Definition of Continuous Enrollment

California Code of Regulations, Title 5, sections 1039.2 and 1039.3, relating to the implementation of California Education Code (EC) Section 52052.1(a)(1) defines continuous enrollment as a "student enrollment from Fall Census Day (first Wednesday in October) to the first day of testing without a gap in enrollment of more than 30 consecutive calendar days."

These regulations may be found on the Office of Administrative Law Web site .

Accountability Reporting for 2015

For the 2015 accountability cycle, the California Department of Education (CDE) produced Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) reports for all schools and local educational agencies (LEAs). The assessments used to calculate the participation rate were the Smarter Balanced Summative Assessments and the California Alternate Assessments (CAA) Field Test for grades three through eight and/or eleven.

The percent proficient was calculated using only the Smarter Balanced Assessment results. (Note: Because the CAA Field Test did not yield any test results, this assessment was not included in the percent proficient calculation.) Before a student's assessment results can be considered for inclusion in a school's or LEA's AYP percent proficient, the student must be "continuously enrolled" in the school or LEA.

The Smarter Balanced Summative Assessments is comprised of four tests:

1. English language arts/literacy (ELA) computer adaptive test (CAT),
2. ELA performance task (PT),
3. Mathematics CAT, and
4. Mathematics PT

Based on the information in the data file from the testing vendor, each test identified above had a "test completion date" which was used as the "first day of testing" to determine if a student was continuously enrolled for each test. This document further details the business rules used by the CDE to make continuous enrollment determinations using enrollment and exit data reported by LEAs to the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System Operational Data Store (CALPADS ODS).

Please note that the State Board of Education has approved the State Superintendent of Public Instruction's recommendation to not calculate the 2014 and 2015 Growth and Base Academic Performance Index (API) Reports given the current work on the development of a new accountability system.

Business Rules and Definitions

1. CALPADS Enrollment and Exit Data: To process continuous enrollment for the four Smarter Balanced Summative Assessment tests, enrollment and exit records were extracted from the CALPADS ODS on July 15, 2015. Every record contained an enrollment start and end (exit) date. A null exit date indicates the student is still enrolled, and, for programming purposes, is converted to the last date of the academic year (i.e., 6/30/2015).
   
   
2. Fall Census Day: The fall census day is the first Wednesday in October of the processing year. For the 2015 AYP, the fall census date is October 7, 2014.
   
   
3. Test Dates and Test Types: Since Smarter Balanced Summative Assessments are comprised of four tests, ELA CAT, ELA PT, Math CAT, and Math PT, each Smarter Balanced Summative Assessment record can contain up to four test dates, four LEA (County District) codes, and four school codes indicating when and where the student completed the tests. If the test date is blank, then the test date is populated with the most common test date of the school where the test was taken.
   
   
4. Test Record: A test record includes data from the Smarter Balanced Summative Assessment data file, specifically: Statewide Student Identifier (SSID), test date, test type, county code, district code, school code for each test taken, and also the district of residence code.
   
   
5. Special County-District-School (CDS) Code Circumstances:
   
   
   1. Repeating school code or district code: Some CALPADS data and Smarter Balanced Summative Assessment data have the same code for both the county-district code and school code (i.e., 0123456-0123456). A repeating CDS code identifies one of two school scenarios, listed below:
      
      
      1. A repeating school code indicates an independently reporting charter school. For this scenario, the authorizing district code replaces the repeating school code.
         
         
      2. A repeating district code in the school field in either the test record or the CALPADS file indicates that the student is enrolled and receiving services from the district office and not from a school site. For records where the district code is repeated, the student is not processed for continuous enrollment at the school level.
      
      
   2. Merged Districts or other reorganizations: Schools that merged or had district reorganizations are placed in a lookup table to be used when comparing the CDS code from CALPADS to the CDS code on the test record. Merged districts and other reorganizations can be found on the CDE's District Reorganizations Web page.
      
      
   3. NPS schools (i.e., school code is "0000001"): NPS schools are schools that have a school code of '0000001'. These students are assigned back to the district of residence and are counted as continuously enrolled.
   
   
6. Gap of Enrollment:
   
   
   1. School 30-day gap: If a student has multiple enrollment records at the same school, then each enrollment record is examined to determine if an enrollment gap of more than 30 days (i.e., 31 days or more) occurred.

      Example 1: Multiple enrollment records at the same school

      SSID: 000002222	Start Date	Exit Date*
      Juneau High School:	8/30/14	10/30/14
      Juneau High School:	11/15/14	1/14/15
      Juneau High School:	2/15/15	3/3/15
      Juneau High School:	3/13/15	4/10/15
      Juneau High School:	4/15/15	6/27/15

      
      
      • Count the number of days between 10/30/14 to 11/15/14.
        * Since the Exit date reflects the last day the student was enrolled, the actual count is 10/31 to 11/14, which is 15 days 
        
        
      • Count the number of days between 1/14/15 to 2/15/15 (1/15 to 2/14) = 30 days
        
        
      • Count the number of days between 3/3/15 to 3/13/15 (3/4 to 3/12) = 9 days 
        
        
      • Count the number of days between 4/10/15 to 4/15/15 (4/11 to 4/14) = 4 days
        
        

        In this example, each gap is examined to determine if a gap of more than 30 consecutive calendar days occurred. If at least one gap reflected more than 30 days, then the student is NOT continuously enrolled. 
        
