Management Bulletin 25-01

Early Education Division

Subject: Monthly Population Report (801A) Requirements and Instructions

Number: 25-01

Date: February 2025

Expires: When Superseded

Authority: California Education Code (EC) Section 8232; California EC Section 60910; California Code of Regulations, Title 5, Section 17822

Attention: Executive Officers and Program Directors of all California State Preschool Programs

Purpose

The purpose of this Management Bulletin (MB) is to provide an update on requirements and instructions relating to the preparation and submission of the 801A Monthly Population Report to the Child Development Management Information System (CDMIS). The information in this MB provides an update on requirements stated in previous MBs. This MB rescinds and replaces MB 07-02 and MB 09-12 to serve as the single source document for California State Preschool Programs (CSPP) requirements on reporting the 801A Monthly Population Report.

Policy

Non-Local Educational Agencies (non-LEAs) will continue to report the 801A Report to the CDMIS each month, per EC Section 8232. The 801A Report must be submitted each month by all community-based organizations (CBOs), including private contractors and other public utilities, businesses, or bureaus, and community college district CSPP contractors that contract with the California Department of Education (CDE) to provide subsidized CSPP services to families and children. Each monthly report must include all required family and child data for all enrolled in CSPP during the report month.

When some or all CSPP services are subcontracted by a contractor, all family and child data must be submitted in the primary contractor’s data submission rather than submitting a report in the name of the subcontractor. If a non-LEA contractor operates their own CSPP contract, they will submit their own contract data through the CDMIS. Full-cost families or families whose care was paid for completely by another entity (such as a voucher from another contractor) shall not be reported.

Per EC Section 60910, effective July 2024, LEAs, as defined in EC Section 60900, which include a county office of education, a school district, or a charter school that operate a CSPP, are required to submit classroom, staff, and child information to the California Preschool Data Collection (CAPSDAC) System. This includes LEAs who subcontract all or part of their CSPP services to another LEA or non-LEA. Please refer to MB 24-08, found here https://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/cd/ci/mb2408.asp, for direction.

As of November 19, 2024, all childcare programs operated through the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) will no longer submit their 801A Reports through the CDE CDMIS. Please refer to guidance from the CDSS for further information.

Reporting Methods

The Early Education Division (EED), in consultation with a field advisory group, developed two ways for agencies to submit data to the CDMIS: Electronic File Transfer and Manual Entry.

Electronic File Transfer is a method whereby contractors transfer specifically formatted files to EED via a secure upload process. This method is typically chosen by larger contractors that have the required technical knowledge and support to be able to follow the detailed directions for formatting their data and files. Please see the CDE 801A Electronic File Format Specifications webpage at https://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/cd/ci/cdd801fileformat.asp for detailed formatting and submission standards and instructions. Contractors that choose this method of monthly submittal will format a file in accordance with the standards and instructions and will then log on each month to the secure CDMIS web page to transfer the file. Once an electronic file is uploaded to the CDMIS, the system will produce an error report if the file contains any errors. This error report will show all data or formatting errors contained in the report. If the file contains no errors, the system will indicate the file has been successfully uploaded.

Manual Entry is a method whereby contractors enter data about each family, child, and provider by completing forms directly in the CDMIS. Contractors choosing this method of monthly submittal will log on to the secure CDMIS web page and enter each family’s information one by one. After the initial month that a child or family has been entered into the system, reporting in succeeding months consists of copying the previous month’s report forward to the new reporting month and then updating the information for any families or children being added, deleted, or changed, in a process called Copy Forward.

The Manual Entry method is the best choice for contractors that:

• Are smaller contractors;
• do not have many families to enter;
• do not utilize a software vendor for report generation; or
• do not have the staff resources required to correctly format and submit reports using Electronic File Transfer.

Copy Forward should be used in tandem with Manual Entry for agencies who do not have much change between family, child, and provider from month to month.

