PACE and Attendance Works counted 1,143,668 California students as chronically absent in 2024-25. Boards keep asking the same follow-up. If we already run Saturday school, do we need Attendance Recovery.
You might. You might not. They are not two names for one Saturday.
Saturday school is still Education Code 37223. Attendance Recovery is Education Code 46211, added by Senate Bill 153 in the 2024-25 budget trailer bills. CDE is blunt: Recovery did not repeal weekend makeup.
This page is the comparison. The hub for Recovery itself is Attendance Recovery in California: The Complete Guide. If the leak you actually have is the packet, not the statute, read Absences Aren’t the Biggest Leak. Paperwork Is..
What Saturday school still is
Education Code 37223 lets the governing board of an elementary, high school, or unified district, or a county superintendent, maintain classes on Saturday or Sunday. Makeup for absences during the week is on that list. Continuation, GATE, and regional occupational programs are too.
Attendance on a weekend is at the election of the pupil, or the parent or guardian of a minor. The board may require truants, as defined in Education Code 48260, to attend makeup on one day of a weekend. That truancy lever does not exist in Recovery.
A weekend class has to be a class offered during the regular Monday through Friday week. Weekend attendance cannot credit more than five days in a week. Gifted and talented special activities on a weekend do not go into ADA.
CDE’s instructional time page directs the rest of the makeup tests school districts actually live with:
- Parent permission, except when the district requires a truant to attend
- In-person instruction by a certificated employee of the district
- The applicable minimum day
- No makeup of a suspension
- Free or reduced-price meals for needy students
- No more than one makeup day of attendance per weekend makeup day
CDE also directs how to book the day. Keep the absence code. Apply the makeup to the school week of the absence. Do not overwrite Wednesday as present because someone sat on Saturday.
Charter schools are not on the 37223 list. CDE says they cannot generate makeup attendance through Saturday or Sunday classes under that section.
What Attendance Recovery is
Beginning July 1, 2025, Education Code 46211 lets a local educational agency offer extra instruction so a pupil can make up lost instructional time and offset absences, including chronic absenteeism.
School districts, county offices, and classroom-based charter schools may offer it. CDE repeats that. Nonclassroom-based programs do not generate Recovery ADA.
Sessions run outside the regular day: before school, after school, weekends, or intersession. If you offer the program, you have to offer access through the year, including at least once each term. Participation shall not be compulsory or punitive.
A recovered day is an hour bank, not a clipboard. Minutes accrue in one-hour increments until they meet the minimum day for that grade or setting. Then you may credit a whole day, assigned to a real absence. A pupil gets the lesser of 10 recovered days in a school year, or the absences that pupil actually accrued. One calendar day of participation produces at most one recovered day. Districts and county offices also cannot credit more than five days in a school week. That is all in Education Code 46211(d) and (e).
The room is picky. Pupils have to be in educational activities aligned to grade-level standards and substantially equivalent to the regular program, under the immediate supervision of a certificated teacher who is an employee of the LEA. The ratio shall not exceed 10 to 1 for TK and kindergarten, or 20 to 1 for grades 1 to 12. If a classroom has any TK or kindergarten pupils, the 2026-27 audit guide, section HZ applies the 10 to 1 test to that room. The 20 to 1 test is for rooms with grades 1 to 12 and no TK or kindergarten pupils. You keep proof the ratio was met. Education Code 46211(f).
CDE directs that absences from legal exclusions, including suspension and missing immunizations, are not recoverable through Recovery or Saturday school.
Side by side
CDE already put this on a slide. The Attendance Recovery webinar is the comparison I keep handing people, with the statutes sitting next to it.
Saturday school and Attendance Recovery
| Test | Saturday school | Attendance Recovery |
|---|---|---|
| Statute | Education Code 37223 | Education Code 46211, added by SB 153 |
| Who may offer it | School districts and county offices. Not charter schools, per CDE. | School districts, county offices, and classroom-based charter schools, per CDE. |
| When it can run | Saturday or Sunday. | Before school, after school, weekends, or intersession. |
| Can you require it | Generally voluntary. A board may require truants to attend one weekend day, per EC 37223(c). | Never compulsory or punitive, per EC 46211(c). |
| Parent permission | Required for minors, except the truancy case. CDE. | Not required as a condition of the program. CDE webinar. |
| What the class has to be | A class also offered during the regular week. | Standards-aligned work, substantially equivalent to the regular program. |
| Minutes | Meet the minimum day that calendar day. | Bank hours until they meet the minimum day. Remainder can carry. |
| How the ADA attaches | Apply makeup to the week of the absence. Do not overwrite the absence code. CDE. | Assign a recovered day to a specific eligible absence. Track Recovery separately. CDE. |
| Annual cap | No 10-day pupil cap in 37223. Still the five-day week limit. | Lesser of 10 days or the pupil's absences. |
| Chronic absence reporting | Weekend makeup does not count as attendance for chronic absenteeism. CDE. | Recovered days feed an alternate chronic absenteeism rate. They do not rewrite the Dashboard rate. CDE. |
| Meals | State meal mandate when students receive on-site instruction. CDE cites EC 49501.5. | Same meal mandate on Recovery days, including weekends. |
Statute requires. CDE directs. The webinar is a slide, not the code.
