October 3, 2025

Dear County and District Superintendents and Charter School Administrators:

California College Guidance Initiative Update

In a letter sent to County and District Superintendents and Charter School Administrators, dated September 24, 2024, the California Department of Education (CDE) provided an overview of California’s plan for scaling the California College Guidance Initiative (CCGI) to all local educational agencies (LEAs) serving students in grades 9–12. The purpose of this letter is to remind LEAs of upcoming requirements related to the scaling of CCGI, and to announce the posting of the CCGI Student Information System (SIS) Vendor and Product Capabilities Matrix, which tracks SIS vendor progress in fully supporting LEAs to upload data to CCGI. Many LEAs are already in partnership with CCGI, and the CDE congratulates those LEAs whose students are currently using and benefiting from their transcript-informed Partner Accounts on CaliforniaColleges.edu.

Upcoming Statutory Requirements Reminders

All LEAs, serving students in grades 9–12, are reminded that they are statutorily required under California Education Code Section 60900(f) to:

• Enter a data sharing partnership with CCGI by January 1, 2026;
• Provide an initial data file to CCGI by June 30, 2026; and
• Complete the data onboarding work to ensure that their students have access to transcript-informed Partner Accounts on CaliforniaColleges.edu that are regularly updated by district files.

Note: Regardless of whether an LEA uses a SIS or whether an LEA’s SIS is compliant with the California Transcript and Student Record Portability Standard (data standard), all LEAs are required to enter a data sharing memorandum of understanding (MOU) and provide compliant data to CCGI by June 2026.

Transcript-informed Partner Accounts provide students and educators with the ability to track progress toward meeting California State University (CSU) and University of California (UC) eligibility requirements and provide integrations to California’s public higher education institution applications that are designed to streamline the process for students. If your LEA is not yet in partnership (i.e., does not have a data sharing MOU) with CCGI, contact CCGI via the CaliforniaColleges.edu Contact Us web page at: https://www.californiacolleges.edu/#/contact-us.

CCGI SIS Vendor and Product Capabilities Matrix Now Posted

To support LEAs in meeting these requirements, the California School Information Services (CSIS) has added a CCGI Vendor Compatibility web page on its website, which features the CCGI SIS Vendor and Product Capabilities Matrix. This matrix, as described in California Education Code Section 49083.5, outlines the ability of SIS products to support LEAs to provide the required data elements to populate student transcript-informed accounts for their 9th–12th grade students, and an automated means of data transmission to CCGI. LEAs are encouraged to review the status of their SIS vendor in providing the functionality needed to support CCGI data transmission. A more detailed description of the matrix has been provided to LEA CALPADS Administrators in CCGI Flash #4.

Importance of Implementing CCGI

The statewide scaling of CCGI is a major step toward providing equity in guidance and access to college and financial aid opportunities to all of California’s public high school students. Executive leadership and support are key to the successful implementation of CaliforniaCollege.edu within your schools. Providing each high school student with an individualized, transcript-informed Partner Account helps connect students to opportunity within each of California’s public higher education and financial aid systems and beyond in support of their transition to college and career.

Resources

The September 24, 2024 letter sent to County and District Superintendents, and Charter School Administrators can be found here: https://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/sp/cl/ccgirollout20240924.asp

The CCGI SIS Vendor Product Capabilities Matrix can be found here: https://csis.fcmat.org/sis-vendors/ccgi-vendor-compatibility

The CALPADS CCGI Flash #4 communication can be found here: https://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/sp/cl/communications.asp#ccgi

To learn more about the California College Guidance Initiative, visit: https://cacollegeguidance.org/learnmore/

To access the California High School Transcript and Student Record Portability Standard, visit: https://cacollegeguidance.org/Standard-Spec-V1

To contact the California College Guidance Initiative, visit: https://learnmore.cacollegeguidance.org/contact-us/

Should you have any questions about this letter, please contact the Education Data Management Division by phone at 916-324-6738 or by email at calpads@cde.ca.gov.

Sincerely,

Liberty Van Natten, Director
Education Data Management Division

LV:pm

cc: CALPADS LEA Administrators