Due Dates for Monthly Reporting

The reporting period opens on the first day of the following month and required data must be reported no later than the 20th of the following month (for example, the reporting period for January data opens beginning February 1, and reporting for the month of January must be completed no later than February 20). Due dates that occur on weekends or state-celebrated holidays will fall on the next business day. Failure to report or to report correctly will result in withholding of non-complying agencies’ CSPP apportionments and may result in the agency’s CSPP contract being placed on conditional status.

EED Apportionment Withhold Timeline for 801A Data Reporting

The following example timeline details the process CDE will utilize using the January 2025 report period.

• February 1, 2025: Agencies may begin submitting January 2025 801A Reports.
  
  
• February 20, 2025: 801A Reports are due for January 2025.
  
  
• February 21, 2025 (or next business day): Late notifications for contractors with missing January 2025 801A reports are sent to agency Executive and Program Directors by e-mail.
  
  
• February 28, 2025 (last day of the month): The last day contractors can submit their missing January 2025 801A reports without a penalty, or their CSPP contract apportionment(s) will be withheld.
  
  
• March 1, 2025 (or next business day): EED prepares an apportionment withhold list of contractors with missing reports and sends it to the Early Education and Nutrition Fiscal Services Unit (EENFS).
  
  
• March 15, 2025 (or next business day): EED prepares a revised apportionment withhold list of contractors with missing reports and sends it to EENFS.

Contractors that are unable to meet the prescribed due dates will have their CSPP contract apportionments withheld until the missing report is submitted.

Families and Children That Must Be Reported on the 801A Data Report

Family and child data shall only be reported when the contractor has evidence that the family and the child(ren) were enrolled for CSPP services through a CBO or community college district in the report month. All required data elements to be included in the 801A can be found in the CDE Appendix A: Data Definitions web page at https://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/cd/ci/datadefindex.asp.

Contractors must ensure that the 801A report includes all CBO or community college district CSPP-subsidized families and children (both those newly enrolled and those that continue being enrolled). Families or children that were not enrolled at all during the report month must not be included in that report month. When errors are discovered, including incorrectly reported families or children, or identifying families or children that were not reported, the report should be updated immediately. If a family or child disenrolls mid-month, they must be reported in the month they are disenrolled; they should then be removed from all future reporting unless they are reenrolled into CSPP.

Beginning Fiscal Year 2024–25, contractors must provide the attendance status of all enrolled children in each 801A report. More information on the attendance status field can be found on the CDE Attendance Fields web page at https://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/cd/ci/attendancefield.asp.

EED Contractor Responsibility for Accurate and Timely Reporting

Contractors are responsible for ensuring that the method used for generating the 801A report, whether it is a software application, manual entry, a contractor generated database, or an Electronic File Transfer, consistently produces a report that includes only those families and children that were enrolled in subsidized CSPP services in the reporting month. Contractor staff must review the families and children submitted in the 801A reports and confirm that the families and children listed were actually enrolled for CSPP services in that reporting month. Each contractor must ensure the accuracy of the submitted data. This would include, but not be limited to, reviewing the report for any discrepancies, deleting families and/or children that were not enrolled for CSPP in a reporting month, adding families and/or children who were enrolled but were not previously included in a monthly report, and updating the attendance status field of each child and ensuring it is accurate every month.

Contractors must ensure that the information they submit is subsequently verified. When discrepancies are found, they must be corrected as soon as they are identified. If a contractor submits an electronic file, they must resubmit a corrected report to include all enrolled families and children as well as to correct any information on families and children that had been reported. If the contractor uses the manual entry method to report their families and children, then that same method must be used to add missing families or children and to delete incorrectly reported families or children. While the EED leaves the reporting period open for two months (60 days) after the initial due date to allow contractors to make minor corrections to their reports, when necessary, this two-month period is only for minor technical edits. In no case should a contractor wait the full two months to make corrections and updates; these must be completed as soon as they are identified.

