Dear County and District Superintendents, Charter School Administrators, and Special Education Local Plan Area Directors:

2024–25 CALPADS Annual Back-to-School Letter

This letter marks the start of the 2024–25 data collection season for the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System (CALPADS).

CALPADS Update

First, we would like to congratulate Local Educational Agencies (LEAs) and Special Education Local Plan Areas (SELPAs) for successfully certifying all CALPADS 2023−24 data submissions by the deadlines. The hard work of LEAs/SELPAs and their staff, under increasingly challenging requirements, is recognized and appreciated.

CALPADS data are used for many functions that are critical to the mission of LEAs and to the state of California, including supporting the California School Dashboard (Dashboard), a key component of the state’s accountability system for California’s public schools, providing key operational functions such as registering students for statewide assessments, and for determining direct benefits to students. The active involvement of superintendents, charter school administrators, and SELPA directors is essential to ensuring the accurate and timely submission of CALPADS data. LEAs should continue to ensure that policies, processes, adequate staff support, and timelines are in place that foster staff collaboration, thus helping to ensure that CALPADS is updated appropriately, as well as ensuring that submission certification deadlines are met.

Deadlines are Critical

Pursuant to Senate Bill (SB) 114 (Chapter 48, Statutes of 2023), LEAs and county offices of education (excluding charter schools) that miss the final Amendment Window Deadline for Fall 1 and any of the End-of-Year (EOY) submissions, or the Certification Deadline for Fall 2, will be placed in Differentiated Assistance, making them eligible for support. LEAs are also reminded that there is no opportunity to amend data after these deadlines have passed.

The 2024–25 Submission deadlines are outlined in the table below.

2024–25 CALPADS Submission Deadlines

*LEAs are strongly encouraged to resolve all fatal errors by this date to provide sufficient time for appropriate LEA staff to review reports for accuracy.

Fall Submissions

For the upcoming Fall 1 and Fall 2 submissions, LEAs are reminded of the key uses of these data:

• The data that LEAs approve on CALPADS Report 1.17 – LCFF – Count in the Fall 1 submission are used to determine the Unduplicated Pupil Count (UPC), the basis for determining the unduplicated pupil percentage (UPP), which determines 2024–25 Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) supplemental and concentration grant funding. Data on this report approved by the December 13, 2024 Certification Deadline will be used in the calculation of the First Principal Apportionment (P1). Data on this report approved by the January 24, 2025 Amendment Window Deadline will be used in the calculation of the Second Principal Apportionment (P2). Any changes after this date must be made through the audit process.
• Special Education Local Plan Area (SELPA) approval is not required but is strongly encouraged by the December 13, 2024 Fall 1 Certification Deadline. Annually, as part of the Compliance Improvement Monitoring (CIM) for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the California Department of Education (CDE) Special Education Division is required to issue monitoring determinations for LEAs using a combination of prior year EOY data and current-year Fall 1 data. In order for Annual Determination Letters to be issued earlier to give LEAs more time to complete Compliance Improvement Monitoring activities, the data used to calculate federal Indicator 9 (Disproportionality overall), and Indicator 10 (Disproportionality by specific disability categories) will be pulled from CALPADS following the December 13 Certification Deadline, rather than after the close of the amendment window. The data used for these determinations will therefore include data approved by the LEA only, or data which have been approved by both the LEA and SELPA.
• The data that LEAs certify as part of the Fall 2 data submission are provided to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC) to populate the California State Assignment Accountability System (CalSAAS) and are used to identify potential certificated staff mis-assignments and populate the Teaching Assignment Monitoring Outcomes (TAMO) report posted on the CDE’s website. Accurate Fall 2 data will reduce the number of potential mis-assignments that LEAs must resolve in CalSAAS and ensure accurate data on the TAMO report.

End-of-Year Submissions

Senate Bill 114 (2023) establishes accelerated publication dates for the Dashboard in each successive year, with a final publication date of October 15 in the 2025−26 academic year. For the 2024−25 school year, the CALPADS EOY deadline has been moved up one week to August 8, 2025, to ensure that the Dashboard is posted by the statutory deadline of November 15, 2025.

To maintain the August 15 Graduate Cut-Off date, which allows summer graduates to be included in the 2024−25 four-year Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate (ACGR) and the Graduation Rate Indicator on the Dashboard, the necessary data will be pulled from CALPADS after the EOY deadline. LEAs do not certify these data but should review the 15.1 Cohort Report for accuracy before the data are pulled prior to midnight, August 15, 2025. Please note that there will be no opportunity to amend data after this date.

Importance of Maintaining CALPADS Data on an Ongoing Basis

In addition to reviewing and certifying data during the Fall and EOY submissions, it is critical that LEA business processes include updating CALPADS on an ongoing basis throughout the year. These “live” data are used for multiple operational purposes that support LEAs and their ability to serve students, including:

• Automatically registering students for statewide assessments, including the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP).
• Automatically registering students for the English Language Proficiency Assessments for California (ELPAC) and Initial ELPAC/Alternative ELPAC. The assessment results determine whether a student is an English Learner (EL). This status is then made available to LEAs through CALPADS.
• To provide immediate information on incoming transfer students, such as whether they are English learners or students with disabilities, so that they can be served appropriately.
• To identify dropouts, enabling LEAs to efficiently target resources.

CALPADS operational data are increasingly being used to provide direct benefits to individual students and for important monitoring activities that impact LEAs, including:

• Identifying, on a monthly basis, students who are automatically eligible for free or reduced-priced meals under the National School Lunch Program.
• Identifying, on a weekly basis, students who are foster youth, enabling schools to better serve them.
• Identifying students for SUN Bucks benefits, formerly referred to as Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer (SEBT), which provides money to families for food when students are not in school during the summer.
• Enabling the CDE to monitor whether students with disabilities are receiving a free and appropriate education in the least restrictive environment as required by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and to monitor whether EL students are receiving appropriate instruction and services as required by state and federal law.

As evidenced by the continually increasing use of CALPADS data for high stakes purposes, it is critical that executive leadership ensures that business processes are in place and staff are adequately supported to collect and maintain data in CALPADS on an ongoing basis and to review and certify accurate data during the Fall and EOY submissions.

In Summary

Thank you in advance for your efforts in submitting quality and timely data to the CDE. The ongoing support of your staff, particularly LEA CALPADS Administrators and their staff, who play a key role in so many critical functions, is greatly appreciated. Keeping CALPADS updated with student enrollments and exits and program data, along with certifying accurate data during the submission windows, has become increasingly important because of the use of the data in mission critical functions and for high stakes purposes. It is important to remember that there will be no opportunity for LEAs to revise data once final certification deadlines have passed.

If you have any questions about this letter, please contact the CALPADS Office by phone at 916-324-6738 or by email at calpads@cde.ca.gov.

Thank you for your support.

Sincerely,

Liberty Van Natten, Director
Education Data Management Division

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