District Settings  

Contacts  

Contact Analysis Flowchart for the CALPADS SINF file  

CALPADS SINF Extract  

Related Changes  


Overview

Due to recent CALPADS changes regarding Guardian information, it is crucial that the Contacts table be actively managed and that Parent/Guardian records be clearly identified. 


District Settings  ↑

A selection list was added under District Settings for specifying which Record Type codes (CON.CD) represent the parent/guardian. 

  • Districts who use the Aeries Online Enrollment process have already identified specific codes to designate Contact record types that are populated in the Record Types field (CON.CD). 
  • Districts who do NOT use Aeries Online Enrollment can still populate specific codes they can use to classify Contact Record Types to help classify the different types of Contacts. They are identified on the Update Code Table page for the CON.CD field. 

On District Settings, selecting which value(s) indicate a contact is a Parent/Guardian will help the SINF logic locate the proper records to extract. Navigate to School Info > Configurations > District Settings and scroll near the bottom of the page. 


Here is a sample list that the Demo Database is using:



Contacts  ↑

The following fields in CON are very important for Contact management of Parents/Guardians

  • Last Name (CON.LN) - Last name of Parent/Guardian
  • First Name (CON.FN) - First name of Parent/Guardian
  • Education Level (CON.ELV) - Enter the Parent Ed Level for Parent 1 and Parent 2. If Parent Portal Only options are enabled in District Settings, the Parent Ed level entered for the parent in CON.ELV will write to STU.PED on Demographics page if it is higher than what is currently in STU.PED. All changes made to STU.PED will be logged in the LGD table.
  • Record Type (CON.CD) - Used to classify Contact records into types. 
  • Primary Contact (CON.PC) -Y or N 
  • Ed Rights Holder (CON.ERH) - Y or N
  • Lives With (CON.LW)- Y or N 
  • Access To Portal (CON.AP) - Y or N 
  • Contact Order (CON.OR) - Parent/Guardians should always be either Order number 1 or 2


NOTE: If no Parent/Guardian codes are selected, or no CON records match the selected codes, the Parent/Guardian will be selected using any of the following fields (if populated with a "Y"): Primary Contact (CON.PC), Ed Rights Holder (CON.ERH), Lives With (CON.LW) or Access to Portal (CON.AP). The order in which the contacts are processed is determined by CON.OR. Therefore, the Parent/Guardian codes should have the lowest order numbers (1 or 2).




Contact Analysis Flowchart for the CALPADS SINF file  ↑

Here is a graphic display of how the Contact records are analyzed when preparing the SINF extract: 




CALPADS SINF Extract  ↑


CALPADS has confirmed that the Warnings for Missing Guardian First Name will remain as warnings throughout this school year.  


For now, since there still is only one field for Parent Guardian Highest Education Level we will still be extracting the value stored in Parent/Guardian Highest Education Level (STU.PED). We will not change this until CALPADS changes the file layout for the SINF extract to allow collecting separate Parent/Guardian Education levels, now scheduled for the 23-24 school year.


NOTE: If your District is not ready to use the information in the Contacts table to send to CALPADS because of potential data inaccuracies, there is a setting under CALPADS Extracts - Other Options to revert the SINF process and get the Guardian information only from the Parent/Guardian field on the Demographics page (STU.PG). It is important to realize that all SINF records will then receive the SINF0552-Missing Guardian 1 First Name error. This will remain a Warning until the 22-23 school year. However, we do recommend that Districts make a great effort to obtain valid data from the Parents/Guardians as part of the Data Confirmation process. Activation of this option should be considered a temporary measure.


  • Get Parent/Guardian Information from STU.PG and STU.PED (instead of CON)- Selecting this option will force Parent/Guardian information for the SINF extract to be taken exclusively from STU.PG and STU.PED. This is recommended only if Districts have concerns about the accuracy of the data in their Contacts (CON) table and should be a temporary measure while data clean-up is in process. It is important to realize that all SINF records will then receive the SINF0552-Missing Guardian 1 First Name error. This will remain a Warning until the 22-23 school year.
  • When this option is de-selected, the SINF extract will pull the Contact information (parent Last Name and First Name only) from the CON table according to the rules described in the Contacts section above. The Parent Ed Level will continue to pull from the STU.PED field. 


Other related changes are being planned for development now. We have created an Aeries Idea for each of these items (linked below). Customers can add themselves to these Ideas, and they will be notified personally as action is taken on them:


We are also investigating ways to help with managing contact data, especially to identify students with missing/incomplete Contact information. This may be some combination of Data Validations, reports, or a process to make certain fields required for certain contact record types. 


Customers should also begin planning to update any forms or other methods of collecting data for Contacts, to ensure you are capturing First/Last Name and Education Levels for each parent/guardian.


We will update this article as more development is planned in this area to help our customers meet these new requirements.