Dear County and District Superintendents and Charter School Administrators:

California College Guidance Initiative Statewide Rollout

The purpose of this letter is to provide an overview of California’s plan for scaling of the California College Guidance Initiative (CCGI) to all local educational agencies (LEAs), including charter school organizations, serving 6th–12th grade students, and to recommend executive leadership to support this important effort by identifying a CCGI implementation team that includes counseling, curriculum and instruction, local student information system (SIS), and California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System (CALPADS) staff.

Background

The CCGI works to improve transitions from K–12 to higher education by streamlining the college and financial aid application processes for students, while providing educators with the information necessary to inform data-driven counseling practices and real-time decision-making. CCGI does this work through CaliforniaColleges.edu (their website address is https://www.californiacolleges.edu/), the State of California’s official college and career planning platform for 6th–12th grade students, which is free and which serves as an infrastructure for post-secondary planning, data-driven student guidance, and the sharing of student records from K–12 local educational agencies (LEAs) to California’s public higher education systems and the California Student Aid Commission (CSAC).

In 2021, as part of the Governor’s Cradle to Career (C2C) Initiative, CCGI was statutorily authorized to provide all 6th–12th grade public school students with student accounts on the platform to improve college and career outcomes for students, particularly those who lack resources or support. This year’s 2024 omnibus budget trailer bill for education, Senate Bill (SB) 153 (Chapter 38, Statutes of 2024), further requires all public schools offering grades 9–12 to partner with CCGI to provide “transcript-informed” accounts to 9th–12th grade students according to “processes and timelines established by the California College Guidance Initiative in the format approved by the Superintendent” (Education Code (EC) Section 60900(f)(3)).

The California Department of Education (CDE) will support CCGI in this effort by facilitating communications to LEAs about the program, implementation updates from CCGI, and LEA statutory requirements.

Student Accounts

All 6th–12th grade students have access to:

• Career assessments to help them discover their interests, personality, learning style, and more
• College, Major, and Career Search Tools that help them explore their options
• Curated college, career, and financial aid planning content that guides them through developing a post-secondary plan
• A digital portfolio to track their academic, career, and financial aid plans to chronicle experiences and maintain related documents
• Launch their Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and California Dream Act Application (CADAA)

Students in grades 9–12 with transcript-informed Partner Accounts also have access to a dashboard that displays the courses which they are currently taking and the courses they have completed, information which comes directly from the LEA's SIS via transcript files submitted to CCGI. Through their transcript-informed Partner Accounts, students in grades 9–12 are also able to:

• View California State University (CSU) and University of California (UC) Eligibility Tools that allow them to see their progress towards meeting the minimum requirements for admission to CSU and UC
• Verify that the A-G courses they are taking or have completed have been officially approved as A-G courses in the Course Management Portal (CMP) administered by the University of California Office of the President (UCOP). A-G course alignment is critical for ensuring students meet UC/CSU eligibility requirements
• Launch applications for California Community Colleges (CCC), CSU, and UC, and import district-verified A-G courses and grades into Cal State Apply and UC Applications.

Partner LEAs and Non-Partner LEAs

LEAs serving students in grades 9–12 must partner with CCGI because they will be required to submit transcript data directly to CCGI to populate transcript-informed Partner Accounts for students per EC Section 60900(f).

LEAs serving 6th–8th grade students, that do not serve 9th–12th grade students, will be able to offer student access to Basic Accounts (which provide access to a baseline set of free college and career guidance tools) based on data that LEAs already submit to CALPADS. Since this does not require direct submission of data to CCGI, these districts do not need to become Partner LEAs.

