Summer 2009 Education Data News

Newsletter Highlights

• CALPADS Countdown
• 2009-10 Submission Dates
• Final Preparation for CALPADS Transition
• Direct Certification for Free Meals
• Meeting Data Requirements - Key to Future of Education Programs
• Funding Opportunities
• Free Resources for Improving Data
• Data Privacy & Security Resources

CALPADS Countdown

By Paula Mishima, Special Project Administrator, California Department of Education (CDE)

The California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System (CALPADS) is still on target to go live late August, 2009.

CALPADS enrollment and fall submission functionality are currently being tested by the local educational agencies (LEAs) participating in the CALPADS User Acceptance Testing (UAT). The CALPADS vendor, IBM, is working around the clock to address identified issues and to ready the system for statewide rollout.

July 31 is the Last Day to Get SSIDs Through CSIS

Under the current schedule, LEAs will be able to acquire and maintain Statewide Student Identifiers (SSIDs) through July 31, 2009. After that date, LEAs will not be able to acquire or maintain SSIDs until CALPADS opens in late August. LEAs should therefore attempt to complete as much SSID work as possible by July 31 in order to minimize the work required when CALPADS goes live.

CALPADS Training

Training on CALPADS will begin late July or early August. The CALPADS training consists of a total of four modules, 2-3 hours each, that will be offered numerous times through the fall. Please make plans to have the appropriate staff from your LEA start the training in July or early August and complete the series of training sessions by the end of September.

The majority of the training will be delivered online through WebEx, which requires no travel costs for the LEA. There will also be self-paced training modules available. A limited number of hands-on training sessions will be offered in different locations of the state for LEAs requiring such training.

A total of two persons per LEA and independently reporting charter school may register for the complete set of CALPADS training modules covering all functions. Attending the WebEx training sessions provides LEAs the opportunity to have additional staff attend the scheduled WebEx training session thereby increasing the total number of LEA personnel receiving the CALPADS training.

LEAs must register for the CALPADS trainings through the CSIS training site beginning in mid-July. A message will be sent out on the CALPADS-LEA Listserv when the registration site is available with CALPADS training offerings.

Designating an LEA CALPADS Administrator

In early July the CDE e-mailed a letter and the LEA CALPADS Administrator application to all local superintendents and independently reporting charter school administrators asking them to designate an LEA CALPADS Administrator and to return the application promptly. The LEA CALPADS Administrator, in many cases, will be the LEA’s current CSIS Coordinator. The LEA CALPADS Administrator will be responsible for assigning the appropriate CALPADS access to local LEA users. The LEA CALPADS Administrator must be designated and the completed CALPADS LEA Administrator application submitted to the CDE for the LEA to receive the CALPADS LEA Administrator account and access to the CALPADS environment. The LEA CALPADS Administrator should have his or her account by mid-August 2009, prior to when CALPADS goes live in late August.

CALPADS Documentation

The following CALPADS documents are available in final or draft versions on the CDE CALPADS Web page.

• CALPADS File Specifications (CFS)
• CALPADS Code Sets
• CALPADS SSID and Enrollment Procedures (draft)

If not done already, LEAs should review these documents to gain an understanding of how data should be submitted to CALPADS. The CFS provides a full description of the CALPADS data submission files, including all the data elements that will be required for submission and information about when each file is to be submitted. In addition, the CFS describes the available data extracts and download file formats available from CALPADS to support the data submission processes at your local site. Some of the procedures related to SSIDs will be different under CALPADS than under the CSIS system, so be sure to review the CALPADS Enrollment Procedures document.

