This lesson provides answers to common questions related to Student Offense extract for use in creating a SOFF upload to CALPADS.
What is SOFF?
SOFF refers to the Student Offense file. This is 1 of 3 new discipline files for EOY CALPADS Submission.
Student Offense (SOFF) file is how LEAs report the statutory student offense (Student Offense code) for any incidents in which a statutory offense was committed (AKA Violations in Illuminate). For students committing multiple offenses within a single incident, the SOFF file will list a row for each of the different offenses within the single incident, repeating the same Academic Year, School of Attendance, SSID, and Incident ID.
For additional information on expectations around what offense (violation) codes to use, please refer to CALPADS System Documentation and/or contact CALPADS Support.
For details on how to enter discipline data in Illuminate to populate this file, please see below.
SINC should be the first discipline extract run, followed by the SIRS, then the SOFF.
Data Entry
Illuminate added new Consequence codes to all ISI client databases in the Summer of 2019. Codes added were 400, 501, 502, 700, and 800. For questions around which code to use and when, please reach out to CALPADS.
For data to generate into the SOFF file, LEAS must create Major Behavior Incidents overlapping a student's enrollment entry/exit dates.
For each Major Behavior Incident, SOFF file will pull each violation. Note: If there are multiple violations per incident, there will be multiple rows in the SOFF file.
Validation Logs should be reviewed, as they will cross check valid code combinations and identify missing or incorrect data entry.
Database Team limitation: If there is data missing or incorrect for behavior incidents, this must be corrected manually per incident in Illuminate.
Generating File for Submission:
Where to Start
- Click on Reports
- Under Admin, select State Reporting
- Once on the State Reporting Tools page, select CALPADS Student Offense (SOFF) File
Please note that the order seen on the above screenshot may be different than the order of reports, extracts, and tools available in your list.
SOFF Overview
- Validation Logs: These are logs predicting potential errors with the SOFF submission. A validation log will automatically be created each time the "Generate Report" button is selected and will show a date and timestamp. Validations reference the logic mentioned in the Data Entry area of this document.
- View as Standard Report: This option will let you run the report like you would any custom/prebuilt report in Illuminate.
- Academic Year: Even though Postsecondary refers to students who were enrolled/graduated in the previous year, this extract should be run for the current year.
- Start Date/End Date: Enter the Start and End Dates for the academic year.
- Generate Report: Clicking this will run the tool to show data for the site, academic year, and Fall 2 selection.
- Download Options: The results can be downloaded as Excel, PDF, Tab Delimited, or More formats.
Downloading SOFF for CALPADS Submission
Once you've generated data, select More and then click on the radial option next to CALPADS for the appropriate format to submit and then click Download.
Of the 3 new discipline files, the SINC should be submitted to CALPADS first, followed by the SIRS and then SOFF.
All offenses, regardless of whether an incident result type of suspension or expulsion are reported.
Next Steps
For questions on how you should report student data or which codes to use, contact CALPADS.