This guide is for SEDS Coordinators and special education administrators who are newer to the role, its responsibilities, or the way those responsibilities fit together in SIRAS.
The SEDS Coordinator function may be handled by one person or shared among special education administrators, data staff, clerical staff, program specialists, CALPADS staff, and SELPA personnel. Use this guide to understand the role, local ownership, recurring responsibilities, and the student/data lifecycle.
Already experienced with SEDS or SPED administration and mainly need to learn how SIRAS maps to work you already know? Use Moving to SIRAS: Workflow Guide for Experienced SEDS Staff. For a task-by-task reference directory, use Administrator / SEDS Coordinator Support Guide.
SIRAS should reflect what happened in the field as soon as staff know it. Update the Current record first, then complete and verify the applicable meeting, archive, and reporting steps.
Use 357 for the experienced-staff workflow crosswalk, and 101 when you simply need to locate the correct administrator help article.
In This Guide
Your Role & Responsibilities
SEDS Coordinators and special education administrators help connect three areas of work:
- Field activity — enrollment, referrals, consent, evaluations, meetings, eligibility, participation, plans, services, transfers, and exits;
- SIRAS data and workflow — Current status, MIS information, meetings, archived transactions, users, assignments, and monitoring lists; and
- State reporting — SEDS submission, validation, correction, reconciliation, and CALPADS certification.
| Area | Typical Administrator / SEDS Coordinator Responsibility |
|---|---|
| Student records | Search for existing records, coordinate transfers, support onboarding, maintain accurate status, and close local records when students leave or stop participating. |
| Users and access | Create or maintain accounts when authorized, assign appropriate access, and resolve scope, site, or student-assignment problems. |
| Meetings and workflow | Monitor incomplete or overdue work, help staff resolve workflow problems, and confirm completed events are finalized appropriately. |
| Data monitoring | Identify missing or inconsistent information, determine who can verify the field event, assign corrections, and follow them through completion. |
| CALPADS reporting | Submit SEDS transactions when assigned, review errors and results, coordinate corrections, resend, reconcile, and support certification. |
What this role normally does not own
- Making educational decisions for the IEP team;
- rewriting provider-authored meeting content merely to clear a reporting error;
- changing accurate historical facts solely to make a CALPADS validation pass; or
- granting broad access or changing a student record simply to work around an assignment problem.
Administrative access does not replace team responsibility. Staff who participated in the field event are often the best source for determining what actually occurred. The administrator or SEDS Coordinator helps ensure that outcome is accurately represented in SIRAS and, when applicable, reported to CALPADS.
SIRAS, SIS, CALPADS & Local Ownership
Administrators often work across several systems. Understanding which system owns which information helps prevent duplicate or contradictory corrections.
| System | Primary Role |
|---|---|
| District SIS | Primary district source for enrollment and many demographic fields. SIS integration may update corresponding SIRAS information according to local configuration. |
| SIRAS | Operational workspace for special education status, referrals, evaluations, meetings, plans, services, providers, documents, monitoring, and SEDS transaction history. |
| CALPADS | State reporting destination for enrollment and special education transactions. |
When systems disagree, begin with the real-world event. Determine what actually happened, identify which source is incorrect, correct that source, and then verify the result.
For the complete investigation method, see Data Monitoring Help and Process for Error Resolution.
Establish local ownership
A new administrator or SEDS Coordinator should identify who locally is responsible for:
- district SIS and enrollment data;
- CALPADS LEA administration and SEDS submission;
- special education program administration;
- Initial Evaluations and school psychology workflows;
- provider and caseload assignments;
- assessment and TOMS coordination;
- DRDP coordination;
- postsecondary surveys, when applicable;
- SIS integration or technical support; and
- SELPA reporting and compliance support.
Access & Where to Work
A user's ability to see or change a student depends on more than the user account itself. Access can be affected by the assigned role, district or school assignment, View Scope, and individual student/provider assignments.
Access problems are often scope or assignment problems rather than missing-record problems. Before creating a new student record or changing the student to solve an access issue, verify the user's account and scope.
Start with:
Know the major SIRAS work areas
| Area | Use It For |
|---|---|
| Home | Notifications, requests, workload indicators, announcements, and follow-up items. |
| Choose Student / Search | Locate individual students or build a Found Set for lists, reports, monitoring, and batch work. |
| Student Info / MIS Summary | Review Current status, enrollment, eligibility, plan, services, providers, and other operational data. |
| IEP / Forms Manager | Create and manage meetings, forms, proposed information, completion, finalization, and meeting documents. |
| Reporting | Lists, queries, extracts, statistical reports, compliance monitoring, and CALPADS reporting. |
| Tools / Manage Users | User accounts, roles, site assignments, student assignments, preferences, and administrative tools. |
Use the SIRAS User Manual when the question is primarily “Where is this?” Use Administrator / SEDS Coordinator Support when the question is “What should I do in this situation?”