Additional documentation coming by late July are:

• CALPADS User Manual
• CALPADS Submission Guide

The CALPADS User Manual is the “how to” manual for the CALPADS environment. It provides specific instructions on how to acquire SSIDs, how to submit data, how to review reports, etc. The CALPADS Submission Guide supports the CALPADS administrator and other staff who will be using the CALPADS system. It will also be useful for program staff and data stewards, those responsible for data in specific subjects or programs in the LEA. This guide describes:

• The data LEAs must maintain locally for submission to CALPADS
• When the data should be available in local systems
• When the data is required for submission to CALPADS
• What reports must be certified by LEAs
• How the data in CALPADS is used to create state and federal reports
• What state and federal reports are being created from CALPADS data

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2009-10 Submission Dates

By Paula Mishima, Special Project Administrator, CDE

LEAs will submit data to CALPADS on an ongoing basis. During snapshot collection windows, however, CALPADS will take a “snapshot” of the data in CALPADS and provide a certification report for the LEA to review and certify. After reviewing the reports, LEAs may update their data until the data is ready to certify. LEAs will be required to certify these reports by the certification deadlines. After certifying their reports, LEAs will have a window of time during which they can amend the data and recertify their reports. The 2009-10 CALPADS certification deadlines are similar to those in the prior year for the SSID Annual Maintenance Submission, CBEDS, and Language Census collections.

There are three primary snapshot collection windows for CALPADS: Fall, Spring, and End of Year (EOY). Within each window there are separate data that must be certified. Fall 1 is similar to the previous SSID Annual Maintenance Update and parts of the CBEDS Student Information Form (SIF) collections; Fall 2 is similar to the CBEDS Professional Assignment Information Form (PAIF) and additional parts of the SIF student collections. Different from past years, LEAs will be able to certify their enrollment/graduate/dropout submission (Fall 1) separately from their student enrollment and teacher assignment submission (Fall 2). The aggregate non-student CBEDS data are now collected through the Online Public Update for Schools (OPUS) internet application. The SSID Annual Maintenance collection through CSIS is discontinued.

It should also be noted that in recognition of the budgetary constraints LEAs face this year, State Superintendent of Public Instruction O’Connell has made the End of Year (EOY) collections in CALPADS optional for 2009-10. The functionality, however, will be available in CALPADS for those LEAs wishing to use it.

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Final Preparation for CALPADS Transition

By Nancy Sullivan, Special Projects Administrator, CSIS

CALPADS will be available for LEA use in late August and the CSIS State Reporting and Records Transfer System (SRRTS) will no longer be available for assignment and maintenance of SSIDs after July 31, 2009. Specific steps you can take to facilitate your transition to CALPADS are:

Preparing your organization:

1. Create an LEA schedule for the CALPADS transition that details all tasks to be completed prior to the CALPADS go live date and identify the staff responsible for each task. Use this schedule to guide your work and review it regularly to ensure you are on track for CALPADS implementation.

2. Ensure your superintendent designates the appropriate person to serve as your LEA CALPADS administrator by the end of July. A packet containing instructions on how to make this designation and a form to be returned to CDE will be sent to LEA superintendents in July. The LEA CALPADS administrator will be responsible for giving other staff members at your LEA access to CALPADS. The administrator should be someone who understands the importance of protecting the privacy of individual-level education data and can train others. State and federal laws regarding privacy protection are posted on the California Office of Privacy Protection Web page (Outside Source).

3. Go to the CSIS CALPADS Documents Web page (Outside Source) for the State Collections Being Transitioned to CALPADS tool. Use the State Collections Being Transitioned to CALPADS tool to determine which staff members will be impacted by CALPADS. If necessary, create or expand a local data management team to coordinate the preparation and submission of CALPADS data. Your local data management team should include
the central office and school site staff responsible for collecting, maintaining, and reporting the data that will be submitted to CALPADS. (The composition of local data management teams will vary, but often include the CSIS Coordinator, the CBEDS Coordinator, program managers, LEA/site administrators, and site staff).

4. Go to the CSIS CALPADS Documents Web page (Outside Source) and download the Gap Analysis tool appropriate for your LEA (versions are available for State Reporting LEAs, Extended Client Users, and other SSID-only LEAs). Have your data management team complete this tool and make specific plans to address any identified gaps.

5. Update your local enrollment and human resources forms to comply with the new federal requirements for collecting race and ethnicity information in the mandatory two question format. Visit the CSIS CALPADS Documents Web page (Outside Source) for additional information and resources and sample forms.

Preparing your Student Information System (SIS):

6. Coordinate with your student information system (SIS) vendor to develop a timeline for installing updates to your SIS so it is capable of generating CALPADS extracts by the end of August.

