CALPADS Update Flash #305

To:           Local Educational Agency (LEA) Representatives

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

Date:      June 11, 2025

Subject:  CALPADS Update FLASH #305

New 2025−26 Data Collections for Attendance Recovery Program and Expanded Learning Programs

This Flash describes two new California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System (CALPADS) data collections for the following programs:

1. The new Attendance Recovery (AR) program; and
2. Existing Expanded Learning Programs (ELPs), which include:

• Expanded Learning Opportunities Program (ELO-P)
• 21st Century Community Learning Centers (CCLC), which includes programs serving elementary and middle/junior high school students, and the After School Safety and Enrichment for Teens (ASSETS) program
• The After School Education and Safety (ASES) program

These new data collections involve reporting attendance data. While local educational agencies (LEAs) may choose to operate AR programs and ELPs concurrently (i.e., occurring at the same time), the data collection requirements for each are different. This Flash describes the reporting requirements for each collection, which informs how attendance data must be collected and maintained for each program, and it highlights how the reporting requirements for the two programs are distinct.

LEAs participating in these programs must begin collecting data in the 2025−26 fiscal year to upload and certify as part of the 2025−26 CALPADS End-of-Year submission cycle that opens May 2026.

Attendance Recovery Program

To mitigate the negative impact of chronic absenteeism and emergency events on the academic continuity for students and LEA funding, Senate Bill (SB) 153 (Chapter 38, Statutes of 2024), as amended by SB 176 (Chapter 998, Statutes of 2024), established the Attendance Recovery (AR) program under Article 9, Chapter 2, Part 26 of Education Code (EC) sections 46210−46211.

The AR program is an optional program for students in grades TK−12, that LEAs may provide to enable students to recoup absences for the purposes of average daily attendance (ADA) apportionment. The AR sessions must be held outside of the regularly scheduled school day and meet statutorily required criteria. Students must attend sessions for the required number of minutes to earn a day of ADA apportionment funding. LEAs will receive no more than ten days of ADA per student, or the total number of absences the student accrued in the Academic Year (AY) at the LEA. LEAs will submit the ADA earned from students attending AR programs through the Principal Apportionment Data Collection (PADC) Web Application, or “PADC Web Application.”

Refer to the California Department of Education’s (CDE’s) Attendance Recovery web page to see Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and information on this new program: https://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/it/aarecovery.asp

Attendance Recovery Data Submitted to CALPADS and Alternate Chronic Absenteeism Rate

In addition to providing opportunities for LEAs to recoup ADA, the AR program seeks to mitigate schools’ chronic absenteeism rates. Following the certification of chronic absenteeism data from the 2025−26 EOY submission to CALPADS, the CDE is required to calculate an alternate chronic absenteeism rate, which includes pupil attendance accrued through an attendance recovery program established pursuant to EC sections 46210 and 46211. In late 2026, the CDE will publish the alternate chronic absenteeism rate on its website, and, at present, the 2026 Dashboard Chronic Absenteeism indicator will not be affected by this data.

New Attendance Recovery Days Field on the Student Absence Summary File

To calculate an alternative chronic absenteeism rate, CALPADS will collect the number of AR days earned by students on the Student Absence Summary (STAS) file. Note: All other fields on the STAS remain unchanged; any absence fields should not be adjusted based on AR days.

Specifically, the following field displayed in Table 1 will be added to the STAS file beginning in 2025−26:

Table 1: New Attendance Recovery Days Field on STAS

A student is considered to have participated in an AR program if the program requirements are fulfilled and the student attended the time required in statute to constitute a day of attendance recovery. The required time is the number of minutes that constitute a minimum day for students’ grade levels and/or school settings per EC Section 46211(e). The minimum day requirement applies to all LEA types participating in AR, inclusive of classroom-based charter schools (EC Section 46211(e)(2)(B)).

Students may “bank” AR days by attending AR programs before they have accumulated any absences. This includes attending AR programs in the summer prior to the beginning of the school year. AR days generated from sessions offered after the last day of school and before the end of the fiscal year will be credited to that fiscal year (ECSection 46211(b)(1)). The number of AR days reported for the student at a school cannot exceed 10 days, or the number of absences the student had at the school, whichever is less. If the student attended more than one school at the LEA, the number of AR days reported for the student at the LEA cannot exceed 10 days or the number of absences at the LEA, whichever is less. Absences include excused and unexcused absences. Absences due to out-of-school suspensions are not eligible for ADA recovery through AR.

