Nine hours is not “stay until 6.” It is a combined day.
Education Code 46120(b)(4)(A) requires in-person before or after school expanded learning that, when added to daily instructional minutes, recess, and meals, is no fewer than nine hours of combined instructional time, recess, meals, and expanded learning on a school day.
Then a second clock. On at least 30 nonschool days, in-person expanded learning must be no fewer than nine hours a day. That is Education Code 46120(b)(4)(B). Summer. Intersession. Extended school year days if you actually fill the nine.
Those two clocks sit next to a third test that is not a clock at all: offer the program, then enroll the families who ask. Showing up is optional. Education Code 46120(b)(10) says participation is optional. The audit does not grade you on a pupils-served target the way ASES does.
This page is the hours, the 30 days, and the offer-versus-access split. The sampling script is the ELO-P audit checklist. The funding and plan version is The Complete 2026 Guide to California ELOP Compliance. The file that records enrollment days is ELO-P and CALPADS: The LEAP File.
What “nine hours” actually adds
CDE’s ELO-P FAQ, last reviewed June 19, 2026, is blunt. Expanded learning on a school day does not count toward daily instructional minutes. Instructional time sets the school day. Before-school and after-school blocks are separate. You add them, plus recess and meals, to reach nine hours.
That is the whole arithmetic.
If your instructional day is already long, the expanded learning block can be shorter. If Tuesday is a minimum instructional day, the expanded learning block has to grow that day. A flyer that says “we run 2:15 to 6:00” is not a calculation. The 2026-27 Guide for Annual Audits, Section DZ procedure 6 has the auditor sit with the attendance calendar, the bell schedule, and the ELO-P schedule, and check every sampled school day.
Frontier sites get eight hours, not nine. Education Code 46120(g)(2) defines that as a schoolsite in an area with fewer than 11 persons per square mile. Education Code 46120(b)(4)(C) is the eight-hour rule. CDE points to a Frontier Schools Viewer. Look the site up. The program still has to be in person. CDE allows virtual enrichment only if pupils are on site, with staff in ratio.
Four buckets that add to nine hours on a school day
| Bucket | Counts toward the nine | Does not |
|---|---|---|
| Instructional minutes | The regular day, as the bell schedule shows it. CDE ELO-P FAQ | Expanded learning minutes stuffed into the instructional clock. Education Code 46120(b)(4)(A) |
| Recess | Yes. The statute names it. Education Code 46120(b)(4)(A) | A recess you cannot show on the schedule the auditor holds. |
| Meals | Yes. Same sentence. Breakfast and lunch on the school day sit in the combined total. | A meal you cannot place on the clock the auditor holds. CDE meals FAQs |
| In-person before or after school | The expanded learning block that fills whatever remains to nine hours. | Attendance Recovery minutes in the same cafeteria. CDE directs that Recovery hours do not count toward ELO-P time. |
The auditor is adding clocks, not slogans. Section DZ procedure 6.
The 30 nonschool days are a different nine
On a school day, instructional minutes help you. On a nonschool day they mostly do not, unless you are in the extended-school-year exception.
Education Code 46120(b)(4)(B) requires, for at least 30 nonschool days, no fewer than nine hours of in-person expanded learning per day, inclusive of extended school year days under Education Code 56345(b)(3). For ESY, before or after school expanded learning may be added to instructional minutes, recess, and meals until the day hits nine hours.
Education Code 46120(g)(4) defines nonschool days as days that are not the school days in (b)(4)(A), inclusive of Saturdays as described in Education Code 37223. Saturday can be a nonschool day. Saturday school is not a substitute. CDE directs that Saturday school cannot meet the 30-day requirement, and that its instructional time does not count toward the nine ELO-P hours.
Summer school can help. CDE directs that a summer school program may help satisfy the nine-hour nonschool-day requirement because it does not count toward the annual instructional day or minute requirement. The nine hours still have to be expanded learning as Education Code 8482.1 defines it: complement the regular day, do not replicate it. CDE also directs priority access on nonschool days for homeless pupils, citing Education Code 48850(a)(3)(C).
