Dear County and District Superintendents, Charter School Administrators, Special Education Local Plan Area Directors, Administrators of County Offices of Education, Nonpublic School Administrators, and Local Educational Agency Special Education Directors:

Incident Data Collection from Nonpublic Nonsectarian Certified Schools in the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System

Local educational agencies (LEAs) are required to collect and report annually to the California Department of Education (CDE):

• All incidents involving violations of California Education Code (EC) sections 48900 and 48915, even if those incidents did not result in suspension or expulsion, and regardless of the duration of the suspension or expulsion (per Code of Federal Regulations [CFR] 300.646 and EC Section 56601); and
  
  
• Incidents resulting in mechanical restraint, physical restraint, or seclusion, even if the incidents were not the result of a violation of EC sections 48900 or 48915 (per EC Section 49006).

Incidents of restraint and seclusion that were reported by each LEA from 2019–20, 2020–21, and 2021–22 are publicly posted at the following website: https://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/ad/filesrsd.asp.

To meet these reporting requirements, the CDE collects these data from LEAs through the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System (CALPADS), as part of its End-of-Year (EOY) 3 submission. The 2022–23 EOY submission opened on May 8, 2023, closes on July 28, 2023, with an amendment window that runs through August 25, 2023. This is a cumulative collection that includes all incidents that occurred from July 1 through June 30 of the school year.

These incidents should be reported for all students (students with disabilities and general education students) served directly by the LEA as well as students with disabilities who have been placed in nonpublic nonsectarian certified schools (NPS schools) by the LEA. Because NPS schools may serve students from throughout the state, and because the NPS sites do not have the ability to report these incidents directly to CALPADS, the NPS site must provide necessary data on any incidents for students attending the NPS school to their associated Districts of Special Education Accountability (DSEA) on a regular basis, but minimally, no later than June 30th annually.

NPS sites are encouraged to work with the associated CALPADS LEA Administrators of the DSEA to ensure these data are entered into the local student information system and reported to CALPADS.

CDE provided information to NPS sites on these requirements in webinars in 2019–20 and 2020–21. The recording of that webinar can be found at the following California School Information Services (CSIS) YouTube Channel link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82aN0lgEUPU (Video; 1:05:58).

If you have any questions, please contact the CALPADS Service Desk or Special Education Data Support Team by email at calpads-support@cde.ca.gov or speddatasupport@cde.ca.gov. All questions will be routed to the appropriate CALPADS or special education staff.

Sincerely,

Shiyloh Duncan-Becerril, Associate Director
Special Education Division

SDB:bj

cc. CALPADS Administrators