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Newsletter Highlights

Annual SSID Maintenance Due

By Keric Ashley, Director, Data Management Division, CDE

For the first time, CDE is collecting official graduate and dropout counts via the Annual Statewide Student Identifier (SSID) Maintenance (or via the fall submission for local educational agencies (LEAs) participating in the California School Information Services (CSIS) State Reporting Program). The submission window for the Annual SSID Maintenance closed on December 10, 2007. By that date, your LEA should have done all of the following:

  1. submit all required data for all of your schools to the CSIS Program;
  2. generate and review the Enrollment Summary and Census reports; and
  3. certify the accuracy of the data.

Certification of the Annual SSID Maintenance submission by the deadline is critical for your LEA because the enrollment count will be used for official enrollment, graduation and dropout counts. The enrollment counts will be used to calculate funding for a number of categorical programs, including SSID maintenance funding. Therefore, failure to submit this data on time may jeopardize funding.

For more information on the Annual SSID Maintenance submission and the steps that LEAs need to take, please contact the CSIS Program at 916-325-9260 or by e-mail at support@csis.k12.ca.us.

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Changes to the Traditional SNOR for 2008

By Annette Liccardo, Consultant, CSIS-CALPADS Program Office, CDE

Coming this Spring is a new online reporting system for traditional Student National Origin Report (SNOR) reporting districts.

The SNOR online reporting system is an official filing and should be made by the local educational agency (LEA) superintendent or authorized designee. Please note if you are a California School Information Services (CSIS) State Reporting LEA (meaning that you submit ALL of your CBEDS, Language Census, and SNOR data through the CSIS Program), you do not submit SNOR data through this online system. Contact the CSIS program support desk at 916-325-9210 if you are not sure whether you are a CSIS State Reporting LEA.

Those LEAs that are NOT "CSIS State Reporting" participants are required to submit their SNOR data through this SNOR online reporting system. More information on this online system will be coming out shortly.

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Changes to the Language Census for 2008

By Karl Scheff, Manager, Educational Demographics Office, CDE

The Language Census data collection form has been updated to reflect the 2007-08 data collection and slight changes have been made to the form, instructions, and definitions in the glossary in order to clarify the data that is being collected. The updated forms are now posted on the Language Census Instructional Materials Web page.

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CSIS Best Practices Cohort: Don't Miss Your Opportunity to Participate

By Nancy Sullivan, Special Projects Administrator, The CSIS Program

There are 997 local educational agencies (LEAs) in California that are eligible to receive at least $15,000, and perhaps as much as $30,000, or $8.51/student in one-time funding to improve their local data management practices and prepare for the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System (CALPADS).

Is your LEA one of them? If so, have you joined the CSIS Best Practices (BP) Cohort Project yet?

To determine if you are eligible, visit the CSIS Local Projects (Outside Source) and click on the link for SSID-only LEAs.

If you are eligible, but not yet participating, below are the five top reasons to join now:

  1. Learn the scope of data that you will be required to submit to CALPADS when it is launched;
  2. Gain access to tools and resources developed by LEAs that are successfully managing their data;
  3. Gain access to needs assessments that help you identify the gap between where your LEA is now and where you need to be when CALPADS is launched;
  4. Receive funding, web-based training, and support from CSIS to move from where you are to where you need to be – both for CALPADS submissions and for leveraging data to inform local decisions; and
  5. Assure your LEA funding, as project funding is available on a first come, first serve basis; if you don’t join the project soon, you may miss the opportunity.

If you are eligible and interested in participating:

OR

  • To join now, visit the CSIS Best Practices (BP) Cohort Project (Outside Source) and select the link for the Letter of Intent for Those NOT Participating in a Question & Answer Session. Complete the letter of intent, have your superintendent or charter school administrator sign the assurances, and fax it to CSIS at the number included on the form. Participating LEAs say that the project is helping them improve their practices and better manage their data. Act today to ensure your LEA can join in the BP Cohort Project!

