Are students enrolled in Home/Hospital, Non-Public Schools (NPS) or Private Schools required to have attendance data submitted to CALPADS?
CALPADS will expect STAS data for all students in grades TK-12 who have primary or short-term enrollments. Some exceptions apply.
- Students receiving Home/Hospital instruction are exempt. For exempt students, districts must submit "Y" in the Attendance Data Collection Exemption Indicator, see CALPADS STAS File - Other Options.
- Students enrolled in a Non-Public School (School of Attendance = 0000001) or Private School Group (School of Attendance = 0000002) are no longer required by CALPADS as of September 2024.
Why am I getting STAS0318 errors on most of my students?
It may have to do with how absence codes relating to Distance Learning are coded. The original recommendation was to use Independent Study Complete/Incomplete for absences related to Distance learning, but this was quickly changed to NOT tag those absences with Independent Study Indicators. However, if the school did not alter their ABS codes to remove those IS indicators, days will be duplicated and totals wrong in the STAS file. Adjust the Absence Codes Configuration at each school to make sure there are NO Independent Study indicators on them, and re-run the Update Attendance History process. This will correct the totals for the STAS Extract.
When to use the STAS exemption indicator?
LEAs may indicate a student is exempt from having student absence summary data submitted when attendance is not collected for that student. The following list are scenarios in which a student may be exempt from the student absence summary data collection per CALPADS:
- The student receives instruction through a home or hospital instructional setting as authorized by Education Code section 48206.3-48208.
- The student has a primary enrollment in your school/district but is attending community college full-time.
- The student is enrolled in your school/district for a single day for purposes of reporting a summer graduate.
How are Suspension Days Reported in the STAS file? ↑
The following addresses how suspensions are extracted for CALPADS reporting:
- Only Suspensions that are full day suspensions will be reported in the Attendance (STAS) file.
- Partial Day (ex .50 day) suspensions do not need to be reported. Even if partial day suspensions are reported in the Student Incident Results (SIRS) file, they will not be reported in the Attendance (STAS) file.
- CALPADS validates the number of suspended days for a student in the Attendance (STAS) file with the number of suspended days in the Student Incident Results (SIRS) file.
- CALPADS does not validate the number of suspended days for a student in the Student Incident Results (SIRS) file with the number of suspended days in the Attendance (STAS) file.
- If you report a suspension in the Student Incident Results (SIRS) file, there is no validation that there must be a suspension entry in the Attendance (STAS) file.
- Partial Suspensions for more than 1 day (ex. 2.50 days) will be reported in the Attendance (STAS) file as 2 days. The Attendance (STAS) files and Student Incident Results (SIRS) files do not have to have matching suspension days for students.
Are Home/Hospital Students reported in the STAS file? ↑
The CALPADS STAS extract analyzes student program enrollment (STU.SP) and reports the program which represents the majority of a student's enrollment. The Home/Hospital program code in STU.SP needs to be cross-referenced on the CALPADS Extracts/Other Options Form.
- If a student was in Home/Hospital the majority of the school year, the CALPADS STAS extract will report the Home/Hospital enrollment with the exemption indicator.
- If a student was in regular education the majority of the school year, the CALPADS STAS extract will report the regular enrollment.
See: EOY3 CALPADS STAS File - Other Options
Procedures to report Exempt Students in the STAS after Regular School Closure ↑
CALPADS Flash 178 indicates that an Exempt STAS record needs to be submitted for any student who enrolled between the Last Day of Regular Attendance and the scheduled end of the school year. As previously directed by the CDE, Districts should be enrolling these students through the end of the school year, even if they will not physically attend school.
Since these students will already have SENR, SINF, and other pertinent records in CALPADS, a fatal error will trigger for enrolled students who do not have a STAS record, unless the exemption indicator is populated.
Here's the recommended procedure to make sure that Aeries handles these students correctly.
First, ensure there is a Program code (STU.SP) that can be considered “Exempt from STAS.” This may be an existing code or a newly added code on the Update Code Table screen.
Next, this code should be selected in the STU.SP values for STAS Exempt on the CALPADS Other Options tab.
Finally, for each student enrolling as a new student in a school (this includes students new to the district and students transferring within the district) after the date populated in the Last Day Of Regular Attendance on the District Settings/School Information page:
1. Change the student’s Program to the Exemption Code
2. When asked to change the Next Program, select Cancel. - This will allow the student to roll to next year with their correct program set in new year
3. Update Attendance as normal
PLEASE NOTE: If the student was already enrolled in Attendance, there will be a warning about the Program Code does not match current enrollment record. In this case, as long as the Attendance Enrollment Date is after the Last Day of Regular Attendance, you only need to edit the existing line of enrollment to match the program code.
4. Add Classes as normal, if needed