CALPADS and Migrant Education - Oct 24, 2011

October 24, 2011

Dear Migrant Education Regional Directors and Local Educational Agency California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System Administrators:

CALIFORNIA LONGITUDINAL PUPIL ACHIEVEMENT DATA SYSTEM AND MIGRANT EDUCATION

The California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System (CALPADS) has been operational since October 5, 2009 and this is the third year of the CALPADS Fall 1 Annual Enrollment data submission for all kindergarten through grade 12 student data.

The purpose of this letter is to emphasize the importance of having all eligible migrant students identified correctly and their data submitted to CALPADS. This should be accomplished primarily through proactive collaboration of the Migrant Regions with the local educational agencies (LEAs) that they serve. Each LEA and independently reporting charter school has designated at least one person as the LEA CALPADS Administrator who is responsible for ensuring that all required data are submitted to CALPADS. In order to accurately certify CALPADS Fall 1 data, LEAs must submit migrant student eligibility information for students in the migrant program. Migrant Regions should identify who they work with in their LEAs to provide these required data.

As a first step, Migrant Regions should provide each LEA with a list of the eligible migrant students. The Migrant Education Office at the California Department of Education (CDE) has arranged with TROMIK Technology to develop a special report for this purpose. The report will be generated on the Migrant Student Information Network’s Student Locator at WestEd. The list will contain the given and surname of each student along with several corresponding data elements such as Migrant Student IDs and the migrant program start date. These data will be disaggregated by each LEA served in the region. These reports can be given to districts to use to update their data systems with migrant student information. Please be aware that when LEAs enter data into CALPADS for migrant students, particular care should be taken to populate the following data elements, which will be submitted to CALPADS in the Student Program File:

• 3.13 Education Program Code: If the Migrant Student ID is populated, then the Education Program Code must be 135 (Migrant)
• 3.14 Education Program Membership Code: 1 (Eligible)
• 3.15 Education Program Membership Start Date: Enter the Qualifying Arrival Date (QAD) in this field
• 3.16 Education Program Membership End Date: Enter End of Eligibility (EOE) date in this field (required only if the student is no longer in the program)
• 3.20 Migrant Student ID: Enter the Migrant Student Directory (MSD) number

The collaborative effort between Migrant Regions and LEAs in supporting CALPADS is expected to result in several benefits including:

• Statewide Student Identifiers (SSIDs) and MSD numbers will be correctly applied to migrant students
• LEAs will obtain from the Migrant Regions the MSD number, the latest QAD for each migrant student, and the EOE date, elements that may not be in the LEAs’ databases
• Migrant Regions will have the ability to accurately identify children who are classified as Priority for Service
• CALPADS will be able to provide the Migrant Education Program (MEP) with better testing information from the Standardized Testing and Reporting Program, California English Language Development Test, and California High School Exit Examination
• The test data will be available earlier and will be more accurately matched to identified migrant students
• The information will allow services to be focused more precisely on targeted populations
• LEAs will be able to add and remove children from their MEP lists more efficiently
• The Migrant Student Information Exchange requirements can be more efficiently addressed

You can find further information on the CDE CALPADS Web page at http://www.cde.ca.gov/calpads.

If you have any questions regarding this subject, please contact Frank Uribe, Education Programs Consultant, Migrant Education Office, at 916-327-4408, or by e-mail at FUribe@cde.ca.gov.

Sincerely,

Keric W. Ashley, Director
Data Management Division

PL/KA:jg

cc: County and District Superintendents and Charter School Administrators