CALPADS Update Flash #219

To:           Local Educational Agency (LEA) Representatives

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

Date:       REVISED March 29, 2022

Subject:  CALPADS Update FLASH #219

NOTE: This revised Flash 219 replaces Flash 219 that was originally posted on February 24, 2022, and provides UPDATED GUIDANCE for Scenario 3 and adds a new Scenario 4 and 5.

Reclassifying and Reporting Reclassified Fluent English Proficient Students

To the extent feasible, LEAs are encouraged to review the status of their English learners (ELs) and make reclassification decisions soon after students meet the four criteria and prior to the end of the school year. This helps LEAs plan for the upcoming school year and provide appropriate services from the first day of school. The reclassification date should reflect the date that the LEA determines the student has met all four criteria required for reclassification (CaliforniaEducation CodeSection 313(f)), which includes:

• Overall Performance Level of 4 on the Summative English Language Proficiency Assessments for California (ELPAC)
• Teacher evaluation
• Parent consultation and approval
• Basic skills relative to English proficient students

The CDE recognizes, however, that students assessed with the Summative ELPAC in March may not receive results back until late June or early July, making it difficult to finalize reclassification decisions for students who have not yet met the required performance level on the Summative ELPAC. This may result in LEAs finalizing reclassification decisions in the summer when students are no longer enrolled in school. While CALPADS currently allows LEAs to update students’ English Language Acquisition Status (ELAS) to Reclassified Fluent English Proficient (RFEP) when students are not enrolled during the summer, the reclassification is not attributed to a school. This means that these students do not show up, in CALPADS certification report 2.16 – English Language Acquisition Status – Els Reclassified (End-of-Year [EOY] 3), in any year.

For reporting purposes, it is important for LEAs to be able to view and certify the school that reclassified a student. The CDE is working on a solution to address this issue for the future. For the current reporting year, 2021−22, the CDE provides guidance for the following scenarios, in order for these reclassified students to be reflected in the End-of-Year (EOY) 3 certification report 2.16 in the school that reclassified the student (generally where the student was last enrolled):

Scenarios where student is reclassified by the school where they were last enrolled:

• Scenario 1: Student is reclassified before school ends and is still enrolled in that school in the current school year.
• Scenario 2: Student is reclassified after school ends, but the student is no longer enrolled, and the student will not be returning to the school.
• Scenario 3: Student is reclassified after July 1 before the next school year begins, and the student is no longer enrolled at the school, but is expected to re-enroll in the next school year.
• Scenario 4: Student is reclassified after July 1, the next school year has begun, and the student is enrolled in the same school that the student was enrolled in the prior school year.

Scenario where the student is reclassified by a different school in the next school year:

• Scenario 5: Student is reclassified after July 1, the next school year has begun, and the student is enrolled in a different school, and has no RFEP record.

The guidance for these scenarios is provided in Table 1.

Table 1

Guidance for Submitting RFEP Records to CALPADS

Assessing Students for English Language Acquisition Status During the Summer

Within 30 days of enrollment, local educational agencies (LEAs) are required to determine whether students new to California public schools are ELs by assessing them with the Initial ELPAC or the Initial Alternate ELPAC. LEAs that choose to assess incoming kindergarten students in the summer do so to balance workload and appropriately place and provide services to students identified as EL from the first day of school.

In order to assess students with the Initial ELPAC or the Initial Alternate ELPAC, students must have a CALPADS enrollment. This means that LEAs who choose to test students during the summer must “pre-enroll” students in CALPADS. In order to pre-enroll students in CALPADS, LEAs must submit the following files:

• A Student Enrollment (SENR) record with the student's actual start date (expected first day of school).
• A Student English Language Acquisition (SELA) record with:
  • English Language Acquisition Status (ELAS) of "TBD"
  • ELAS Start Date of the current date
• Primary language other than English or American Sign Language.
• A Student Information (SINF) record with the student's address, if the LEA wants the student address to be printed on the Student Score Report (SSR) to facilitate mailing the SSRs to parents/guardians.

Once students have completed the Initial ELPAC or Initial Alternate ELPAC, their determined ELAS status of EL or Initial Fluent English Proficient (IFEP) is sent from the test vendor on a nightly basis to CALPADS, and displays back in the Test Operations Management System (TOMS) within 48 hours.

The EL or IFEP status that results from the student taking the Initial ELPAC or Initial Alternate ELPAC will display for individual students in the student English Learner container in CALPADS. LEAs are also able to view student EL or IFEP statuses in TOMS. To facilitate updating local systems with the new statuses, LEAs can utilize the CALPADS SELA Operational Data Store (ODS) Extract. Students with an ELAS of EL will also be able to access the Summative ELPAC or the Summative Alternate ELPAC when it is time to take that test.

LEAs are reminded that they are not able to submit an ELAS of EL or IFEP to CALPADS, except in conjunction with an appropriate Correction Reason Code through the online maintenance functionality in CALPADS.

Benefits of Summer Testing

LEAs that pre-enroll students in order to assess them in the summer with the Initial ELPAC or Initial Alternate ELPAC are able to place them appropriately based on their ELAS from the first day of school. Not only does this benefit students, but it supports the efforts of all LEAs to begin serving EL students from the first day of school. While it is an increase in workload to exit pre-enrolled students who do not enroll at the LEA where they took the Initial ELPAC or Initial Alternate ELPAC, these students generally enroll in other LEAs who will have access to their ELAS in CALPADS and results in TOMS. Therefore, LEAs support each other by assessing eligible students only once during the summer.