-year renewal, and WCCUSD staff had recommended either denying the petition or renewing it for two years under a low-performing designation, contingent on improved academic outcomes. The board voted 4-1 in favor of renewal, with trustee Jamela Smith-Folds opposing.
About 100 Voices community members attended Wednesday’s meeting — far fewer than the 400 to 500 who turned out the previous week, when the vote was initially scheduled.
Advocates for the charter renewal said they value the close knit community they have developed since it opened in 2018, emphasizing the culturally inclusive nature of the campus on West 28th Street near Nicholl Park and the benefits of learning English and Spanish simultaneously.
But the school board said Voices is underperforming in English language arts and math compared to state standards and WCCUSD students. In addition, Voices is not reclassifying its English language learners — a measure of how quickly students become proficient in English — at the rate expected for dual language structure.
However, Ellyn Magana, chief innovation and strategy officer for Voices, said the charter school scores better on math, English language arts and reclassification rates, when compared to neighboring WCCUSD elementary schools and dual language programs. So, in Richmond, Voices says it’s outperforming the district as a whole.
“Our students are significantly outperforming their peers at the local structured English immersion schools they would otherwise attend,” Magana told the board. “It is clear that families in Richmond understand the long-term benefits of bilingualism, biliteracy, and cognitive development, and they actively choose Voices because they know what it provides.”
District staff also noted concerns about building codes not met, a lack of diversity on campus and the severe lack of credentialed teachers, with 90% of the school’s educators not credentialed. However, staff did note some strengths, including: fiscal stability, a strong conceptual educational program, a robust and positive school culture and committed and consistent school leadership.
“I was really close to voting to close the school … In my opinion, both academic achievement, reclassification rates, and honestly, the number of teacher turnover should be much better than it is now,” newly-appointed board clerk Demetrio Gonzalez-Hoy told the crowd. “This is pretty bad, and I am speaking out to parents, because you should ask for more of Voices staff, and leaders.
“Now, I’m giving you the chance, both parents and staff, for two years, to change the outcomes of the school,” Gonzalez-Hoy continued. “If I’m still around and it doesn’t change, I will absolutely vote to close it.”
Gonzalez-Hoy had raised similar concerns in August of this year, when Voices came before the board for approval to open its second campus to house its TK students.
Math and English language arts scores lag behind state, WCCUSD
Performance levels are released every March. However, to predict performance criteria for this year, WCCUSD used guidance from the California Department of Education and state dashboard data to project that Voices will fall into the low performance category.
That data showed that since 2021, Voices students continued to decline year after year while students statewide and at WCCUSD have steadily made gains. In 2021, Voices had a higher performance in English language arts, with 34.5% of students meeting or exceeding state standards, compared to WCCUSD’s 32%. In the 2024-25 academic year, that rate nearly fell by half, with only 18.4% of Voices students meeting or exceeding state standards, compared to WCCUSD’s 33.4%. Comparatively, the state’s average was at 47.1% in 2021-22 and increased to 48.9% in 2024-25.
Math scores were not much different. In 2021, Voices students had a higher performance in math, with 25.3% of students meeting or exceeding state standards, compared to WCCUSD’s 21%. In the 2024-25 academic year, that rate was also nearly halved, with only 12.6% of Voices students meeting or exceeding state standards, compared to WCCUSD’s 25.6%. Comparatively, the state’s average was at 33.4% in 2021-22 and increased to 37.3% in 2024-25.
“Without exception (and in every category), Voices lags behind the state,” said Linda Delgado, a WCCUSD director who works with charter schools.
Delgado said Voices used data from IXL, which is a verified source of data, to support their bid for renewal. That data showed that in several grade levels, students on average did meet one year’s growth in English language arts and for math.
“Unfortunately the IXL data does not align with the state CASPP (California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress) testing data,” Delgado said.
However, Ellyn Magana, Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer for Voices, said she believes Voices should not fall into a low-performing category, but if it must, then “we are fully prepared to submit a performance improvement plan.”
She attributed the falling test scores to lingering impacts from the pandemic, which created instability, uneven progress and uncertainty for families.
“However, over the last three years, we have stabilized staffing, rebuilt culture, strengthened instruction and become a full TK-8 program, fulfilling the vision Richmond families had set in motion,” Magana said. “And today, in a time when education systems are experiencing significant instability, Voices WCC is a place of consistency and excellence for families with a laser-sharp focus on developing our ability to accelerate student learning within a consistently implemented dual language program as our ultimate goal.”
She noted that the school has had 100% teacher retention in the last school year — a major difference compared to WCCUSD schools which lost 200 to 300 educators last year, according to data from the United Teachers of Richmond.
Magana also said that the 2025-26 dashboard does show improvement in every single indicator.