Core Data Concepts
Understanding the difference between Current, Meeting, Archived, and Next Year's Data explains much of how SIRAS behaves.
| Data Layer | Question It Answers |
|---|---|
| Current | What does SIRAS understand to be true now? |
| Meeting | What is the team proposing or documenting in the open event? |
| Archived Transaction | What happened at a dated historical or reportable event? |
| Next Year's Data | What is expected to change for the upcoming academic year? |
Learn more:
- Data Record – Current Data
- Archived Transactions: Current Data, Components, and Reporting Status
- Next Year's Data
Active, Pending & Inactive
Record status describes the student's current operational status in SIRAS.
- Active — the student is eligible, enrolled, and participating.
- Pending — referral, arrival, consent, evaluation, participation, or other follow-up remains unresolved.
- Inactive — the student is not currently participating through the record, is no longer enrolled/residing, is not eligible, or the local workflow has ended.
Do not use status merely as a convenience setting. See SIRAS Record Status – Reflect What Is Happening in the Field for scenario-specific guidance.
Changing a student to Active, Pending, or Inactive updates the Current record. It does not necessarily create every required SWDS, MEET, PLAN, or SERV transaction.
Student Lifecycle & the Administrator Operating Cycle
Most administrator and SEDS Coordinator work fits into five recurring areas.
1. Onboard students
Process new referrals, returning students, transfers, students arriving with an existing plan, IFSP arrivals, and other incoming activity.
Search before creating. Determine whether an existing SIRAS record or CALPADS history already exists before creating another student record.
Start with:
- New or Returning Students
- Creating a New Student Record
- Initial Evaluation Process – Part B / IEP
- Plan Adoption – Incoming Students & CALPADS Reporting
2. Maintain Current work
Keep Current status, enrollment-related information, providers, services, open meetings, and other operational information aligned with what staff know now.
Use Data Monitoring Tasks to establish the recurring review schedule.
3. Complete and verify reportable events
Finalized meetings and specialized reporting workflows create the historical transactions used for SEDS/CALPADS reporting. Confirm that the appropriate archive exists and represents the actual event.
See Archived Transactions and Archive for Reporting.
4. Offboard students
Update records promptly when a student transfers, leaves, stops participating, becomes Not Eligible, completes school, reaches maximum age, or an anticipated arrival never occurs.
Use Student Record Offboarding: Inactive Status and SWDS Reporting.
5. Follow the calendar
Administrator work changes throughout the year. Reporting periods, census preparation, assessments, rollover, DRDP, postsecondary surveys, and local monitoring priorities all have seasonal timing.
Use SEDS Coordinator Focus by Month for the annual planning sequence rather than trying to memorize the entire year from this introduction.
Onboard → Maintain Current → Complete & Report Events → Offboard → Follow the Calendar
Field Events, Meetings & Corrections
When a problem appears in SIRAS or CALPADS, begin by asking:
What actually happened in the field, and on what date?
Then determine what that event should have changed in SIRAS.
Use this three-step habit
- Update Current data so SIRAS reflects what is known now.
- Complete the historical workflow by finalizing the applicable meeting or creating/correcting the appropriate reporting archive.
- Verify reporting when the event is reportable.
This sequence helps distinguish a Current-data problem from a meeting problem, archive problem, enrollment problem, or CALPADS submission problem.
Supporting meetings without taking over the team's work
Administrators commonly become involved when:
- a meeting occurred but remains open;
- the meeting type, purpose, date, or parent response appears inconsistent;
- record status prevents the expected workflow;
- an archive is missing or has an unexpected reporting status;
- staff need help completing or closing an event; or
- a CALPADS error reveals a conflict in the underlying meeting or historical data.
Review open work with Finding Unaffirmed or Open IEP Meetings in SIRAS.
When assigning a correction
Give the person receiving the task enough context to verify and resolve it. Include:
- the student's SIRAS ID;
- the field event being verified;
- the SIRAS page, meeting, or archived transaction involved;
- the error, warning, or inconsistency;
- who can verify the source information;
- the required next action; and
- a follow-up date.
Separate field verification from system correction. A provider, psychologist, enrollment employee, or administrator may need to confirm what happened before the SEDS Coordinator can safely complete the SIRAS or reporting step.
For complicated discrepancies, use Data Monitoring Help.
Preventive Monitoring & Compliance
Monitoring should help staff act before work becomes overdue, not only document problems afterward.