Section DZ procedure 7 is the sample. Calendar. Hours. In person. Eight if frontier.
Two exceptions that actually sit in the statute
Up to three staff development days during regular expanded learning hours. Education Code 46120(b)(11). Student attendance is not required those days. CDE restates that those three days may fall on instructional days or on the 30 nonschool days. Combined across DZ procedures 6 and 7, the auditor may exclude up to three such days.
Emergency closures. Education Code 46120(b)(12) points at Education Code 41422 and Education Code 8482.8(d). Governing board resolution. Documentation of the need. Then the day-and-hour penalties in 46120(c) do not apply because of that emergency.
A spreadsheet that says “we ran 30 days” is not a calendar. The auditor is matching dates.
Offer, access, participation. Three different verbs.
People mash these into one sentence. The statute does not.
Three verbs in Education Code 46120
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Offer access
Recruit, advertise, publicize, or solicit through culturally and linguistically effective channels. Program information in enrollment forms. On the LEA website. Posted at each program site where the public can see it. Education Code 46120(g)(5).
-
Provide access
Enroll. A parent or guardian signed registration form on file means the pupil is enrolled. If the school is not operating the program, transportation to a site that is. Education Code 46120(g)(6).
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Participate
Optional. Parents can decline. Pupils who opt out do not generate the offer-or-access penalty. You still have to show you offered, and that you enrolled the families who asked. Education Code 46120(b)(10) and (c)(2).
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Track the day
Attendance still gets tracked. Education Code 60902 and the LEAP file care about enrollment and a day count that can be zero. That is not a pupils-served quota. See the LEAP post.
Offer is recruitment. Access is enrollment. Participation is a family choice. CDE FAQ uses the same split.
CDE directs that a missing signature should not automatically produce a fiscal penalty if you can show good-faith outreach and that the pupil is attending. Best practice it names: document a parent’s refusal, keep regular attendance records, keep the outreach file. DZ procedures 3 and 5 list those same alternates: outreach attempts, a documented refusal, or records of regular attendance.
Who must be offered the program depends on the rate. Rate 1 must offer to all classroom-based TK through grade 6 pupils and provide access on parent request, including an LEA whose first year in the program is already Rate 1. Education Code 46120(b)(2). Rate 2 offers to unduplicated classroom-based TK through grade 6 pupils, and provides access to those pupils on request. Education Code 46120(b)(3). The one-year exception is only the first year you move from Rate 2 to Rate 1. Education Code 46120(c)(1)(B) and DZ procedure 1 keep that LEA on the Rate 2 offer and access tests for that year. TK is not optional. CDE treats TK as a program within kindergarten.
Transportation is part of access. Education Code 46120(g)(6) requires it when the pupil’s school is not operating the program, including the 30 nonschool days, per CDE. Mileage reimbursement can satisfy it if the family agrees and you document it. If they cannot drive, the LEA still has to move the pupil. A waitlist is a local decision after you have met offer and access. CDE says so.
TK and kindergarten ratios are staff, not a credential test
Education Code 46120(b)(5)(D) points ELO-P at Education Code 8483.4, then tightens TK and kindergarten to no more than 10 pupils per staff member. Other grades sit at 20 to 1 as Section DZ procedure 8 samples it. Staff. Instructional-aide minimums. Fingerprint clearance. Not “the certificated employee of the LEA who can generate ADA.”
CDE restates 10 to 1 for TK and kindergarten, 20 to 1 otherwise, and calls mixed groups that include any TK or kindergarten pupil a 10-to-1 promising practice.
That is a different adult from Attendance Recovery. Recovery is Education Code 46211(f): certificated LEA teacher, 10 to 1 in TK and kindergarten, 20 to 1 in grades 1 to 12. Same digits. Different statute. The recovery ratios post is the place for that split. If you braid the two programs in one room, CDE directs that the Recovery pupils still need the Recovery adult.