Currently, 305 LEAs already partner with CCGI. Over the next few years, CCGI will:

• Bring remaining California public LEAs serving 9th–12th grade students into partnership
• Work with existing Partner LEAs to further streamline the processes of moving data to CCGI and to feed post-secondary and financial aid processes

To facilitate this statewide scaling of Partner LEAs, SB 153 establishes dates by which the following milestones must be met by all LEAs serving 9th–12th grade students:

• By January 1, 2026, enter into a data-sharing agreement with CCGI. (All existing Partner LEAs have established formal data-sharing agreements with CCGI, which makes it possible for them to securely upload student transcript data to CCGI (EC Section 60900(f)(3)(B)).)
• On or before June 20, 2026, be able to provide CCGI student transcript files, “according to processes and timelines established by the CCGI in the format approved by the Superintendent.” (All existing Partner LEAs should work with CCGI to ensure they are sending data using the most current data element templates (EC Section 60900(f)(3)(C)).)
• On or before June 30, 2026, use reports on CaliforniaColleges.edu and technical assistance from CCGI to maintain at least a 90 percent rate of alignment between A-G coursework maintained locally and in the CMP. (Partner LEAs are already engaged in this activity (EC Section 60900(g)).)

California High School Transcript and Portability Standard

Key to streamlining these efforts is moving to standard electronic transcript data that can be used by all the public post-secondary institutions and the CSAC. Accordingly, the California High School Transcript and Student Record Portability Standard (hereafter called “the Standard”) has been developedin collaboration with the CDE, California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office (CCCCO), California State University Chancellor’s Office (CSUCO), and the UCOP. The Standard is managed by CCGI (EC Section 60900.5(c)).

To support LEA efforts to provide quality data needed for transcript-informed Partner Accounts according to the Standard, SB 153 also:

• Requires the Fiscal Crisis Management Assistance Team/California School Information Services (FCMAT/CSIS) to designate whether a vendor’s student information system (SIS) is able to meet specified criteria, such as providing data elements to CCGI that align with the Standard and providing transcript data through an Application Programming Interface (API) (EC Section 49083.5(a)(b))
• Specifies that SIS vendors shall comply with the requirements “without passing the costs of complying to local educational agencies” (EC Section 49083.5(b)(2))
• Specifies that CCGI shall provide technical assistance to LEAs to ensure at least 90 percent alignment between what LEAs believe are A-G approved courses and what UCOP maintains as A-G approved courses in the CMP (EC Section 60900.5(e))
• The final electronic transcript data provided by CCGI does not replace the high school transcript for local purposes, graduation determination, or the need to send final traditional transcripts (such as PDFs) to the higher education institutions that students will attend. Rather, the electronic transcript data provided by CCGI will be used to accelerate admissions and financial aid processing, where applicable.

Ongoing Communications

In support of CCGI’s work, ongoing communications will be provided from the CDE’s Education Data Management Division (EDMD) through “CCGI Flashes” sent from the CALPADS Office via the LEA CALPADS listserv. The following two CCGI Flashes have been sent out:

• CCGI Flash #1: General Overview and Rollout of Basic Accounts to Students
• CCGI Flash #2: Statewide Scaling of Transcript-Informed Partner Accounts to Students in Grades 9–12

Successful implementation of the Governor’s CCGI initiative for California is dependent on executive and school site leadership and facilitation of curriculum, counseling, SIS, and CALPADS staff collaboration. To support this team effort, the CDE encourages other CCGI implementation team members to sign up for the CALPADS-LEA listserv by going to the CDE CALPADS Listservs web page at https://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/sp/cl/listservs.asp to receive notification of new CCGI Flashes.

To learn more about the California College Guidance Initiative, visit the “Learn More” web page at https://cacollegeguidance.org/learnmore/. To begin moving your LEA toward partnership, please contact communityengagement@californiacolleges.edu.

If you have any questions about the CDE’s communication on this initiative, please contact the Education Data Management Division by phone at 916-324-6738 or by email at calpads@cde.ca.gov.

Thank you in advance for your support of this important effort.

Sincerely,

Liberty Van Natten, Director
Education Data Management Division

LVN:pm

cc: CALPADS LEA Administrators