Administrators should use upcoming work, future as-of projections, current concerns, and historical review for different purposes:
| Review | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Upcoming meetings | Schedule and prepare before timelines become urgent. |
| Future As-Of projections | Estimate workload as of month-end, Census Day, school breaks, June 30, or another local date. |
| Currently overdue | Identify work needing immediate scheduling, finalization, reporting, verification, or escalation. |
| Previously overdue | Confirm the actual event, delay information, and accepted reporting history. |
Use these canonical guides:
- Compliance Monitoring: Upcoming, Overdue & As-Of Meeting Projections
- Data Monitoring Tasks: Preventive and Corrective Review
- Data Monitoring Help — use when a result requires investigation.
Every unresolved item should have an owner, a known next step, and a follow-up date.
SEDS & CALPADS Reporting
SIRAS special education reporting history is organized into four primary CALPADS transaction components:
| Component | Represents |
|---|---|
| SWDS | Eligibility and participation status over time. |
| MEET | Evaluation and meeting events, outcomes, timelines, and delay information. |
| PLAN | The applicable special education plan and related characteristics. |
| SERV | Services associated with the reported plan. |
See Archived Transaction Components: SWDS, MEET, PLAN, and SERV for the complete relationship between components.
Think of reporting as a complete cycle
- Prepare — review reportable events, monitoring lists, identifiers, and known problems.
- Submit — send eligible archived transactions to CALPADS.
- Review — examine submission results and imported errors.
- Investigate — determine whether the issue belongs to Current data, an archive, enrollment, a prerequisite transaction, or another source.
- Correct — update the source information that is actually wrong.
- Resend — submit the corrected transaction when applicable.
- Verify — confirm that the transaction was accepted and the resulting history is correct.
Reporting is complete when the appropriate transaction has been processed and the resulting history has been reviewed.
Use Reporting Data to CALPADS for the reporting procedure and current reporting options.
Use CALPADS Submission Log Help when tracing a submitted transaction.
Daily, Weekly & Seasonal Administrator Routine
A successful SEDS Coordinator process is a recurring routine, not a once-per-reporting-period cleanup.
Daily or as needed
- Review urgent Home Page notifications, requests, transfers, and access issues.
- Process new, returning, and departing students as information is received.
- Update known Current-status changes promptly.
- Help resolve meeting or workflow issues that are blocking staff work.
Weekly
- Review upcoming meetings and projected workload.
- Review Pending and Incoming students.
- Review open or unfinalized meetings.
- Review referrals requiring SSID, consent, or reporting follow-up.
- Review students who left or may require inactive follow-up.
- Confirm unresolved corrections have an owner and next step.
Monthly and seasonally
- Complete the local SEDS/CALPADS reporting and reconciliation cycle.
- Review monitoring and compliance lists.
- Project upcoming workload before major local or state dates.
- Review the current month's annual-planning priorities.
- Prepare for Census Day, EOY, assessment, rollover, DRDP, postsecondary, and other applicable cycles.
Do not use this introductory section as the operational checklist. Use:
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Creating a new student before searching. Existing SIRAS or CALPADS history may already identify the correct workflow.
- Changing a student record to solve a user-access problem. Review role, site, scope, and student/provider assignments first.
- Waiting for CALPADS cleanup before updating Current status. Current should reflect known field events promptly.
- Treating Pending as permanent. Pending records should be followed until the actual outcome is known.
- Confusing Plan Adoption with Initial Evaluation. An incoming student with an established plan generally requires an incoming/Plan Adoption workflow rather than a new Initial Evaluation simply because the student is new to the district.
- Leaving completed meetings open. Determine what remains incomplete and complete the proper workflow.
- Assuming Current status creates all reporting records. Review the resulting archived transaction and applicable components.
- Changing accurate historical facts just to remove an error. Investigate what is actually wrong and correct the governing source.
- Clearing or repeatedly resending errors without investigating them. Correct the cause first, then resend and verify.
For investigation and escalation guidance, see Process for Error Resolution.
Practice Scenarios
For each scenario, first identify:
- What happened in the field?
- What should the Current record show?
- What meeting, archive, or reporting action should follow?
Scenario 1 – New referral with assessment consent
The student remains in an evaluation workflow rather than becoming Active merely because consent was received. Enter the known consent information promptly, monitor the Initial Evaluation timeline, and complete the applicable reporting workflow.
See Initial Evaluation Process – Part B / IEP.
Scenario 2 – Student enrolls with an existing California IEP
Search for existing SIRAS and CALPADS history first. Verify enrollment, eligibility, participation, and available plan information, then follow the incoming-student / Plan Adoption workflow when appropriate. Do not start a new Initial Evaluation solely because the student is new to the district.
See New or Returning Students and Plan Adoption.