What the auditor actually opens for hours and offer
Print Section DZ. The longer checklist is already written. For this query, the folder is smaller.
The hours and offer folder
Statute requires. The audit guide tells the auditor how to sample. CDE's FAQ last reviewed June 19, 2026. Read the year on the PDF in your hand.
What a missed day costs
Fail offer or access and Education Code 46120(c)(2) withholds an amount proportionate to the eligible pupils you failed to offer or provide access to. Count a pupil once. Opt-outs do not generate that withhold.
Fail the day or hour requirement and Education Code 46120(c)(3) withholds, for a school district, 0.0048 times the apportionment (after any offer-or-access withhold) for each missed day. For a charter school, 0.0049. CDE is explicit that a day short of nine hours is a whole missed day. There is not a separate hours fraction.
CDE walks a 180-day school calendar as 210 expanded learning days once the 30 nonschool days are included, minus up to three staff development days. Short 10 calendar days, or run 10 days under nine hours, and both count as 10 missed days. The 180-day offering sits in Education Code 46208. Copy the structure. Do not copy a 10-day shortfall into your file unless your calendar produces it.
DZ procedure 12 names CDE’s ELO-P penalty calculator. The filename still says elopauditpenaltycalc23.xlsx. I am treating that as the calculator the current guide names. Ratio findings are reported. The 2026-27 DZ text does not attach the per-day formula to procedure 8.
A worked week, without invented ADA
Take a classroom-based elementary site that is not frontier. I am not assigning your bell. I am showing the add.
The auditor pulls one school day: instructional minutes, recess, meals, and the expanded learning block. If those four clocks do not add to nine hours, that day fails DZ procedure 6. A Wednesday early dismissal does not get a pass because Thursday ran long.
Then the 30 nonschool dates. Nine hours of in-person expanded learning, not a half-day camp with the ELO-P label. An ESY day can count if it adds to nine. A Saturday that is 37223 makeup does not donate its instructional minutes. CDE already closed that door. If Recovery shares the cafeteria, keep the minute banks apart. CDE directs that a pupil is in Recovery or in expanded learning in a given stretch, not both. The Attendance Recovery hub is the other statute.
What to do this week
Open the bell schedule and the ELO-P schedule for one school. Add instructional minutes, recess, meals, and the expanded learning block. Write the total on the calendar for that day. Do it again for a minimum day.
Then list 30 nonschool dates with start and end times. Mark any of the three staff days. Mark any emergency resolution. Put the offer communications and the registration forms in the same folder.
If you want the five questions your attendance data should already answer, that is the compliance-gap checklist.
FAQ
Is nine hours of afterschool required every school day? No. Nine hours is combined. Instructional minutes, recess, and meals count. The expanded learning block fills the rest. Education Code 46120(b)(4)(A). CDE.
Do we have to fill every seat? No. You have to offer, and you have to enroll the eligible families who request a place. Participation is optional. Education Code 46120(c)(2).
Can summer school be the 30 days? It can help, if the day is nine hours of in-person expanded learning as CDE describes it. ESY days can count when they add to nine. Saturday school instructional time cannot.
Where do the day counts go in CALPADS? The LEAP file, program code 194, including a zero for a signed form with no check-ins. That is the LEAP post.
Sources
- Education Code 46120
- Education Code 46208
- Education Code 46211
- Education Code 37223
- Education Code 56345
- Education Code 48850
- Education Code 60902
- Education Code 8482.1
- Education Code 41422
- Education Code 8482.8
- CDE Expanded Learning Opportunities Program FAQs
- CDE Attendance Recovery
- 2026-27 Guide for Annual Audits, Section DZ
- CDE ELO-P penalty calculator
Where Attendly fits
The five questions your attendance data should already answer
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