CALPADS Extract Pull From LSI.GN
Can we please have the extract pull from the LSI.GN field if the student has data populated in that field? It makes sense to extract from that field, particularly since if the LIS.LLN and LSI.LFN is populated that data gets extracted. We have a student (and surely more to come) that identify as a different gender. Populating the STU.GN with the students preferred gender is causing CALPADS fatal errors.
The definition for Student Gender in CALPADS CSF document is posted below. Therefore, until that guidance is changed by CALPADS, we will continue to pull from the Preferred Gender field (STU.GN):
SINF Field 2.19: Student Gender Code - A coded value representing the person's gender. Gender is a person's actual sex or perceived sex and includes a person's perceived identity, appearance or behavior, whether or not that identity, appearance, or behavior is different from that traditionally associated with a person's sex at birth.
The code values reported are: M, F or X.
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Robyn Wall commented
I agree with Dinah. CDE has said that the *name* reported to be CALPADS should be the student's legal name, but the *gender* reported to CALPADS should be the student self-identified gender. We follow that guidance at my district. Students whose gender changes require an update in CALPADS Online Maintenance to avoid an error on upload, but that doesn't take too long so it hasn't been an issue for us.
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Laura White commented
I would like to add that there should be an option to pull preferred gender rather than legal. It is our district's policy to report the gender that the student identifies as not their birth given gender. CALPADS allows districts to make the choice. However, due to CRDC reporting we do put the legal gender in Aeries so we have it.
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jbowlby commented
I second that it makes sense to pull the gender from LSI.GN, just like the first and last name are pulled from the legal table. The student's preferred name and gender identity remain in the STU fields, and those are what is visible to teachers and students/parents in the portal (and what prints on school reports). However, it is the legal values that should be reported to CALPADS. I'm assuming that CALPADS does not publicly release such PII for a particular school/district. This avoid errors if a student changes districts and their previous legal gender is what is recorded in CALPADS. I also found it can create an additional SSID (resulting in a multiple ID error) since the CALPADS system does not appear to match students of different genders.
I agree with Dinah that there needs to be a better way for the CDE to recognize and count trans and binary students. I'm just not sure that reporting the chosen gender successfully captures that (or is worth the issues it creates). The non-binary gender option, while well intentioned, does not serve fully trans kids well. They don't identify as non-binary, but as the other gender. And choosing non-binary potentially "outs" them. CDE needs to capture both legal and preferred gender.
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Dinah Weller commented
I understand this request, but am personally against it.
As the CALPADS Administrator for my district, I've worked at length with the CDE to verify that the gender reported to CALPADS does not have to be the legal gender. As such, I update the gender in CALPADS to match the student's identity and we report that populated from the STU.GN field. This particularly is necessary when it comes to nonbinary students.
It makes for a little more work at the outset, but offers much more thorough and accurate reporting to the state, highlighting the existence & validity of trans and nonbinary students.