After the incoming-student review determines Plan Adoption is appropriate, use Plan Adoption – Incoming Students & CALPADS Reporting to choose the matching worked example: standard SWDS 1, plan type changing, SWDS 2/3 returning to participation, or no plan to adopt.
Scenario 3 – Student leaves or stops participating
Determine what actually happened, whether eligibility continues, and whether a team meeting should create the outcome. Update the Current record using the real field date and follow the scenario-specific offboarding and SWDS reporting guidance.
See Student Record Offboarding.
Scenario 4 – A CALPADS error conflicts with the SIRAS record
Do not immediately change dates or historical data. Compare the field event, SIS enrollment, SIRAS Current information, archived transactions, prerequisite records, and CALPADS history. Correct the source that is actually wrong and verify the result after resubmission.
Suggested First 30 Days
New administrators do not need to master every SIRAS function immediately. Build the role in stages.
Days 1–5: Learn the environment
- Complete this introduction.
- Verify your SIRAS role, scope, site assignments, and CALPADS responsibilities.
- Identify your SIS, CALPADS, SELPA, and site contacts.
- Review the Home Page, student search, MIS Summary, Forms Manager, Reporting, and Manage Users areas.
- Practice identifying Current, Meeting, Archived, and Next Year's Data.
Days 6–10: Observe the current workload
- Review Pending and Incoming students.
- Review open meetings and upcoming compliance workload.
- Review current data-monitoring lists and reporting errors.
- Identify urgent deadlines or long-running unresolved records.
- Document who currently owns each recurring task.
Days 11–20: Practice the core workflows
- Review or process a new or returning student with an experienced administrator.
- Follow an Initial Evaluation from referral/consent through the reporting workflow.
- Review an incoming student who requires Plan Adoption.
- Review a student leaving or becoming Inactive.
- Trace a SEDS transaction from the SIRAS archive through CALPADS submission and acceptance.
Days 21–30: Establish the operating routine
- Confirm daily, weekly, monthly, and seasonal task ownership.
- Create local calendar reminders for recurring responsibilities.
- Establish a method for assigning and following unresolved corrections.
- Review the current month's priorities and upcoming deadlines.
- Confirm escalation and CALPADS certification responsibilities with leadership.
- Identify areas where additional training or office-hour support is needed.
Use SEDS Coordinator Focus by Month and Data Monitoring Tasks to turn this onboarding sequence into an ongoing operating routine.
Administrator / SEDS Coordinator Readiness Checklist
- ☐ I understand the roles of the SIS, SIRAS, and CALPADS.
- ☐ I know who locally owns SIS enrollment, SIRAS administration, SEDS submission, certification, and SELPA coordination.
- ☐ My SIRAS role, scope, site assignments, and contact information are correct.
- ☐ I understand Current, Meeting, Archived, and Next Year's Data.
- ☐ I can distinguish Active, Pending, and Inactive records.
- ☐ I understand that Current status and archived/reporting transactions are separate but related.
- ☐ I search for an existing student before creating a new record.
- ☐ I can identify the appropriate starting point for Initial Evaluation, incoming student, Plan Adoption, transfer, and offboarding workflows.
- ☐ I know how to review upcoming and open meeting work.
- ☐ I know where to find recurring data-monitoring tasks.
- ☐ I understand the purpose of SWDS, MEET, PLAN, and SERV.
- ☐ I can trace a reporting issue from the field event through Current data, archive, submission, correction, and verification.
- ☐ Unresolved work in my area has an owner, next action, and follow-up date.
- ☐ I know the daily, weekly, monthly, and seasonal administrator resources.
- ☐ I know where to find additional training, office hours, the User Manual, Administrator Support, and SIRAS Support.
Training & Support
Continue with the right resource
- Administrator / SEDS Coordinator Support — task and workflow guidance.
- SIRAS User Manual — screen and menu help.
- SIRAS Office Hours & Support — training paths, practice-server information, and live training resources.
- Office Hour Opportunities for SPED Admin Staff — current administrator and reporting support opportunities.
- SEDS Coordinator Focus by Month — seasonal operating priorities after introductory training.
- Data Monitoring Tasks — recurring preventive and corrective work.
Contact SIRAS Support when
- the verified field event and available SIRAS workflow do not align;
- a transaction cannot be corrected through the documented process;
- a submission result is missing or inconsistent;
- a duplicate, identity, ownership, or cross-district transfer problem is suspected;
- the same error returns after informed correction attempts; or
- the proposed correction could alter accurate historical data.
Email [email protected]. Include the student's SIRAS ID, the workflow being attempted, what happened in the field, the relevant date, and the exact error or unexpected behavior. Do not include confidential student information in unsecured email.