Attending trainings:

7. Ensure your LEA CALPADS administrator and other staff responsible for submitting data to CALPADS register for and attend CALPADS trainings. These trainings will begin the last week in July and will be provided at no cost. You may register for these trainings on the CSIS training registration site beginning in mid July.

8. Determine who needs to attend training on changes in your SIS and coordinate with your vendor to meet these training needs.

Updating data in SRRTS:

9. Resolve as many of your LEA’s anomalies and Locator Validation errors as possible prior to July 31.
The Locator Validation error reports are stored in LEA secure folders located on the Upload Files to CSIS Web page (Outside Source) [Note, the preceding Web addresses are no longer valid.]. The errors listed in the Locator Validation error reports are inaccuracies that will prevent data from being loaded into CALPADS (e.g. if an enrollment date that is prior to a student’s birth date). If these errors are not corrected, you will NOT be able to use the SSIDs involved in the errors in CALPADS and will be required to obtain new SSIDs for the impacted students.

10. Complete a Periodic Enrollment Update prior to July 31 to exit students who will not be with you next school year and to update records for students whose records are not current or complete. Doing so will allow you to focus on incoming students when CALPADS comes on line.

Updating data in CALPADS:

11. Allocate time in August and early September to reconcile your data in CALPADS and to obtain SSIDs for new students. Your data from the CSIS Locator Database is being converted and loaded into CALPADS. However, it is possible that errors in your data may prevent all of your data from being loaded into CALPADS.

The data conversion process will also result in some of your data being represented differently in CALPADS than in the CSIS Locator Database. For example, race and ethnicity data are being converted into the CALPADS format, with the Hispanic indicator in a separate field from race. Best practice will be to run reports in CALPADS in August or early September to reconcile your data. The reports can be used to determine if all of your students’ records have been loaded into CALPADS and if these records contain complete and correct data. Remember that although CALPADS is being designed to be easy to use, change takes time; staff need to have time to learn the new system, to reconcile the data, and to obtain the required SSIDs early in the school year.

SSIDs are needed in the fall for the CELDT and CAHSEE Pre-ID process, as well as the fall submission to report official enrollment counts, dropouts, and graduates.

Getting help:

12. Contact CSIS Support at support@csis.k12.ca.us if you have questions or need assistance in your preparations for CALPADS. We are here to help you make the transition as smooth as possible!

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Direct Certification for Free Meals

By Steve Smith, Education Administrator, CDE

Federal and State law requires that the state government provide an automated method of directly certifying students as eligible for free lunch under the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). Direct Certification means the student does not need to “apply” for NSLP eligibility, but instead is directly certified through an automated process. The CDE, the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS), and other state agency partners collaborated to design, develop, test, and implement a “pupil matching” system using state databases to meet the federal and state requirements. Data on Food stamps and CalWORKS participants in qualified public benefit programs will be matched against data on all public school pupils in California.

Two-Part Process

The process of matching pupil information against the State programs includes using the pupil’s address reported by the LEA. The address matching process uses a United States Postal Service database. Once the pupil’s address is validated, it is sent through the second part of the match process using the Food Stamps & CalWORKS databases to determine Direct Certification status. If the address is determined invalid in the USPS process the LEA must correct the pupil address information before a match can occur. In June 2009, CSIS began offering a new Address Validation service to help LEAs clean up their address information to improve the number of matches.

Pre-CALPADS vs. Post-CALPADS

The Direct Certification process has been conducted through the CSIS system and will continue to be run on a monthly basis through CSIS until October 2009. Beginning in October 2009, the process will be conducted through CALPADS. CALPADS is expected to provide the source data for the Direct Certification process as well as store certification status results. LEAs will no longer have to submit data files to participate in the Direct Certification process; the pupil data reported by LEAs to CALPADS will automatically serve as the Direct Certification match source data, thereby automating much of the data transmittal between agencies. The CSIS program will continue to play a role in the Direct Certification process by offering their new Address Validation service to those LEAs that would like address information cleaned up prior to submission to CALPADS, as well as by providing technical support on CALPADS.