LEAs must track and maintain records for the total number of hours a student attends an AR program to calculate whether a student attends for the time required to recover an AR day of ADA funding and for auditing purposes. LEAs, however, will only report to CALPADS the number of AR days the student earned.

Table 2 summarizes the validations that will be implemented on the Attendance Recovery Days field to enforce these rules.

Table 2: Validations on AR Field

Abbreviations used in the table that are not otherwise defined:

CDD – Certification Data Discrepancy
DD – Data Discrepancy

Additional AR Day Column Added to Report 14.1 – Student Absenteeism – Count

A new column titled “Total Attendance Recovery Days” will be added to certification report 14.1 – Student Absenteeism – Count. LEAs will be able to view the number of AR days that an individual student earned through the supporting report 14.2 – Student Absences – Student List.

Must attendance in an AR program overlap with a student’s enrollment where absences occurred?

No. Students may earn AR days before or after a student’s enrollment at a school. Additionally, students may earn AR days before or after absences occur. However, AR days can only be reported for a student at a school where the student had absences and the LEA where the AR days were earned.

How many AR days can be reported for a student at an LEA or at a school?

LEAs may only report up to 10 AR days for a student, or the total number of absences (excused and unexcused) the student had at schools within the LEA, whichever is less.

• For students that enroll in more than one school at an LEA, and had absences in more than one school, LEAs may only report AR days at schools where the student had absences, and the number of AR days reported cannot exceed the number of absences at the school.

• For students earning more than 10 AR days and who have more than 10 absences at different schools within the LEA, the LEA can attribute 10 AR days at any school where the student was absent, as long as the number of AR days reported for a given school does not exceed the number of absences at the school.

Table 3 illustrates some examples of how AR days may be reported:

Table 3: Examples of How AR Days May be Reported for
an Academic Year (July 1 – June 30)

Expanded Learning Programs

Assembly Bill (AB) 1113 (Chapter 1003, Statutes of 2024) cites research that finds students participating in afterschool programs improve their outcomes and describes the state’s investment and goal of expanding universal access to such programs to all school-age children/youth in the state. To help assess progress toward this goal, AB 1113 requires the CDE to collect in CALPADS, beginning in the 2025−26 academic year, annual pupil enrollment in any one of the following expanded learning programs:

• Expanded Learning Opportunities Program (ELO-P)
• 21st Century Community Learning Centers (CCLC), which includes programs serving elementary and middle/junior high school students, and the After School Safety and Enrichment for Teens (ASSETS) program
• The After School Education and Safety (ASES) program

Expanded Learning Program Data Submitted to CALPADS

Currently, LEAs submit student participation or eligibility for various programs during their enrollment at a school through the Student Program (SPRG) file. However, students may attend Expanded Learning Programs (ELPs) that are not located at the school where they are enrolled, or they may attend at times (e.g., before the school year begins or after it ends) when they are not enrolled in a school. These characteristics present data collection challenges for ELP Programs and the school-based SPRG files.

Since the purpose of collecting this data is to understand overall enrollment and attendance in ELPs, and funding for ELO-P is provided at the LEA level, this data will be a student-level collection at the LEA level and not at the school level. This means when submitting this data, LEAs do not have to specify students’ school of enrollment. Therefore, the data will not be collected on the SPRG file and will be collected through a new LEA-level file named the Local Educational Agency Program (LEAP) file. In anticipation that the LEAP file may better fit the collection of other program data in the future, the name of the file is generic and not specific to the collection of expanded learning program data.

New LEA Program file

The LEAP file includes standard CALPADS file fields (Reporting LEA, Academic Year Identifier [ID], Statewide Student Identifier [SSID], Local Student ID), and (1) one generic field that LEAs will populate with the specific LEA program code, 194 – Expanded Learning Programs, and (2) one field specific to ELP – Expanded Learning Program Days. These two fields are described in Table 5.

Table 5: LEA Program File Fields for Expanded Learning Programs

Field 26.06 – LEA Education Program Code: Populate with the Education Program Code 194 – ELP – Expanded Learning Programs, defined as:

Expanded learning programs include the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program (ELO-P), the After School Education and Safety (ASES) program, and the 21st Century Community Learning Centers (CCLC) programs, which include programs for elementary and middle/junior high school students, and the After School Safety and Enrichment for Teens (ASSETS) program.