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Project OPUS: Preparation for CALPADS Continues

By Steve Smith, Consultant, CSIS-CALPADS Program office, CDE

The Online Public Update for Schools (OPUS) is a password protected web-based application that allows Local Educational Agencies (LEAs) to easily report aggregate data about schools and districts, some classified staff data, and schools and districts contact information on an ongoing basis. LEA and CDE experience has found that reporting non-student data bundled with the student-level data in existing data systems is problematic and that certain data are more efficiently reported at the aggregate level. In addition, OPUS will automate the current paper process of updating contact information for the Public Schools Directory. OPUS is being rolled out to LEAs in separate phases:

Phase I (January 2008) – Update CDS Database and Annual Update Sheet (AUS) process – On Schedule. These data include: contact information about site principals and district staff, physical location of facilities, grade span, open and closed dates, etc. These LEA data elements are displayed in the California Schools Directory Web page.

Phase II (October 2008) – Report classified staff and select institution data (previously in the CBEDS data collection) – On Schedule. These data include: aggregate counts of classified staff (currently in CBEDS), number of computers with internet access, school calendar, etc.

Authorized local staff that report CBEDS data and those that update the CDE when there are changes to assignments (principals, superintendents, etc.), locations of schools, or grade ranges served will use OPUS. For more information, please visit the OPUS Web page.

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Direct Certification Now Available

By Kari Sachs, Staff Information Systems Analyst, Nutrition Services Division
What is direct certification?

Direct Certification is the process through which school age participants in the Food Stamp and Cal-WORKS programs are automatically certified as eligible to receive free meals without further application. In 2005, Congress enacted a law that requires all local educational agencies (LEAs) participating in the National School Lunch program to implement a method of direct certification by July 1, 2008.

Assembly Bill 1385, authored by Assembly Member John Laird (D-Santa Cruz) in 2005, required the California Department of Education (CDE), California Department of Social Services (CDSS), California Department of Health Care Services (CDHCS), and California School Information Services (CSIS) to work together to develop a direct certification approach through a state-level automated matching system.

How does CDE’s direct certification process work?

LEAs interested in using the CDE’s automated system must extract student data from their local student information system (SIS) based on the CSIS requirements. Once the data are processed successfully at CSIS the data will be extracted by CSIS for the Food Stamp and CalWORKS data via a secure and confidential process. The matched results are returned to CSIS and the LEA is notified when the results are available for download. The LEA then downloads the list of students who are automatically identified as eligible to receive free meals without additional paperwork.

The CDE's Nutrition Services Division has been working closely with the other three agencies for more than a year to develop this process.

A pilot project that was conducted in August 2007 and about 30 school districts used the system successfully and reported that they were able to qualify more students for free meals through direct certification than if they had only tried to match their student eligibility list against their county welfare department's list. Participation in the direct certification process is free, as is the CSIS training. LEAs must attend the training to understand the submission requirements. Please note that LEAs may use the CDE system as their only strategy for meeting the direct certification requirement, or they may use the CDE system in addition to a system that they have in place with their local welfare department.

How can my district participate in the state level match?

The next state level match is planned for February 2008 and then another one in the summer of 2008. If your LEA is interested in participating in the next state level direct certification match process, Please register for CSIS Direct Certification training at:

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CALPADS Gets Final Approval

By Paula Mishima, Manager, CSISCALPADS Program Office, CDE

On November 20, 2007, the California Department of Education (CDE) received approval from the Department of Finance of the Special Project Report (SPR) for the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System (CALPADS). After a 30 day notification period to the Legislature, the CDE can execute the contract with the selected vendor, IBM, to build and implement CALPADS. The CDE anticipates the contract will be executed by the end of December, allowing the vendor to begin work on January 2, 2008.