        In the example for SSID 000002222, the second gap reflects a 30-day gap. Since this is not more than 30, and since none of the other gaps (15, 9, 4) reflect more than 30 days, this student is continuously enrolled.
        
        

      Example 2: Multiple enrollment records at different schools

      SSID: 000003333	Start Date	Exit Date
      Dover High School:	8/25/11	9/30/11
      Boise High School:	10/07/11	11/27/11
      Lincoln High School:	11/28/11	12/05/11
      Boise High School:	12/15/11	6/29/12

      
      
      
      • Count the number of days between 11/27/14 to 12/15/14 (11/28/14 to 12/14/14) which is 17 days.

      In the example for SSID # 000003333:

      1. Student was at Boise High School on 10/05/14 (Fall Census).
      2. Student left Boise High School and enrolled at Lincoln High School.
      3. Student returned to take the test at Boise High School.

      Notice that the student left for a different school between 11/28/14 to 12/05/14. Since this student was at Boise High School on Fall Census and tested at Boise High School, the gap counted would be between 11/27/14 to 12/15/14. Since the gap is 17 days, this student is continuously enrolled.
      
      The key to remember is that continuous enrollment is concerned with enrollment gaps between the fall census school and the test school. If both the fall census school and the test school are the same, then enrollment gaps are examined. Transfers to different schools between the fall census date and the test date are not relevant to continuous enrollment processing.

      EXCEPTION:

      Sometimes, the student will be identified as "exiting" before testing, but the Smarter Balanced Summative assessment file will show that a test was taken by the student. For example:

      SSID: 000003333	Start Date	Exit Date	Test Date
      Washington High School	8/25/14	5/13/15	5/18/15

      In such scenarios, the student would be considered continuously enrolled.

   2. District 30-day gap: Apply the same criteria as in bullet "a" above (School 30-day gap), except apply the criteria at the district level. Using Example 2 above, since none of the gaps are more than 30 days at the district level, the student would be considered continuously enrolled in the district if Dover, Boise, and Lincoln High Schools are all in the same district.


7. Retired SSIDs:

   Students may be assigned two concurrent SSIDs by mistake, in which case one is “retired.” If the Smarter Balanced Summative Assessment record has a retired SSID, then the non-retired SSID is used for matching purposes. This non-retired SSID is obtained from lCALPADS.

8. Special Continuous Enrollment Processing Rules for 2014–15:

   After applying the above business rules, there will be cases where no continuous enrollment determinations are made for a student record in all four tests (ELA CAT, ELA PT, Math CAT, and Math PT) and the student has tested at two or more different schools or districts. This could happen due to incomplete CALPADS enrollment data or incomplete Smarter Balanced Summative Assessment data.

   In such cases, the following special steps are applied:

   1. Determine of there is enrollment data for ELA CAT, ELA PT, Math CAT, and Math PT.

   2. Compare the tests completion dates (see example below) with each other. If the completion dates for the tests without enrollment data occur BEFORE the tests with enrollment data, then the tests without enrollment are set to "continuously enrolled."

      (An alternative way to process this is to get the earliest test with enrollment data, and then set all tests without enrollment data to "continuously enrolled.")

      Example 1 - Student Assessment Record

      Test	School	Enrollment Data Available	Test Completion Date	Continuously Enrolled
      ELA CAT	Trenton School	Yes	5/15/15	No
      ELA PT	Santa Fe School	Yes	5/15/15	No
      Math CAT	Carson School	No	4/30/15	Yes
      Math PT	Springfield School	No	5/2/15	Yes

      In the example above, Carson School has no enrollment data, but its test completion date occurs BEFORE the test completion dates of schools that have enrollment data, in this example Trenton and Santa Fe schools. Therefore, a continuous enrollment determination is made for the Math CAT and Math PT records.

      Example 2 - Student Assessment Record

      Test	School	Enrollment Data Available	Test Completion Date	Continuously Enrolled
      ELA CAT	Raleigh School	Yes	5/15/15	No
      ELA PT	Helena School	Yes	5/15/15	No
      Math CAT	Albany School	No	6/30/15	No
      Math PT	Pierre School	No	6/2/15	No

      In the example above, none of the tests were determined as "continuously enrolled."

      Tests with blank completion dates

      Some test records have blank test completion dates. In this instance, only tests with valid completion dates are defaulted to "continuously enrolled." Based on the enrollment and completion dates available in the example below, the student had test completion dates for Bismarck and Montgomery Schools and therefore, the ELA CAT and the Math CAT records were determined as "continuously enrolled."

      Example 3 - Student Assessment Record

      Test	School	Enrollment Data Available	Test Completion Date	Continuously Enrolled
      ELA CAT	Bismarck School	No	5/15/15	Yes
      ELA PT	Austin School	Yes	(No Date)	No
      Math CAT	Montgomery School	No	6/30/15	Yes
      Math PT	Columbus School	Yes	(No Date)	No