“(This) is something very few schools accomplish in one academic cycle,” Magana said. “The level of improvement reflects stability, focus, and a coherent instructional system.”
She also noted that compared to nearby WCCUSD schools, such as Cesar Chavez, Stege, Grant and Washington elementary schools, Voices is closer to meeting state standards for both English and math.
Several parents said they pulled their students out of WCCUSD schools because they were not serving their children well, and their experience at Voices has been a lot stronger. Parents from other nearby charter schools also spoke in solidarity, emphasizing the right for parents to chose which schools are best for their children.
“At Voices, my children have found community and stability … If you close this school, where will these kids go?” Voices parent Davae DeLeon told the board. “The alternatives that this district offers are not acceptable for our families. The other dual immersion option is overcrowded and isn’t local to many of us. You’ll be taking away the only program that meets our children’s needs and forcing them into schools that didn’t work for us before.”
Monica Diaz, who said she attended WCCUSD schools, said she appreciates the alternative that Voices offers her two sixth-grade daughters, who have been attending the charter school since 2018.
“Having gone through Dover, Chavez, Helms, Kennedy, and Richmond High, I myself know firsthand what it’s like to grow up without real safety, support, and healthy accountability,” Diaz said. “Buildings can get fixed, test scores can go up, but the trust, culture and values Voices offers cannot simply be replaced. This is why it’s so necessary to keep voices open.”
English Language learner concerns
English language learners are tested annually to determine whether they can be reclassified as being proficient in English. The state average is 15.7% of students reclassifying. In WCCUSD it is 15.1% and at Voices it’s 5.2%.
Magana said the reclassification rate is low at Voices because their standards are a lot higher. In addition, the school operates on an 80-20 model which means in TK, students start with 80% of their day in Spanish, with that eventually transitioning to 50-50 by third grade.
“We often see a lag in English mastery only because we are prioritizing and we are centering Spanish language first,” Magana said. “And so that typically lags a little bit later in their educational journey while they’re with us.”
The data provided by WCCUSD supported that point. While the school average for reclassification was 5.2% at Voices, for its seventh-graders, the reclassification rate was 23.1%.
The reclassification rates were a major point of concern for the WCCUSD board, particularly Gonzalez-Hoy, who said after six years of operating the school, there is no excuse for it to be this low.
“Just for reference, I have a master’s in dual immersion, so I have studied dual immersion in schools for a long time and that (justification) doesn’t really make sense to me, because dual emerging schools, for the most part, have larger numbers of reclassification,” he said.
Teacher recruitment and retention
Trustee Leslie Reckler, who finished serving her term as board president at Wednesday’s school board meeting, raised questions about Voices’ shortage of credentialed teachers. The percentage is 9.3%.
Magana said the charter school has struggled to retain and recruit teachers, so it has switched to offer another model: a multi-year pathway for teachers to get credentialed while they work on campus.
Magana said there are nine teachers in the program who currently work as instructional assistants or resident teachers.
“We provide them with guidance, financial assistance for tests and programs, and structured instruction,” Magana said. “This pipeline from intern to preliminary to clear credential is a strategic investment in our community’s future and the most sustainable way to ensure that we have high-quality educators.”
Trustee Cinthia Hernandez said she is particularly concerned about resources for special education, especially because there aren’t any credentialed teachers in that department at Voices. However, by the end of the year the campus expects three out of its four special education educators will have become certified.
Voices serves 52 special education students. With a staff of four teachers, the campus does better than WCCUSD in terms of student-to-teacher ratio, according to Guthrie Fleischman, WCCUSD special education director.
“It would depend on category, but based on the mild to moderate disabilities that the majority of the students there have, that is a ratio of about 13 students per teacher, which is a little above half of our ratio at 25-students-to-one,” Fleischman said.
Hernandez said Voices should do a better job of serving students from across the special education spectrum. Magana said the school has the resources to do so, if those students wish to attend.
WCCUSD’s school board also said Voices needs to diversify its student body in general. When Voices opened, 94.7% of its student body was Hispanic or Latino and that population has only grown since, with 97.1% in 2024-25, according to state data.
The two-year petition means that Voices’ charter is valid until 2028. The school will have to show considerable academic improvement and provide a written plan identifying and addressing underlying causes for low performance adopted by its governing board. The school will also need to identify additional recruitment strategies to target groups not currently enrolled, as well as measurements to monitor the impact of those actions.
The crowd erupted with cheers and applause when the vote passed, with many thanking WCCUSD’s school board for its support.
Fourth-grader Bianca Leone said she loves her school because it is a safe place where she laughs and learns a lot.
“I love all my friends so much, and I wouldn’t want to leave them. I love my teachers and all the stuff. I love that I learn new things every day,” Leone told the board. “We do so many activities like group projects and learning how to draw … we have celebrations and go on exciting field trips every year. I love Voices because it’s my happy place.”
