SARC Preparation Guide for Public Schools

For the purposes of the SARC program, a local educational agency (LEA) is a school district or a county office of education or a direct funded charter school or a nonpublic nonsectarian school.

The California Department of Education (CDE) has developed the new myCDEconnect unified system for the convenience of the local educational agencies (LEAs) to manage multiple program reports all in one location. In the myCDEconnect system LEAs can register for one or more programs, work on their program reports in one location, and do all of this through one login user account.

The various programs will be installed in the myCDEconnect system one at a time. Currently, the programs available in the myCDEconnect unified system are the School Accountability Report Card (SARC) and the California School Dashboard (CA Dashboard). During 2024, the Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) eTemplate program will be incorporated into the unified system.

Register for a SARC User Account

Main Authorizers

For the SARC program, the Main Authorizers are the persons listed on the California School Directory in the categories of County Superintendent, District Superintendent, Direct Funded Charter (DFC) School Administrator, and Nonpublic Nonsectarian (NPS) School Administrator.

Main Authorizers do not register. The myCDEconnect system automatically registers them into the system and sends an email from noreply@mycdeconnect.org to their email address, as listed on the California School Directory, with their username and temporary password.

For new Main Authorizers, when the California School Directory is updated and a new Main Authorizer’s name and email address are displayed on the California School Directory, the system will automatically register that updated new Main Authorizer into the system within 24 to 48 hours and send an email with username and temporary password. The system will also automatically inactivate the user account of the previously listed Main Authorizer.

Main Authorizers receive the email registration requests for the approval/denial process from those registering to be a Coordinator and those registering to be an Alternate Authorizer for their LEA.

These user accounts provide the Main Authorizers with the capability to delete the user accounts of the Alternate Authorizer and Coordinators of their LEA, as needed. They also provide them with the capability to access all programs in the myCDEconnect system; and to input, edit, save, and post the reports of all programs in the system for all the schools in their LEA.

Coordinators

A SARC Coordinator may be an employee of the LEA or a third-party vendor contracted with the LEA that has been designated to prepare and process the LEA’s SARC reports on the myCDEconnect unified system.

How to register as a Coordinator:

• Step 1: Go to the myCDEconnect . In the top right menu select “Registration”.
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  Step 2: Select User Type button “Coordinator”; select the button “School Accountability Report Card (SARC)”; scroll to the bottom of the web page and select “Continue”
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  Step 3: Use the “Search for individual schools” if selecting one or more schools (including charter schools and NPS schools); type the name of the school, select the school; repeat until you have completed your list of schools; and/or
  
  Use the "Search for All Schools within a District” if selecting many or most of the schools in a district; type the name of the district; select the district, this will provide you with the full list of schools within that district (traditional schools and locally funded charter schools, appropriately). To remove any schools from this list, use the “x” at the end of each row; and/or
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• Use the “Search for a District” if registering to be a SARC Coordinator for a district; type in the name of the district; select the district.
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  Once you have your completed list of school(s)/district(s), scroll to the bottom of the web page, select “Continue”.
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  Step 4: Populate the requested registration information. All mandatory fields identified with an asterisk (*) must be completed in order to submit this form.
  
  
• Scroll to the bottom of the web page, select “Submit”.
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  Step 5: You have completed the registration process. You are advised to print this confirmation web page for your records.
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  Your registration request has been emailed to your Main Authorizer (and to the Alternate Authorizer, if designated).
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  If approved, you will receive an email from noreply@mycdeconnect.org with username and temporary password information. If denied, you will receive an email from noreply@mycdeconnect.org with denial notification.

Alternate Authorizers

An Alternate Authorizer must be an employee of the LEA, designated by the Main Authorizer of the LEA to act on behalf of the Main Authorizer in all required capacity for the programs on the myCDEconnect system.

The Alternate Authorizer will have all the same system responsibilities and capabilities as the Main Authorizer. Designating an Alternate Authorizer is an available option (not a requirement) for the convenience of the Main Authorizer, with a limit of 1 Alternate Authorizer per LEA.

The system will send all the same Coordinator registration request emails that are sent to their Main Authorizer to the Alternate Authorizer to enable them to also approve or decline Coordinator registration requests.

How to register as an Alternate Authorizer:

• Step 1: Go to the myCDEconnect . In the top right menu select “Registration”.
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  Step 2: Select User Type button “Alternate Authorizer”; scroll to the bottom of the web page and select “Continue”
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  Step 3: Type the name of the district or DFC school; select the district or DFC school, appropriately.
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  Scroll to the bottom of the web page, select “Continue”.
• 
  Step 4: Populate the requested registration information. All mandatory fields identified with an asterisk (*) must be completed in order to submit this form.
• 
  Scroll to the bottom of the web page and select “Submit”.
• 
  Step 5: You have completed the registration process. You are advised to print this confirmation web page for your records.
• 
  Your registration request has been emailed to your Main Authorizer.
• 
  If approved, you will receive an email from noreply@mycdeconnect.org with username and temporary password information. If denied, you will receive an email from noreply@mycdeconnect.org with denial notification.