In anticipation of the vendor’s arrival, the CDE has been collecting names of representatives from local educational agencies
(LEAs) who are interested in actively participating in CALPADS development. It is the CDE’s goal to develop a system that is useful to LEAs and easy to use. To do this, however, LEA participation is critical. Early in 2008, the Vendor, CDE, and CSIS will hold Joint Application Development (JAD) sessions, as were held in the development of the CALPADS Request for Proposal (RFP), to reconfirm the system’s functional requirements. We will need LEA representatives to participate in these sessions and in a smaller CALPADS Technical Advisory Group (CTAG). For the CTAG, the CDE would like to identify approximately 25 members who will participate in JAD sessions and review and comment on vendor deliverables, including design documents, user manuals, and user interfaces. The CDE is looking for CTAG members who represent LEAs from different regions, of different sizes, and using different student information systems. If you would like more information, or if you are interested in participating in JAD sessions, or on the CTAG, please contact Randy Bonnell at rbonnell@cde.ca.gov.

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Spring Planting of the SEIDS Still in the Forecast

By Paula Mishima, Manager, CSISCALPADS Program Office

The foundation of the California Longitudinal Teacher Integrated Data Education System (CALTIDES) will be the Statewide Educator Identifier (SEID) (pronounced “Seed”) required of all credentialed personnel working in California’s K-12 public schools. The Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC) will be disseminating SEIDs in March 2008 and local educational agencies (LEAs) will be required to report staff data on the CBEDS Professional Assignment Information Form (PAIF) using the SEID in the fall of 2008. A letter informing superintendents of this project and the work that will need to be done locally will be sent out in December 2007.

The SEID will be a 10-digit, non-identifiable, randomly generated number. The process currently used by many County Offices of Education (COE) to download credential information from CTC will be utilized. COEs will provide CTC with a list of currently employed educators and CTC will return the list with assigned SEIDs. COEs will then be required to pass the SEIDs down to their LEAs, and LEAs in turn must populate the SEIDs in their local human resources and student information systems. The SEIDs will also be available on the secured CTC credential search Web site. Once the SEID is being used by COEs and LEAs in state reporting, the CDE will be able to relieve LEAs from reporting the teacher credential information provided annually on the PAIF.

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U.S. Department of Education Issues Final Guidance on Race and Ethnicity Data

By Marsha Devine, Consultant, Education Data Office, CDE

On October 19, 2007, the United State Department of Education (ED) published its final guidance to states on maintaining, collecting, and reporting race and ethnicity data. Changes in how race and ethnicity data are collected and maintained will affect schools and districts. Key requirements of the final guidance are as follows:

A two-part question is now required to collect race and ethnicity information from students and staff.
  • The first question is whether or not the respondent is Hispanic or Latino.
  • The second question asks the respondent to select one or more races from the following five groups:
    1. American Indian or Alaska Native
    2. Asian
    3. Black or African American
    4. Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander
    5. White

Respondents may select more than one race from the above categories.

Race and ethnicity data will be aggregated and reported using the following seven categories:

  1. Hispanic or Latino of any race; and, for individuals who are non-Hispanic/Latino only,
  2. American Indian or Alaska Native
  3. Asian
  4. Black or African American
  5. Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander
  6. White, and
  7. Two or more races

There will be no category for “Race and/or ethnicity unknown” or “Decline to state” for reports from elementary and secondary institutions or State Educational Agencies. This means that if a respondent—typically a parent or guardian—does not self-identify, third party observers must identify the race/ ethnicity of the student.

Re-identification of race/ethnicity using the final guidance is not mandatory, but is “encouraged” by the ED. However, educational institutions are required to provide students and staff who enter an educational institution or program on or after the implementation deadline the opportunity to re-identify.

Schools and districts must begin collecting race and ethnicity data according to the final guidance beginning in the fall of 2010.

Original individual documents supporting the reporting of the race/ethnicity data should be retained for a minimum of three years.

Discussion and Next Steps: The federal guidance addresses several other issues related to collecting and reporting race and ethnicity data. For example, states will continue to have discretion in designating which are “major racial groups” for determining adequate yearly progress for No Child Left Behind reporting. The CDE’s race/ethnicity categories also will continue to include the detailed Asian sub-categories as required by Government Code Section 8310.5.

