Year for Census Queries is used for CALPADS historical estimates.

If you have need for official Fall 1 or EOY 4 counts, those need to be obtained by the 16.14 reports in CALPADS directly.

SIRAS Fall 1 estimates are the most vague and must have VLOOKUP to SIS enrollment data for refinement.

SIRAS EOY 4 estimates are the most accurate on their own but still may miss students who were enrolled and participating during the year but didn't have a transaction dated between 7/1 and 6/30 of the academic year.

Using VLOOKUP with an SIS enrollment file can help identify if there were any missing records in the SIRAS estimate.

SIRAS reports events transactionally to CALPADS.

If a student has a May 2024 plan from the 23-24 school year in place and the student enrolls during the 24-25 school year, but moves after the Fall 1 Census.

This student would be included in the Fall 1 2025 census in CALPADS. But in SIRAS, the plan review wasn't due until May 2026, therefore no 7/1/2024 - 10/2/2024 transaction would have occurred.
This is one of a few reasons why these results of this SIRAS query is called an estimate.

Assuming staff run a CALPADS historical estimate from SIRAS.

In order to use it effectively it must be exported and then compared to an enrollment file from the SIS from the same time period.

If one is looking for precise estimates from SIRAS data, one must be prepared to use VLOOKUP between a SIRAS estimate file and an SIS enrollment file.

This way the estimate file from SIRAS can be trimmed of records included of students who didn't actually enroll during the time period in question.