Note for All Users: If the email from noreply@mycdeconnect.org was not received in your regular email inbox, you may need to check your junk mail or have the SPAM email filter reviewed to check for any messages from noreply@mycdeconnect.org. If it is not in either of those inboxes, then please communicate with your technology person to ensure that your system will allow receipt of emails from noreply@mycdeconnect.org. Your technology person may need to “whitelist” this email address so your system will allow receipt of emails from noreply@mycdeconnect.org. To“Whitelist”: (1) use the IP Address: 149.72.170.114, 149.72.254.73 and (2) add to the SPF record: noreply@mycdeconnect.org.

Note for All Authorizers Users (i.e., Main Authorizers, registered/approved Alternate Authorizers, and registered/approved Coordinators): when using the “Reset Password” link or the “Forgot Password” link, the email address, temporary password, and newly created password must be hand-typed in with no space before or after, is case sensitive, and must not be copy/paste in. The system will not acknowledge any of this information that is copy/paste in.

Become Familiar with the SARC Web Pages

Read and become familiar with the content found on the CDE SARC web page. In particular, the following links will provide valuable background information and will answer most of the questions you may have as you are completing the SARC:

• Blank 2022–23 SARC Template (DOCX)
• 2022–23 Data Element Definitions (DOCX)
• SARC Frequently Asked Questions
• SARC Legislation
• Williams Settlement and the SARC

Prepare the SARC

There are two methods available for schools/LEAs to submit their SARCs to the CDE: (1) use the online partially pre-populated electronic SARC template available on the SARC Web Application located in the myCDEconnect system to complete and post the SARC or (2) upload an accurate uniform resource locator (URL) of the website address to where the SARC has been posted on the school/LEA website. The CDE does not accept SARC reports via email as attachments or as links. The online SARC Web Application system located in the myCDEconnect serves as the mechanism for each school/LEA to provide the CDE with its completed SARC. A username and password are required to access the SARC Web Application system.

The electronic 2022–23 SARC template is available on the online SARC Web Application and is partially pre-populated using the data that the public schools/LEAs submitted to the CDE during the school year. The electronic SARC template is designed to enable schools/LEAs to modify the pre-populated data (with the exception of the teacher data and the state data); input the remaining data; and provides the schools/LEAs the flexibility to upload a photo of the school's principal and a custom principal's message. Additionally, using the electronic SARC template provides graphical displays of some of the data shown on the SARC, and provides real-time translation of the information provided on the SARC in over 70 languages using the Google Translate feature.

In the electronic SARC template, for any table that does not apply to your school based on grade-level, you may select the checkbox "Do not display this table to the public" located at the top of each electronic table, then select the "Save" button, this will restrict this table from public view in the posted SARC. For example, an elementary school with grades kindergarten through grade six does not need to complete the table Graduation Rate by Student Group, as it pertains to high school grades nine through twelve. Therefore, the table Graduation Rate by Student Group may be restricted from public view in the posted SARC.

For schools/LEAs that are not interested in using the electronic 2022–23 SARC template, the CDE has also provided a blank 2022–23 SARC template in Word available on the CDE SARC web page.

The blank SARC template in Word has the letters DPC (data provided by CDE) in tables and cells to specify the data elements CDE intends to pre-populate in the electronic SARC template and will provide in downloadable data files on the CDE SARC web page; and has the letters DPL (data provided by the LEA) in tables and cells to specify the data elements that remain for the schools/LEAs to populate.

However, if for any reason, data was not uploaded into a table/cells of the electronic SARC template that have the letters DPC shown in the blank SARC template, the school/LEA is still required to populate the table/cells. While the CDE provides data where data are available, the schools/LEAs are ultimately responsible for the completion of their entire SARCs and for the accuracy of all data in their SARCs.

Post the SARC

The intention of the CDE Find a SARC web page is to make SARCs easily available for parents, guardians, and community members. After SARCs are locally prepared and approved by the school's local governing board, LEAs must submit their SARCs to the CDE via the SARC Web Application system located in the myCDEconnect. The schools/LEAs with access to the Internet must make their current SARCs available through the Internet. The CDE recommends that schools/LEAs also post their SARCs on each school's and/or district's website.

Notify the Parents

Notify parents about the purpose and availability of the school's SARC. Provide instructions about how the SARC can be obtained both through the Internet and on paper (upon request). The CDE recommends that schools have copies of their SARC available in the school office and at public forums, such as parent information events.