CDE’s initial Calendar Year 2025 reduction pass put $13,771,411.33 on ASES sites that missed the attendance tests. That figure is from the March 13, 2026 Expanded Learning notice, which AfterSchool Network posted as CDE’s initial list. Across ASES, 21st CCLC elementary and middle, and ASSETs, the same notice totaled $29,486,232.09.
This page is the live URL for our ASES attendance guide. Same path as before. The job of the page is now the target, the two tests, and the cut.
If you need the older program overview, keep What are ASES. Funding compared with ELO-P still lives in ELOP vs ASES vs ASSETS. The audit of ELO-P offer and hours is the Section DZ checklist. ASES pupils served is Section U of the same 2026-27 guide.
The grant is a student-day target
ASES pays for documented program attendance, not for district-wide ADA. Education Code 8482.4 tells CDE to set the grant from the per-pupil formulas in Education Code 8483.7 and from the targeted number of pupils in the application.
CDE’s funding profile for the ASES rate increase still lists $10.18 per student per day. That profile is labeled fiscal year 2025-26. It also lists a maximum of $152,612.13 for an elementary school and $203,482.84 for a middle school. I did not find a newer max table on that page. Use the award on your AO-400, not a number copied from this post.
The working formula partners actually use:
Annual attendance target (student-days) = grant amount divided by the daily rate
That is grant math, not a slogan. If the daily rate is $10.18 and the site grant is $101,800, the target is 10,000 student-days. I picked $101,800 because it divides cleanly. It is not a district’s award.
Education Code 8483.7(a)(4) sets a floor another way: 20 pupils times 180 regular schooldays times the applicable daily rate. At $10.18, that is 3,600 student-days, or $36,648. Do not confuse that statutory floor with a $100,000 minimum. The live CDE profile I opened does not print a $100,000 minimum.
Summer and intersession sit on top of the school-year grant. Education Code 8483.76 caps that supplemental grant at 30 percent of the total grant awarded to the school for the school year. Track those days separately. They still feed the calendar-year attendance tests.
Two tests, calendar year, not fiscal year
Education Code 8483.7(a)(1) is the reduction statute. CDE’s current process, as restated in the August 2026 Attendance Relief and Reduction Timeline, measures calendar years, January through December. You stitch the second half of one school year to the first half of the next.
The two attendance tests the statute actually runs
| Test | Regular site | Frontier site | What the statute says |
|---|---|---|---|
| One calendar year | At least 75 percent of target | At least 55 percent of target | After the first grant year, below that line the department reviews the program and adjusts the grant as it deems appropriate. Education Code 8483.7(a)(1)(D) |
| Two consecutive calendar years | At least 85 percent of target each year (more than 15 percent under) | At least 65 percent of target each year (more than 35 percent under) | The department shall adjust the grant. Education Code 8483.7(a)(1)(C) |
Frontier here means a schoolsite in an area with fewer than 11 persons per square mile, in Education Code 8483.7(a)(1)(C)(ii) and (D)(ii). The percent lines are also how the CDE timeline AfterSchool Network posted describes the current process.
The first year of a new grant, and new sites identified in Round 2, are not scored the same way. The August 2026 timeline says new grantees and those Round 2 sites will not be assessed for a grant reduction until the end of Calendar Year 2027.
Education Code 8483.7(a)(1)(B) separately requires technical support for a program improvement plan when attendance falls below 75 percent of target in any year of the grant. That is help. It is not a free pass on the adjustment rules.
If the site stays under 75 percent for three consecutive years after that support, Education Code 8483.7(a)(1)(H) lets CDE terminate the grant. Frontier sites use 55 percent in that termination clause.
A worked example, with no invented district
Use the $101,800 grant and the $10.18 rate. Target = 10,000 student-days.
- 75 percent of 10,000 is 7,500 student-days. Drop under that in a calendar year after year one, and Education Code 8483.7(a)(1)(D) says CDE reviews and adjusts.
- 85 percent of 10,000 is 8,500 student-days. Miss that line in each of two consecutive calendar years, and Education Code 8483.7(a)(1)(C) says CDE shall adjust.
CDE does not round the attained percentage. The March 13, 2026 notice and the August 2026 timeline both say the figure is taken out to two decimal places, with no rounding.
When CDE does reduce, those same notices say the new grant is actual attendance plus a 15 percent cushion for growth. That cushion is CDE’s current process. It is not a number I am reading out of Education Code 8483.7. Confirm it against the letter in your inbox before you brief a board.
A grantee can also ask to lower the award. Education Code 8483.7(a)(1)(E) requires CDE to keep a voluntary process. After a cut, Education Code 8483.7(a)(1)(F) lets you request an increase back up to the maximum.
If you transfer funds between schools in the same grant, Education Code 8483.7(a)(7)(B) only lets you take from a school that has met at least 70 percent of its attendance goal, and only when the receiving school has a waiting list. That 70 percent rule does not apply to a frontier site in the same Education Code 8483.7 clause.
Dual-funded sites: ASES first to 85 percent
If the same component is funded with ASES and 21st CCLC elementary or middle money, CDE’s March 13, 2026 notice is blunt. ASES attendance has to meet 85 percent before you count remaining student-days toward 21st CCLC.
The same notice says ELO-P slots can count toward existing ASES and 21st CCLC elementary or middle attendance when the program is one comprehensive program. That is CDE’s sentence. It is not permission to blur ASES minutes with Attendance Recovery. CDE’s Attendance Recovery page still treats Recovery as its own register.
CDE also keeps a dual-funded sites page. If your fiscal analyst walks you through a different sequencing rule than the March notice, follow the analyst and that page.