One absence, one offset
This is the rule that makes the comparison real.
CDE says an absence can only be offset once. After Recovery takes it, Saturday school cannot. After Saturday school takes it, Recovery cannot.
If fiscal books the same Wednesday twice, one of those days will not survive the sample.
The 2026-27 Guide for Annual Audits, section HZ is the Recovery sampling script. It checks that Recovery ADA was kept on a separate register, or on another mechanism that tracks it apart from other ADA. Then whole days, the 10-day cap, minutes, certificated employment, the 10 to 1 or 20 to 1 ratio (10 to 1 if any TK or kindergarten pupil is in the room), and the assigned absence. Saturday school still sits in ordinary attendance accounting. Mixing the two files is how a clean Saturday becomes a finding.
A Saturday can be either playbook. It cannot be both.
People hear “weekend” and assume Saturday school. Recovery is allowed on weekends too. Education Code 46211(b) says so.
If Saturday is Recovery, you need the certificated LEA employee, the ratio, the hour documentation, a separate Recovery register or another mechanism that tracks those hours apart from other ADA, and an eligible absence to assign. You do not get the truancy mandate.
If Saturday is 37223 makeup, you need the course that also ran during the week, parent permission (except truants), the minimum day that day, and a booking back to the week of the absence. You do not get an hour bank across Thursday and Friday. You do not get the 10-day Recovery cap, because you are not in 46211.
Label the session before you print the flyer. The auditor will.
When to use which
A practical split
-
Keep Saturday school
You already staff a weekend makeup class that also runs during the week, and you need the truancy lever in 37223.
-
Add Recovery
You need hours before school, after school, or on intersession, and you can put a certificated LEA teacher in ratio.
-
Charter classrooms
37223 is not your makeup path. Classroom-based Recovery is, if you meet 46211.
-
Do not double-book
Pick one statute for the absence. Track Recovery ADA separately from Saturday school. Leave the original absence code in place.
A worked week, without invented money
Use CDE’s own minute floors. A grade 4 pupil needs 240 minutes, treated as four hours.
The pupil is out Wednesday.
Saturday school path. The pupil sits a Saturday class that also exists during the week, for a full minimum day, with parent permission and a certificated district teacher in the room. Fiscal keeps Wednesday absent and applies the makeup to that week. That day does not count as attendance for chronic absenteeism reporting, per CDE.
Recovery path. The pupil banks two after-school hours Thursday and two Friday, documented by the certificated LEA teacher, in ratio. That becomes one recovered day, assigned to Wednesday, if Wednesday was not a suspension or an immunization exclusion. It counts against the 10-day cap. It is tracked apart from other ADA. CDE directs that recovered ADA is included in regular classroom-based ADA on PADC line A-1 so it funds, and is also reported on line B-8 for information. The complete guide walks through that double entry.
You do not run both paths on Wednesday.
CDE Fingertip Facts still count 1,011 public school districts and 5,731,260 enrolled students. I am not attaching a statewide dollar to either makeup day. LCFF does not price one recovered ADA for the whole state.
What I tell CWA directors
If Saturday school already works, do not blow it up because a new article landed in the Education Code. CDE said Recovery left 37223 in place on purpose.
If you need hours that are not a weekend class, or you are a classroom-based charter, Recovery is the new tool. It is optional. It is picky. The older CDE explainer and the ADA accounting rules post stay live. So does the funding recovery walkthrough. Use them. Do not 301 them.
Print section HZ and the 37223 text. Sit with fiscal and whoever already takes weekend attendance. For each site, write down which Saturdays are 37223 and which weekend or afternoon hours are 46211. Then stop arguing about the brand name of the Saturday.
FAQ
Does Attendance Recovery replace Saturday school? No. CDE posted that on March 20, 2025. Education Code 37223 is unchanged by Article 9.
Can we require chronically absent pupils to come on Saturday? Saturday school still has a truancy exception under Education Code 37223(c). Recovery shall not be compulsory or punitive, per Education Code 46211(c). Do not mix those powers on the same flyer.
Can a charter run Saturday school for ADA? Not under 37223, per CDE. A classroom-based charter may offer Recovery on a weekend if it meets 46211.
Do recovered days fix our Dashboard chronic absence rate? CDE describes an alternate rate that recovered days can feed. Saturday school makeup does not count as attendance for chronic absenteeism reporting, per the instructional time page. Do not tell a board that either program erases the Dashboard indicator.
Can we make up a suspension on Saturday? No. CDE says weekend classes cannot make up a suspension. The same exclusion applies to Recovery, including immunizations, per the Attendance Recovery FAQ.
Where should we start this week? Name the statute on the calendar. Then map one absence through one file. If the file cannot show which absence received the day, you do not have ADA. You have a Saturday.
Sources
- Education Code 37223
- Education Code 46211
- Education Code 48260
- Education Code 49501.5
- CDE Attendance Recovery
- CDE instructional time and attendance accounting
- CDE Attendance Recovery webinar (PDF)
- 2026-27 Guide for Annual Audits, section HZ
- CDE Fingertip Facts
- PACE and Attendance Works, February 2026
Where Attendly fits
See how Attendance Recovery runs in Attendly
Scheduling, certificated ratios, and the documentation trail a board or auditor can follow.
Attendance Recovery