EED Review of 801A Data

EED staff will continue to review the 801A data for its accuracy and completeness. One method of review continues to be the on-site review by EED staff where files are pulled and reviewed for improper payments and administrative errors. In addition, EED staff will begin to regularly compare 801A data to information submitted to EENFS (both fiscal and enrollment information) to determine discrepancies and potential reporting problems. EED staff will also compare an agency’s 801A report to previous reports submitted by the agency to review consistency and accuracy; if discrepancies are found, EED staff will conduct outreach to ensure these discrepancies are explained or addressed.

It is critical that contractors accurately report 801A information. As stated above, families and children shall only be reported when contractors have evidence that the family and children are eligible, and the child was enrolled during the report month. Contractors must make corrections as needed to ensure that all families and children are reported in the correct month that the family and child were enrolled in the program.

Monitoring of Data Accuracy

Accurate and complete data reporting is a compliance item for the operation of a CSPP and part of the contract monitoring review process. During an on-site review, if contractors are found to have more than one percent of their files incorrectly reported, they will be cited for non-compliance by their assigned Program Quality Implementation (PQI) Consultant. In addition, if it is found that the contractor’s 801A data and the submitted fiscal data are in substantial disagreement, the contractor must be able to explain the discrepancy or face a compliance issue.

If EED staff substantiates that 801A data are being reported incorrectly, contractors will be required to develop a corrective action plan that will include identifying the source of the errors and regularly testing samples of 801A data to ensure accurate reporting. Contractors that are currently depending on software to report their 801A data must review their data frequently to ensure that all data is being reported correctly as it is uploaded from an electronic file into the CDMIS.

Background

The 801A was originally created to gather data required by federal law for programs receiving Child Care and Development Funding (CCDF). Initially submitted in paper format, the 801A has undergone many refinements and improvements and, since 2001, submittal via the CDE’s CDMIS has been required for all EED contracted contractors.

Prior to 2018, the CSPP received partial funding from the CCDF, established in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. To receive this funding, CSPP was also required to collect case-level data on families receiving CCDF services on a monthly basis. In response to this, the CDE created the 801A Report as a monthly child population report. In this report, specified CSPP contractors are required to report and submit child, family, and provider information to the CDE on a monthly basis.

The Budget Act of 2019 changed the CSPP funding model by removing CCDF funding from any CSPP contract. Instead, LEA CSPP contracts solely received Proposition 98 funding, and community-based organization CSPP contracts solely received non-Proposition 98, general funds. However, California EC Section 8232 states that for the effective administration of childcare and development programs, the Superintendent of Public Instruction is authorized to require the collection of information from public and private contractors contracting with the State Department of Education. The CDE continued the 801A reporting practices to meet this statutory requirement.

NOTE: As of December 2019, the 801B Monthly Sample Report (801B Report) has not been a requirement of CSPP contractors, as this report is only inclusive of children who receive CCDF funding.

Resources

The CDE CDMIS Support web page can be found at https://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/cd/ci/main.asp and contains detailed instructions, examples, answers to frequently asked questions, and related information to assist agencies. Additionally, when using the system, there are detailed help screens so that users can quickly identify how to complete the various reporting requirements.

Periodically, CDMIS staff issues “CDMIS Updates” that provide important information about system improvements and features as well as clarification of how to report agency-specific program-related issues. Agencies must regularly check for new CDMIS Updates at https://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/cd/ci/update.asp when they enter the system each month to upload data.

The CDMIS support team are available to assist agencies via telephone or email. If you have any questions about the contents of this MB or need additional information about the CDMIS or the 801A Report, please email the CDMIS Support Team at CDMIS@cde.ca.gov.

If you have programmatic questions related to this MB, please contact your assigned EED PQI office regional consultant. The CDE EED, PQI Consultant Regional Assignments web page can be accessed at https://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/cd/ci/assignments.asp.

If you have fiscal questions about the information in this email, please contact your assigned CDE EENFS fiscal analyst. The CDE Fiscal Apportionment Analyst Directory web page can be accessed at https://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/aa/cd/faad.asp.

This MB is mandatory only to the extent that it cites a specific statutory and/or regulatory requirement. Any portion of this MB that is not supported by a specific statutory and/or regulatory requirement is not prescriptive pursuant to California EC Section 33308.5.