A Practical Home for the Work Behind California’s Student Data
Move from the task in front of you—an error, report, submission, certification question, or data-quality concern—to the guidance, professional standards, systems, and peer expertise that can help.
Prototype purpose: This page explores how CALPADS resources might connect with Teacher Standards, Leader Standards, district workflows, and software systems. The standards connections below are SDLA’s interpretive crosswalk; they are not additional CALPADS requirements or official state guidance.
Start with the work in front of you
Organize the hub around the coordinator’s immediate need rather than the structure of a state manual.
Resolve an error
Find the error, understand the rule, identify the responsible source system, and document the correction.
Find a report
Choose the report that answers the operational question and understand what its counts actually represent.
Prepare a submission
Connect record types, local data owners, source-system checks, upload sequencing, and remediation.
Certify with confidence
Review anomalies, reconcile local totals, obtain program-owner approval, and preserve evidence of review.
Work by reporting cycle
Fall 1
Enrollment, demographics, language status, and student programs.
- SENR: Student Enrollment
- SINF: Student Information
- SPRG: Student Programs
- SELA: English Language Status
Fall 2
Staff, assignments, courses, sections, and student course data.
- SDEM: Staff Demographics
- SASS: Staff Assignments
- CRSE: Course Section
- SCSE: Student Course Section
End of Year
Discipline, career technical education, waivers, programs, exits, and year-end certification.
- SCTE: Career Technical Education
- SDIS: Student Discipline
- SWAV: Student Waivers
- EOY 1–4: Certification review
Where CALPADS work meets professional standards
CALPADS responsibilities are often treated as isolated technical compliance work. These examples show how the same work can support broader expectations for instructional leadership, assessment, data governance, confidentiality, and professional responsibility.
Collecting and analyzing assessment data
Teachers collect and analyze assessment data from a variety of sources to inform instruction.
Potential CALPADS connection: Treat statewide data as one source within a larger evidence system, reconcile it against local systems, and avoid drawing instructional conclusions from a single count or report.
Reviewing data with colleagues
Teachers review data, both individually and with colleagues, to monitor student learning.
Potential CALPADS connection: Certification should include program owners and instructional leaders who understand the students, definitions, and local practices behind reported totals.
Define purposes and working agreements for data
Leaders define clear purposes, goals, and working agreements for collecting and sharing information about professional practice and student outcomes.
Potential CALPADS connection: Document who owns each field, who corrects the source record, who reviews anomalies, and who authorizes certification.
Apply tools and technology to organize and analyze data
Leaders apply a variety of tools and technology to gather feedback, organize and analyze multiple data sources, and monitor student progress.
Potential CALPADS connection: Connect SIS, assessment, program, HR, special education, and reporting tools so validation occurs before data reaches the state submission process.
Manage confidential records
Leaders manage legal and contractual agreements and the storage of confidential paper and electronic records to ensure student security and confidentiality.
Potential CALPADS connection: Apply least-privilege access, approved transfer methods, retention rules, and documented handling procedures to exports and locally stored working files.
Protect confidentiality
Leaders protect the rights and appropriate confidentiality of students, staff, and families.
Potential CALPADS connection: Make privacy, appropriate disclosure, secure collaboration, and the minimum necessary use of identifiable data visible parts of the reporting workflow.
A possible integration model
Professional expectation
Begin with the Teacher or Leader Standard and the educational purpose behind the work.
Local workflow
Identify the data owner, source record, validation step, approval authority, and evidence of review.
System capability
Determine which SIS, assessment, HR, program, integration, or reporting capability supports the workflow.
Products and peers
Show relevant JReviews products and districts using comparable systems so practitioners can share solutions.
Questions for the next design iteration
- Should visitors enter primarily through an immediate task, a reporting cycle, a report, or a professional responsibility?
- Which standards connections are strong enough to display automatically, and which require editorial review?
- Should related product categories appear on every resource page or only where a system capability is directly implicated?
- How should SDLA distinguish official state requirements from local practice recommendations and community-developed solutions?
- Can districts contribute workflow examples without exposing student information, security details, or locally sensitive weaknesses?