What you have to report, and when
You still report ASES attendance semiannually. CDE’s ASES Reporting Due Dates page, last reviewed September 24, 2026, lists:
| Due | Report | Period |
|---|---|---|
| January 31, 2027 | FY 2026-27 first semiannual attendance | July 1, 2026 through December 31, 2026 |
| July 31, 2027 | FY 2026-27 second semiannual attendance | January 1, 2027 through June 30, 2027 |
| October 31, 2026 | FY 2026-27 first quarter expenditure | July 1, 2026 through September 30, 2026 |
| January 31, 2027 | FY 2026-27 second quarter expenditure | October 1, 2026 through December 31, 2026 |
| April 30, 2027 | FY 2026-27 third quarter expenditure | January 1, 2027 through March 31, 2027 |
| July 31, 2027 | FY 2026-27 fourth quarter expenditure (final) | April 1, 2027 through June 30, 2027 |
That table is the upcoming ASES calendar as of this writing. Older 2025-26 closeout rows still sit on the same CDE page.
The due dates page says Education Code 8483.8(a) authorizes CDE to withhold payments if you miss those reports. The current text of Education Code 8483.8 is about overpayments. The withhold-or-terminate language I can actually quote is Education Code 8483.7(a)(1)(G): CDE may withhold or terminate a grant when a site does not comply with audit resolutions, fiscal reporting, attendance reporting, or outcomes reporting. Follow CDE’s due dates. Flag the section number with your counsel if someone is citing 8483.8 for a withhold.
For Calendar Year 2026 reductions that would take effect July 1, 2027, the August 2026 timeline adds three dates that are not on the due dates table:
- Attendance Relief and PDD requests: January 31, 2027, to expandedlearning@cde.ca.gov. Late packets are not accepted.
- Last day to revise Calendar Year 2026 attendance for the reduction process: February 17, 2027.
- Reduction notices: March 8 through March 12, 2027. Effective date: July 1, 2027.
That August 2026 timeline also says CDE will not call you because you are close to the line.
The daily file the target is made of
A student-day is not a Dashboard color. It is a name, a date, a sign-in time, and a sign-out time that an auditor can sample.
Education Code 8483(a)(1)(A) requires the after school component to start when the schoolday ends, run at least 15 hours a week, and stay open until at least 6 p.m. on every regular schoolday. Frontier sites may end not earlier than 5 p.m. Education Code 8483(a)(1)(B) requires an early release policy. CDE’s early release and late arrival guidance wants that policy written in advance, told to families and staff, and coded by reason.
Before school is its own clock. Education Code 8483.1 requires at least one and one-half hours on a regular schoolday. A pupil who attends less than half of the daily before-school hours does not count for attendance.
Middle school may use a flexible schedule. Education Code 8483(a)(3) allows it. Priority for those pupils still goes to daily attendance after homeless youth, foster youth, and pupils eligible for free or reduced-price meals, per Education Code 8483(c).
Keep the records. Education Code 8482.3(g)(1)(F) requires the program plan file for at least five years. CDE’s FPM findings page for expanded learning still tells monitors to ask for a month of sign-in and sign-out sheets that show daily attendance by roster. Section U of the 2026-27 audit guide is the ASES pupils-served sample. It is not Section DZ.
Money inside the grant has its own ratio. Education Code 8483.9 caps administrative costs at 15 percent and requires at least 85 percent of state program funding at schoolsites for direct services. That is the 85/15 fiscal test. It is not the 85 percent attendance test. Do not brief them as one slide.
CALPADS is a third file. CALPADS Flash 305 collects expanded learning enrollment on the LEAP file, program code 194. That is not your ASSIST student-day total, and it does not replace the ASES target. The longer CALPADS walkthrough is in The Complete 2026 Guide to California ELOP Compliance. The SIS split is in Our SIS Already Tracks This.
What to do before January 31
A short ASES target checklist
Statute requires. CDE due dates direct the calendar. The AfterSchool Network pages are reprints of CDE notices. If those conflict with a letter from your fiscal analyst, the letter wins.
If you want the five questions your attendance data should already answer, that is the compliance-gap checklist.
FAQ
Is the target fiscal year or calendar year? The grant year is fiscal. The attendance tests CDE is running for reductions are calendar year. That split is in the August 2026 timeline and in how Education Code 8483.7 talks about “any year” and “two consecutive years.”
Do we still use ASSIST? CDE’s due dates page is still the ASES reporting calendar. I am not claiming a new grants system from this chair. File where your regional analyst tells you to file.
Can ELO-P attendance rescue an ASES target? CDE’s March 13, 2026 notice says ELO-P slots can count toward ASES when the program is one comprehensive program. Put that in writing with your analyst. Do not fold Recovery hours into that sentence. Recovery is Education Code 46211.
Where did the old examples go? The $91,614 / 9,000 student-day example from the February version of this URL is gone. $91,614 does not divide by $10.18 into a whole student-day count. Use your grant.
Sources
- Education Code 8482.3
- Education Code 8482.4
- Education Code 8483
- Education Code 8483.1
- Education Code 8483.7
- Education Code 8483.76
- Education Code 8483.8
- Education Code 8483.9
- Education Code 46211
- CDE ASES Reporting Due Dates (last reviewed September 24, 2026)
- CDE funding profile, ASES rate increase (ID 6513)
- CDE early release and late arrival guidance
- CDE FPM findings, expanded learning
- CDE dual-funded sites
- CDE Attendance Recovery
- CALPADS Flash 305
- 2026-27 Guide for Annual Audits, Section U
- Calendar Year 2025 Expanded Learning Grant Reduction List, initial (March 13, 2026)
- Attendance Relief Requests and Reduction Timeline (August 2026)
Where Attendly fits
The five questions your attendance data should already answer
A short checklist for expanded learning and fiscal leaders before the next reporting window.
Get the checklist