Direct Certification Schedule

The CDE and CSIS have scheduled three more Direct Certification data matches prior to October 2009. The schedule for each direct certification match and the date by which LEAs must post addresses in DataGate is as follows:

• July 28, 2009 - Post addresses by July 27, 2009
• August 25, 2009 - Post addresses by August 24, 2009
• September 29, 2009 - Post addresses by September 28, 2009

Training & Registration

CSIS Direct Certification Training - The CSIS will be providing online and regional training on the CSIS Direct Certification process. All sessions will be held via WebEx. The Direct Certification training is intended for LEAs who have an SIS and are using DataGate. Extended Client Direct Certification is intended for LEAs who do not have an SIS and are using Extended Client DataGate.

We recommend that the CSIS Coordinator and a Food Services representative attend the training together. The person who submits Direct Certification data to CSIS, usually the CSIS Coordinator, is also required to have attended a Periodic Enrollment Update or Annual SSID Maintenance training.

CALPADS Direct Certification Training - The CALPADS project team will provide Direct Certification training as part of its CALPADS training modules.

To register for CSIS Direct Certification training sessions, visit the E-Learning Center Training Schedule and Registration Web page (Outside Source).

If you have questions or need assistance, please contact CSIS support at support@csis.k12.ca.us or 916-325-9210.

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Meeting Data Requirements – Key to the Future of Educational Programs

By Sonya Edwards, Education Administrator, CDE

It seems like the demand for data just keeps growing and growing. The government needs data to gauge whether program funding is making a difference. Yet the government faces a dilemma: How do we balance the gathering of sufficient data with the workload necessary to gather it, while keeping our primary focus – the delivery of education– free from undue burden? The key point to remember here is that the data being requested hold essential value at the federal level, and meeting these federal requirements for data means maintaining program funding rather than losing it.

The U.S. Department of Education (ED) requires that states submit their data via a number of reports. EDFacts – an initiative established for the purpose of federally-required data submission – provides an electronic system for states to submit their data. Visit the U.S. Department of Education EDFacts Web page (Outside Source) for more details on EDFacts.

One of the most comprehensive reports required by the ED is the Consolidated State Performance Report (CSPR), which each state must file annually with the ED. Part I of this report is due to the ED in November/December; Part II is due January/February. Visit the U.S. Department of Education Consolidated Reports Web page (Outside Source) for more details.

The Data Management Division is currently working with the Council of Chief State School Offices (CCSSO) in an effort to better understand the ED’s requirements for these data. Additionally, as we come to understand how various CDE program offices are using data, we will pass this information along to you. To the extent that the questions being asked are relevant at the school and district level, we hope you will be inspired to use the data to examine those questions.

Now that the ED has provided states with funding to develop longitudinal student information systems, the ED’s data requirements are growing and becoming more sophisticated. States are expected to submit data not only at the statewide level but also the district and school levels. In many cases, student counts are disaggregated in several dimensions. For example, counts of immigrant students are measured by EL status, program participation, and home language. The data gathered by the CDE to meet most of these requirements will come from the CALPADS. Until the state is able to meet these requirements, we are at risk of losing millions, and potentially billions of dollars in federal funding.

CDE is committed to minimizing the burden of reporting while maximizing the data quality and utility. CALPADS change control procedures are being built to ensure system stability and LEA participation in the impact analysis of collecting new CALPADS data, or changes to system functionality. In 2010-11, after CALPADS is in production, there are plans to continue the consolidation of data reporting beyond CBEDS, Language Census, Student National Origin Report (SNOR), and portions of the Consolidated Application.

Collecting these data may yield valuable information in the years to come and may give insight that will lead to great improvement in educational programs, ensuring a win-win outcome for everyone – most importantly, each and every generation of students for whom we strive to provide an excellent educational experience.

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Funding Opportunities

By Sonya Edwards, Education Administrator, CDE

There are two upcoming funding opportunities available to districts under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. The ED is expected to publish the Request for Proposal (RFP) for the Recovery Act's district focused competitive programs mid-to-late summer. The best place to monitor new information about the Department's implementation of the grant programs funded by the Recovery Act is the U.S. Department of Education American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Web page.

The funding opportunities for districts are the “What Works” innovation grants and the Teacher Incentive Funds Grant.

