CALPADS Update Flash #182

To:           Local Educational Agency (LEA) Representatives

From:      California Department of Education (CDE) –
                California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System (CALPADS) Team

Date:       June 19, 2020

Subject:  CALPADS Update FLASH #182

Important Reminders Before Certifying Homeless Data in CALPADS Reports 5.4 and 5.5

The coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has stressed many families, likely increasing the homeless population. It is important that LEAs continue to identify and update CALPADS with homeless data through the end of the school year.

Ensure Homeless Liaisons Have Access to Student-Level Report

It is critical that both school districts and county offices of education (COEs) ensure that their homeless liaisons have access to the detailed, student-level report, Report 5.5 - Homeless Students Enrolled - Student List, in CALPADS. It has been reported that LEAs statewide are under-identifying homeless children and youth. If homeless liaisons have access to the student-level report in CALPADS, they can ensure that the homeless students that they are serving are identified correctly in the local student information system and in CALPADS. In addition, this will allow homeless liaisons to analyze homeless data, compare it to previous years, and compare it to other subgroups within the LEA.

In order for both the county and district homeless liaison to view Report 5.5 - Homeless Students Enrolled - Student List, each must be assigned the EOY 3 Report role. In order for county homeless liaisons to view Report 5.5, the LEA CALPADS Administrator must add the county homeless liaison to their organization and assign the EOY 3 Report role. This will allow the county homeless liaison to view Report 5.5.

If you do not know who your district or county homeless liaison is, a list of homeless liaisons can be accessed on the CDE Resources for Homeless Children and Youth web page at https://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/hs/cy/.

C/A Report 5.4 – Homeless Students Enrolled Available During Submission Window Before LEAs Certify

The county office of education homeless liaisons are reminded that beginning this academic year, C/A Report 5.4 - Homeless Students Enrolled displays homeless counts for each district within the county even before the LEA has Approved its EOY 3 submission. This will allow COE homeless liaisons to monitor homeless counts for each LEA within the county throughout the submission window. In order to review C/A Report 5.4, a CALPADS user must have the County role added to their CALPADS account.

Homeless Definitions

LEAs are reminded of the following definitions related to the collection of homeless data:

Homeless: Homelessness is defined as an individual who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence. Examples of homelessness include children and youth living in:

• Shared housing due to economic hardship, loss of housing, or natural disasters
• Motels or hotels
• Public or private places not designed for sleeping
• Trailer parks or campgrounds
• Cars, parks, and abandoned buildings
• Shelters
• Emergency or transitional shelters

Unaccompanied Homeless Youth: An unaccompanied homeless child or youth is defined as a youth that is not in the physical custody of their parent or guardian and meets the definition of homelessness, as stated above.

Runaway Youth: A child or youth who is identified by the LEA’s homeless liaison or a program official as receiving assistance from a program under the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act. A runaway youth is always considered an unaccompanied homeless youth; however, an unaccompanied homeless youth is not always considered a runaway youth.

Reminder of LEA End-of-Year Roll Over Activities

Purging of Former Foster Youth Report

Per an agreement with the California Department of Social Services (CDSS), report 5.9 - Former Foster Youth – Student List only includes students who ceased being a foster youth in the current academic year. The Former Foster Youth report does not span academic years.Therefore, as a reminder, after the weekly upload on July 3, 2020, the report will be refreshed and will begin to show only students changing foster status in the 2020–21 academic year. If there is a need to keep historical records of the former foster youth in the 2019–20 academic year, you must download report 5.9 as a csv file or save a copy of the report on or before June 30, 2020.

Preparing for Direct Certification Counts During July and August

Local educational agencies (LEAs) should download the Direct Certification results prior to June 30, 2020 if they have a need to track the students who were directly certified by CALPADS in 2019–20.

LEAs are also reminded that, as they exit their students at the end of the academic year in CALPADS, all students exited with a Student Exit Reason Code of anything other than an E155 – Year End Enrollment Exit will not be sent over for direct certification matching until subsequent enrollment records for the new academic year are posted in CALPADS. This means that your direct certification counts could be significantly lower than expected until subsequent enrollments are submitted to CALPADS.

This will most significantly affect any schools serving grades K–6 that choose to exit their students with Student Exit Reason Code E450 – Pre-K–6 Exit, because these students are not sent over for direct certification matching; only students with a Student Exit Reason Code of E155 continue to be sent over for matching since it is expected that they will return.

It is recommended that all enrollments for the new academic year be submitted to CALPADS prior to August 1, 2020 so that these students are included in the August 2, 2020 direct certification match process.