New Flash #270

To:           Local Educational Agency (LEA) Representatives

From:      California Department of Education (CDE) –
                California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System (CALPADS) Team

Date:       May 08, 2024

Subject:  CALPADS Update FLASH #270

2023−24 End-of-Year 4, Special Education Revised Guidance, and Other Updates

This Flash summarizes the key changes for End-of-Year (EOY) 4. The Flash also provides important revised guidance and other special education updates that were previously sent in a listserv message from the CDE’s Special Education Division and is being repeated in this Flash for future reference.

End-of-Year 4 Reporting for Students with Disabilities

The EOY submission window opens on May 8, 2024. Local education agencies (LEAs) must approve all EOY submissions by the July 26, certification deadline. To meet this deadline, LEAs are strongly encouraged to resolve fatal errors for all submissions by July 12, so that LEA staff have adequate time to thoroughly review certification reports for accuracy before the deadline. Special Education Local Plan Areas (SELPAs) are strongly encouraged, but are not required, to approve LEAs submissions by this deadline. LEAs and SELPAS must both approve their EOY and 3 and 4 submissions by August 16, 2024, the deadline for the Amendment Window closure. There will be no deadline extensions.

Note: For EOY 4 only, the LEA and SELPA approval buttons will not be visible (even with zero fatal errors) until certification reports 16.22 - Students with Disabilities – Special Education Status and Non-Participation Reason Count and 16.23 - Students with Disabilities – Special Education Status and Non-Participation Reason Student List are available. LEAs should focus on resolving all errors and reviewing other certification reports. It is anticipated that reports 16.22 and 16.23 will be available before the end of June.

The CALPADS End-of-Year (EOY) 4 submission has been updated for all changes necessary to accommodate the redesign of the special education files. This includes changes to all reports, data discrepancies (DDs), and certification data discrepancies (CDDs). Furthermore, reports in other EOY submissions (1-3) that use special education data for a filter or column were updated to identify students with disabilities following the redesign.

For EOY 4, LEAs must submit the following files:

• Students with Disabilities Status (SWDS)
• Special Education Plan (PLAN)
• Special Education Meetings (MEET)
• Special Education Services (SERV)
• Postsecondary Status (PSTS)

EOY 4 Report Changes

The following table lists the reports, along with their corresponding supporting reports, that LEAs and SELPAs must approve to certify EOY 4:

*NOTE: Certification reports 16.22 and 16.23 will not be available when the EOY submission window opens on May 8, 2024. It is anticipated that these two reports will be available before the end of June.

Additionally, following up on Flash 264, LEAs will not be required to certify student services in EOY 4. The CDE will provide student services reports in the future for use in monitoring.

End-of-Year 4 Data Discrepancies and Certification Data Discrepancies

New DDs and CDDs have been created as part of the special education files redesign. The descriptions of all the DDs and CDDs, as well as strategies for correcting fatal CDDs, can be found in the CALPADS User Manual Troubleshooting page: https://documentation.calpads.org/Troubleshooting/ErrorList/.

Important Revised Guidance

Revised Guidance for County Office of Education Enrollments

To assist in alleviating the special education reporting burden for county offices of education (COEs) who receive short-term student transfers (enrollments that do not exceed 10 days), the CDE has revised its guidance regarding when COEs must adopt a student’s special education plan for short-term transfers.

Effective immediately, if a student transfers into a COE from the District of Special Education Accountability (DSEA) and the duration of that enrollment is 10 days or less, it is no longer necessary for the COE to adopt the student’s special education plan in place. This way, once the student returns to the DSEA, there is no need for the DSEA to submit a subsequent Special Education Plan (PLAN) record to CALPADS. However, if the student’s enrollment exceeds 10 days, the COE should adopt the student’s special education plan and submit a PLAN record with a Plan Effective Start Date equal to the date of enrollment in the COE school.

It should be noted that this is guidance only. CALPADS will not enforce this guidance through system validations (DDs and CDDs).

Other Special Education Updates

Fall 1 Report 16.14 – Students with Disabilities Plan – Student List: Defect Fixed

Prior to the close of the amendment window for 2023−24 Fall 1, a defect was documented on students missing from LEA and SELPA Report 16.14 – Students with Disabilities Plan – Student List. The defect on this report was not resolved until after the Fall 1 amendment window closed. Prior to the release of the fix, the CDE advised SELPAs to ask their member LEAs to download the certified Report 16.14 and corresponding aggregate reports 16.12 – Students with Disabilities – Education Plan by Primary Disability, and 16.13 – Students with Disabilities – Count by Federal Setting. The defect, which was found to be reporting duplicates on Report 16.14, has since been resolved. LEAs should now download the reports again and note any differences between the two sets of reports. Specifically, LEAs and SELPAs should download the “SELPA Approved” versions of 16.12, 16.13, and 16.14 as these versions represent the final versions of these Fall 1 special education related reports.

Student Degree of Support

LEAs should be determining the “degree of support” for students with certain primary and secondary disabilities, and populating Field 23.16 “Disability 1 Degree of Support” with the appropriate code on the Special Education Plan (PLAN) file. (Note: LEAs should populate Field 23.16 with a code that applies to the student and not specifically for Disability 1 or Disability 2. In 2024−25, Field 23.18 – Disability 2 Degree of Support will become a filler field, and in 2025−26, Field 23.16 will be renamed “Degree of Support”.)

To address concerns from the field that there is not sufficient time between now and Census Day (Fall of 2024) for LEAs to make degree of support determinations for all students with the designated primary and secondary disabilities, LEAs may now make these determinations in a phased approach. From now until Fall of 2025–26, LEAs should be populating on the PLAN file, Field 23.16 - Disability 1 Degree of Support when a “triggering event occurs” for a student (e.g., initial evaluation, annual plan review, reevaluation, or amendment). This approach provides LEAs over a year to make the degree of support determinations and populate the data in their Special Education Data Systems. Therefore, the Degree of Support field will not be required for students with the designated primary and secondary disabilities until the 2025–26 Fall 1 submission, at which point LEAs will receive a fatal error if the field is not populated for students with designated primary and secondary disabilities.

New Low Incidence Reports

Two new Operational Data Store (ODS) reports are now available in the ODS report menu. These reports display counts of students with low incidence disabilities by DSEA:

• Report 16.18 – Students with Disabilities – DSEA Low Incidence Disability Counts
• Report 16.19 – Students with Disabilities – DSEA Low Incidence Student List

These two reports display counts, by DSEA, of students who have been reported with any of the following primary or secondary disabilities:

• 220 - Hard of Hearing (HH)
• 230 - Deafness (DEAF)/Hearing impairment (HI)
• 250 - Visual impairment (VI)
• 270 - Orthopedic impairment (OI)
• 300 - Deaf-blindness (DB)

These counts help determine funding, and so please take the time to review these reports for accuracy and update data as necessary.