The "What Works" innovation grants, with approximately $650 million, offer districts the biggest funding opportunity. Per statute, the funds can be used for a variety of purposes including data systems. The focus of these grants is to help districts and consortia of schools scale up promising practices. Some examples of things districts might consider proposing include:

• A district with a school that has an innovative strategy for using data, might consider applying to take the strategy district-wide.
• A district with demonstrated success in a pilot project that uses data in an innovative way to improve teacher performance in several schools, the district might apply for funds to expand the project.
• A small district with a successful innovative classroom-level project, may apply for funds to scale the project up to the entire district.

The bottom line is the focus of the proposal needs to be on expanding something innovative that has proven successful.

The Teacher Incentive Funds Grant, with $200 million available, provides another funding opportunity. This grant is focused on professional compensation tied to student achievement. The program may change under the new administration at the ED, but districts can expect that some of the program elements or structure will be maintained by the new administration. Details on the program are available on the U.S. Department of Education Teacher Incentive Web page (Outside Source).

We encourage you to consider applying for funds to improve your data systems and data use.

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Free Resources For Improving Data

By Sonya Edwards, Education Administrator, CDE

The National Forum on Education Statistics develops free resources on a variety of issues that affect schools, school districts, and state education agencies. These resources are developed by district and state personnel who grapple with data issues on a daily basis. These publications can be found on the National Forum on Education Statistics Free Publications Web page (Outside Source). The two most recent publications are:

Every School Day Counts: The Forum Guide to Collecting and Using Attendance Data (Outside Source).

This guide suggests a taxonomy for standard attendance data. By using this taxonomy in the attendance reporting system, schools and school districts can have more accurate snapshots of attendance.

Education Data Model Version 1 (PK-12) (Outside Source).

The Education Data Model is a catalogue of the data used in PK-12 education and a description of the relationships among those data. It is designed to be used as a reference tool that can be used to:

• Facilitate the identification, merging, and matching of data across different systems;
• Provide similar descriptions across LEA systems, across LEAs, and from LEAs to the state and federal government; and
• Specify the content and structure of logical and physical data models.

Also, each year, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) hosts two conferences related to improving data and data systems. Information related to the 2009 Summer Forum and Data Conference is available on the National Center for Education Statistics Conferences Web page (Outside Source).

Another new resource from this forum is this new Standards and Guidelines Web page (Outside Source) for building using data systems.

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Data Privacy and Security Resources

By Steve Smith, Education Administrator, CDE and Michelle Magyar, Education Programs Consultant, CDE

As we approach the statewide rollout of the CALPADS this summer, LEAs and charter schools should review state and federal privacy laws and regulations regarding the protection of personally identifiable information from education records. While school and district staff are currently responsible for the protection of student data, and handle individual-level student data on a daily basis, for some LEAs the advent of CALPADS will be the first time individual student-level data will be managed in a local data system and reported to the state.

Local and state educational agency staff maintaining and reporting personally identifiable data should periodically review and maintain familiarity with state and federal privacy laws and local responsibilities.

The California Office of Privacy Protection maintains a Web page dedicated to privacy laws, including the 1977 state Information Practices Act (known as the IPA), and federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (also known as FERPA). The information is available on the California Office of Privacy Protection Web page (Outside Source).

Another helpful resource is provided by the U.S. Department of Education Family Policy Compliance Office (FPCO) (Outside Source). This Web page links to the final FERPA Regulations, dated December 9, 2008, as well as a useful Section-by-Section analysis of regulations. LEAs may want to consult with local legal offices for questions regarding interpretation of the new regulations.

Information about protecting student privacy and the confidentiality of student data that is stored in CALPADS will be added to all user system documentation. When reviewing these documents, we ask that you pay close attention to the information on protecting privacy, and ask that you spend some time reviewing and planning how your local practices will be implemented to ensure student data privacy.

As local and state educators, we all work daily to keep each student’s best interests in mind. The maintenance, re-porting, and use of individual student-level data brings both the promise of being able to evaluate educational pro-grams and strategies, but also brings the increased responsibility of protecting student data at non-aggregated levels.

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