Recently, many of you received an email request from The California Department of Education with a subject line  ‘ SUBMISSION OF ANNUAL REPORT FOR ALTERNATIVE SCHOOLS/PROGRAMS OF CHOICE TO THE CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION’.  If you did not receive this, don’t worry, you might just want to read this message for your own information.

If you did receive this email and request for information, you may have felt some concern. The CCIS Board received quite a few inquiries with concerns about the amount of information being requested and the late timing in the school year while we are very busy with state testing and WASC and graduations, etc.

We reached out to CDE to better understand the request and to also explain some of our concerns.

CDE was very understanding. It was their intent to get the request out earlier, but for many reasons that didn’t happen.

This email and requested information has actually been an Ed Code requirement for many years that sort of faded into the background. The law requires that alternative schools, also known as Alternative Schools/Programs of Choice, established under California Education Code (EC) sections 58500–58512 prepare an annual evaluation report.  The information stopped being requested on a yearly basis many years ago. That is why many of us were unfamiliar with it.

Recently, as CCIS and the department of education have been trying to gather data around Independent study programs, we realize it is very hard to come by. That lack of information is what triggered the request.

Because we reached out to CDE and shared the concerns with timing and the fact that this was not expected, we have asked for an extension on the deadline.

If you received this information, and would like an extension past the August 1st deadline, please email Yvonne Evans at YEvans@cde.ca.gov to request the extension.

We hope this helps. We also appreciate your school data that you will be sharing with CDE so that we are able to have more statistics to represent independent study. We hope your school year is wrapping up nicely, and we look forward to seeing you in November (11/6 – 11/7) at our next conference in Orange County.