An “enrolled student” means any student whose parents/guardians have signed an expanded learning program registration form. If that form is on file, that student should be considered enrolled in the expanded learning program.

This field must be populated for any student that enrolled in an ELP by submitting a signed registration form, and the form is on file. LEAs must submit any student enrolled in an ELP regardless of whether the student actually participated in or attended an ELP.

LEA Education Program Codes are in a separate LEA Education Program Code set and will not be treated like Education Program Codes submitted in the Student Program (SPRG) file where different rules apply depending on whether the education program code is considered “eligible” or “participating.” LEA Education Program records are not tied to start dates and do not require overlapping school enrollment. As long as a signed ELP registration form is on file, the student should be reported.

Field 26.07 – Expanded Learning Program Days: Populate with the total number of days the student attended an ELP program during the Academic Year (July 1 – June 30). If a student enrolled in an ELP and never attended an ELP program, the LEA should populate this field with “0.”

There is not a specific amount of time students must attend an ELP to be counted as a day of attendance in an ELP program. For example, the following would count as one ELP day:

• 5 minutes attended on one day
• 2 hours attended on one day
• 1 hour attended before school and 1 hour attended after school on the same day

LEAP File Validations

All LEAs that receive ELO-P funding, have a CCLC (including ASSETS) grant, and/or ASES grant are required to submit LEAP records. Any LEAs for whom ELP data are expected will receive a fatal Certification Validation Rule (CVR) error, CERT### – Missing LEAP records for an LEA Participating in an Expanded Learning Program if they fail to submit any LEAP records. The specific LEAP errors are described in Table 6.

Table 6: LEAP File Validations

New Certification Report XX.1 – Expanded Learning Program Participants – Count

LEAs will certify as part of the 2025−26 End-of-Year (EOY) submission, a new certification report, XX.1 – Expanded Learning Program Participants – Count. This LEA-level report displays:

• The total ELP Participant Count
• The total ELP Program Participation Days

Supporting report XX.X – Expanded Learning Program Participants – Student List, will display the individual students that make up the aggregate counts provided in the certification report. For each student, the report will display the SSID, student name, local ID, gender, Ethnicity/Race, grade and count of Expanded Learning Program Days.

AR versus ELP Reporting to CALPADS

LEAs may implement the new AR program and existing ELP programs in a concurrent manner. Additionally, AR programs may be funded using ELO-P funding if specific conditions are met (ECSection 46120(d)(3)(B)). It is important to note some key distinctions in how data for the two programs are collected and reported; key distinctions are described in Table 7.

Table 7: Distinctions between Attendance Recovery and Expanded Learning Programs

Getting Ready

LEAs need to identify how they will collect and maintain data for AR and ELP.

• For AR, LEAs should carefully review the AR requirements in the 2025−26 Audit Guide which is available from the website of the Education Audit Appeals Panel at https://eaap.ca.gov/. This will inform what data LEAs will need for audit purposes.
• For ELP, LEAs that have CCLC and/or ASES grants may already utilize vendors to collect the afterschool attendance data needed to meet the reporting requirements of the grant programs. These LEAs may want to ensure that their afterschool vendors will provide the necessary data to their student information system (SIS) vendors in a manner that enables the SIS vendor to submit the required data to CALPADS.
• LEAs receiving ELO-P funding that may not be collecting student attendance data in their programs, may want to connect with their SIS vendors to determine whether they have functionality that would meet their needs.

The CDE has communicated with SIS vendors regarding the CALPADS data collection requirements for both of these programs. The CDE has also communicated with vendors that collect and maintain data for afterschool programs regarding the data that LEAs require to meet CALPADS data reporting requirements for ELP.

Resources and Contacts

Attendance Recovery

For more information about the AR program, refer to the CDE’s Attendance Recovery web page: https://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/it/aarecovery.asp

For questions on apportionment-significant requirements for AR, contact the Attendance Accounting Office at AttendanceAccounting@cde.ca.gov.

For questions on operating a high-quality AR program, contact the Educational Options Office at EOO@cde.ca.gov.

Expanded Learning Programs

Additional ELO-P FAQs can be found on the CDE’s Expanded Learning Opportunities Program web page at https://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/ex/elopinfo.asp.

For questions on ELO-P, contact the Expanded Learning Division at ExpandedLearning@cde.ca.gov.