Flash 272

To:           Local Educational Agency (LEA) Representatives

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

Date:       May 22, 2024

Subject:  CALPADS Update FLASH #272

Importance of the Initial US School Enrollment Date for English Learners

It is important that local educational agencies (LEAs) populate, with accurate data, Field 2.36 – Student Initial US School Enrollment Date K-12 on the Student Information (SINF) file for students with an English Language Acquisition Status (ELAS) of English Learner (EL) for the following reasons:

• A student’s initial US school enrollment date is an important and contributing factor in determining which students are Long-Term English Learners (LTELs).

• English learners who are in their first 12 months (as of April 15 of the previous year)of attending a school in the United States are eligible for a one-time exemption from the English Language Arts (ELA) portion of the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) assessment. Therefore, it is important that LEAs populate Field 2.36 – Student Initial US School Enrollment Date K-12 to avoid these students from being tested unnecessarily. While the CAASPP testing window is already closed for many LEAs, the following sections provide strategies that LEAs can begin now for ensuring this field is populated accurately prior to next year’s CAASPP testing.

The following sections describe strategies for ensuring this field is populated, and the validations in place to help ensure the field is populated with quality data.

Strategies for ensuring Field 2.36 – Student Initial US School Enrollment Date K-12 field is populated

Many LEAs begin registering students in the spring for the next school year. To help ensure that Field 2.36 – Student Initial US School Enrollment Date K-12 is populated for EL students, LEAs might consider the following strategies for the next school year:

• Upon registering a student new to California public schools, collect the student’s initial US school enrollment date for any student whose ELAS is to be determined (TBD). LEAs are reminded that this date should be the date that the student first entered a US school (in any state/Puerto Rico, including California) in grade kindergarten (for California this includes transitional kindergarten) or any other grade. This date should not be the date a student first entered preschool.

• After uploading the Student Enrollment (SENR) file, upload the Student Information (SINF) file with the Field 2.36 – School Initial US School Enrollment Date K-12 field populated, the Student Program (SPRG) file, and the Student English Language Acquisition (SELA) file if a record is missing for the student. While the initial US school enrollment date is not needed if a student whose ELAS is TBD, is later determined to be Initial Fluent English Proficient (IFEP), if that student is determined to be EL, then their initial US school enrollment date will already be populated.

• For students transferring from another California public school, upon registering those students, LEAs should always review if they have an initial US school enrollment date already populated in a SINF record in CALPADS by a prior LEA. To facilitate the transfer of this data to the new LEA’s student information System (SIS), the SSID Extract was updated to include the Student Initial US School Enrollment Date field. Therefore, LEAs can either (1) update their SIS with this information using the SSID Extract, which includes the initial US school enrollment date; or (2) view the initial US school enrollment date in CALPADS in the Student Detail Demographics container under the name, “Initial US Enrollment Date,” and populate that date in their SIS.

Current validations to help ensure the Field 2.36 – Student Initial US School Enrollment Date K-12 is populated

For the reasons cited above, it is important that this field is populated for English learners. The following Certification Validation Rule (CVR) in Fall 1 and End-Of-Year (EOY) 3 seek to ensure that this field is populated.

CERT113 (Fall 1): LEAs receive fatal CVR, CERT113 – Missing Student Initial US School Enrollment Date, during Fall 1 for EL students who are enrolled on Census Day and who are missing an initial US school enrollment date. LEAs must populate this field to certify their Fall 1 submission.

LEAs, however, sometimes fail to submit the initial US school enrollment date for EL students who enroll after Census Day, or who have an ELAS of TBD on Census Day and are later determined to be EL. Therefore, after Census Day, LEAs should routinely check to ensure this field is populated for their EL students who enroll or are determined to be EL after Census Day. This will help ensure the field is already populated once the LEA’s CAASPP window opens.

CERT113 (EOY 3): Beginning with the 2023−24 EOY 3 submission, CERT113 was added to help LEAs identify when this field is not populated. Therefore, this fatal validation will trigger for any EL student who is missing the initial US school enrollment date. Since this CVR only begins to trigger once the EOY window opens in early May, which is towards the end of the CAASPP window for most LEAs, it is still important for LEAs to check that this field is populated for EL students who enroll or who are determined to be EL between Census Day and the opening of the EOY window.

Current validations to help ensure Field 2.36 – Student Initial US School Enrollment Date K-12 field is accurate

The quality of the date being populated in Field 2.36 – Student Initial US School Enrollment Date field is also important, particularly due to its use in determining LTELs. The following validations seek to ensure that the date populated is reasonable.

IVR SINF0059: The student’s first enrollment date in a US school should not be a date earlier than when a student can first enroll in kindergarten (transitional kindergarten in California). Therefore, Input Validation Rule SINF0059 – Invalid Student Age for Student Initial US School Enrollment Date K-12 triggers on an SENR record if the student’s age is less than what is allowed for a student in transitional kindergarten (i.e. less than 3 years and 10 months).

DD/CDD SENR0654E3: Additionally, the student's first enrollment date in a US school should not be greater than the student's earliest enrollment in CALPADS. Data Discrepancy (DD) SENR0654E3, which becomes a Certification Data Discrepancy (CDD) for EOY 3 once the EOY submission window opens, will trigger for a student where they were enrolled during the reporting period.

In other words, students’ enrollment records in CALPADS will be evaluated compared to their Initial US School Enrollment Date in CALPADS. If students’ Initial US School Enrollment Date in CALPADS is greater than their earliest TK-12 enrollment in CALPADS, then the validation will trigger.

This validation went into production on May 14, 2024 and replaces SINF0060E3 – Student Initial US School Enrollment Date K-12 Greater Than Student’s earliest TK-12 Enrollment Start Date, which has been disabled.