The guidance asserts that civil rights enforcement and research will be minimally affected by the requirement to aggregate multiple individual race designations into one category—two or more races— because original records showing single-race designations will continue to be available for a minimum of three years.

At a later date, the ED will provide instructions that educational institutions can use on data collection forms. The California Department of Education (CDE) will disseminate these federal instructions, which are intended to eliminate confusion and encourage respondents to answer both questions, as soon as they are made available. The CDE surveyed state-level data coordinators and local education agencies (LEAs) in 2005 and 2006 on the impact these changes would have on data collection, data processing, and reporting. The results showed that the impact could be considerable, particularly on the state’s assessment system and on school information systems if they need to be modified to support collecting and reporting more than one race.

The CDE will strive to minimize the data collection and reporting burden on districts and schools, primarily by proposing to make these changes as part of the CALPADS implementation.

The CDE is soliciting comments from LEAs on the final guidance. We are especially interested in hearing about local solutions that could be helpful to LEAs needing to change data collection and reporting practices to comply with the final federal requirements. Please send your comments with the subject line “Race Ethnicity Federal Guidance” to calpads@ cde.ca.gov.

For more information, access the Final Guidance (Outside Source), published in the Federal Register, Vol. 72, No. 202, Friday, October 19, 2007, (59265-59279).

Race and Ethnicity Definitions

  • Hispanic or Latino: A person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race.
  • American Indian or Alaska Native: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America), and who maintains a tribal affiliation or community attachment.
  • Asian: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam.
  • Black or African American: A person having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa.
  • Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands.
  • White: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa.

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California Co-hosts 21st Annual Management Information Systems conference

By Sonya Edwards, Manager, Education Data Office, CDE

On February 27-29, 2008, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) will be holding its NCES 21st Annual Management Information Systems Conference, 2008 in Burlingame, California. The California Department of Education will be co-hosting the conference. This year, the MIS Conference will offer more than 80 presentations, demonstrations, and workshops conducted by practitioners from K-12 information systems. See what other state departments and districts in other states are doing as well as stay updated on what's happening with California's system development. Please visit the Institute of Education Sciences (Outside Source) for more details on the Conference.

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New Statutory Requirement to Report Interdistrict Transfers

By Sonya Edwards, Manager, Education Data Office, CDE

Recently enacted trailer-bill legislation, SB 80, amends Education Code Section 48313, requiring that school districts report data on inter-district transfers to the California Department of Education (CDE) and requires the department to evaluate the programs and report to the Legislature.

Specifically, it requires each school district electing to accept transfer pupils to keep an account of all requests made for alternative attendance and records of all disposition of those requests that may include, but are not to be limited to, all of the following:

  1. The number of requests granted, denied, or withdrawn. In the case of denied requests, the records may indicate the reasons for the denials;
  2. The number of pupils transferred out of the district pursuant to this article; and
  3. The number of pupils transferred into the district pursuant to this article.

Additionally, SB 80 requires LEAs to report to the CDE the information listed above, and the district’s status as a school district of choice. Commencing in 2008, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction must annually report the information to the Governor, the Legislature, and the public on or before April 1.

Finally, SB 80 adds a statewide evaluation of the various interdistrict transfer programs available in California (including the District of Choice program), to be completed “on or before November 1, 2008.” This evaluation is intended to be far-reaching and comprehensive. Required elements of this evaluation include the number and characteristics of pupils who use one of the various interdistrict transfer options, and for school districts of residence and school districts of choice, the previous five years of Academic Performance Index scores, including subgroup scores and graduation rates.

Although many of these data are available within the CDE, the department does not have the data that would allow it to identify school of residence, school of attendance, or which interdistrict transfer program is being used.

Therefore, additional data collection is required. The CDE recognizes and has voiced concern over the very short time line for implementation. However, the CDE must implement the law and is actively exploring data collection strategies to gather the missing information in a manner that minimizes the reporting burden on school districts.

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Questions:  Meredith Babcock | mbabcock@cde.ca.gov | 916-327-7367
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