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Table of Contents

California Long-Term Independent Study Program

A Compliance, Funding Recovery & Workload Reduction Guide


Legal Authority: Education Code §§ 51744-51749.6; 5 CCR §§ 11700-11705; SB 153 (Ch. 38, Statutes of 2024)
Audit Framework: Section D, 2025-26 Guide for Annual Audits of K-12 Local Education Agencies and State Compliance Reporting (Education Audit Appeals Panel)
Applicable Fiscal Year: 2024-25 and forward
Last Reviewed:

Executive Summary

When a student will be out of the classroom for weeks or months, most districts face a hard choice: drop the student, or keep them enrolled while generating zero average daily attendance for the entire absence. Long-term independent study (Long-Term IS), defined by SB 153 as an independent study placement of 16 or more school days, is the lawful path that keeps the student enrolled, learning, and generating fundable ADA through an extended absence that would otherwise produce nothing.

Long-term IS is not simply short-term IS that runs longer. At the 16-day line, a set of additional California requirements switches on, and every one of them is audited: the master agreement must be signed before the first day of instruction, grade-banded synchronous instruction and live interaction must be offered and documented daily, tiered reengagement procedures must run when a student disengages, and a plan must exist to return the student to the classroom in no more than five instructional days. These are exactly the requirements that make districts nervous about offering long-term IS at all, because a single missed signature or an undocumented month of participation can erase a large block of funding.

American Digital Education (ADE) is purpose-built to carry that compliance load. Its Long-Term IS module mirrors the instructional engine of ADE’s short-term program (the same California-standards-aligned Explicit Direct Instruction lessons and teacher-judged time value) and layers on the long-term controls as hard, database-level gates: no work can be assigned and no ADA can accrue until the master agreement is fully signed and dated on or before day one; synchronous participation is logged by grade band; reengagement cases open automatically; and the return-to-classroom clock is tracked to the instructional day.

Built to the Audit Guide

Independent study is one of the most heavily audited programs in California, and long-term IS carries the fullest set of checks. Your auditor tests it against Section D (“Independent Study”) of the 2025-26 Guide for Annual Audits of K-12 Local Education Agencies and State Compliance Reporting, published by the Education Audit Appeals Panel. The auditor samples pupils, pulls master agreements and signature records, confirms the signature date precedes the first day of instruction, traces attendance to registers and retained work samples, examines synchronous and live-interaction participation logs, and reviews reengagement documentation. ADE was engineered to that written text: where the guide says “verify,” our database enforces the rule; where it says “examine,” a one-click report produces the record. The compliance section below walks the applicable procedures one by one, and the reports section shows exactly what your auditor receives.

Bottom Line

Consider a 6,000-student district. In any given year a meaningful number of students face extended absences: serious illness or injury, mental health treatment, high-risk pregnancy and new parenting, family crises, or safety situations. If just 120 students spend an average of 40 school days on compliant long-term IS instead of generating nothing, that is 4,800 days of preserved ADA. At roughly $80 per day, that is approximately $384,000 in funding that would otherwise have been lost outright, plus the far larger and harder-to-quantify value of students who stay enrolled and on track rather than dropping out. ADE delivers this while removing the documentation burden that keeps most districts from offering long-term IS in the first place.

The Problem: Extended Absences, Lost Funding, and Compliance Fear

Short absences are scattered and recoverable in small pieces. Extended absences are different in kind. A student in cancer treatment, recovering from a serious injury, in a residential mental health program, navigating a high-risk pregnancy, or moving through a prolonged family crisis is not out for a day here and there. They are out for weeks or months, and during that time the district faces two simultaneous losses: the student’s learning, and the entire block of ADA that student would have generated.

Long-term independent study is the statutory answer. It lets the student remain enrolled and continue earning credit and attendance through the absence. But districts routinely leave this on the table, and the reason is not that they do not know the program exists. The reason is fear of the audit.

Why Long-Term IS Scares Districts

The long-term requirements are unforgiving in a way short-term is not. Consider what has to be true, continuously, across a multi-month placement:

  • The master agreement had to be signed before the very first day of instruction. If it was signed on day two, the days before the signature are gone, and there is no way to fix it after the fact.
  • Synchronous instruction and live interaction had to be offered on the correct grade-band cadence and documented every school day for the entire placement.
  • When the student disengaged, tiered reengagement had to trigger, the parent had to be notified within one school day, and a written plan had to be created.
  • Every assignment’s time value had to be personally judged by a credentialed teacher, with the work samples retained.

Done by hand, across dozens of students and thousands of school days, this is a documentation project that a busy site office simply cannot sustain reliably. And unreliable documentation on long-term IS is worse than not offering it, because a failed audit means recovery of the claimed ADA. So districts play it safe, offer nothing, and lose the funding anyway.

The Real Cost

A student out for a full semester generates roughly ninety school days of potential ADA. Lost entirely, at approximately $80 per day, that is over $7,000 of funding for a single student, on top of the student’s disengagement from school. Multiply that across every extended-absence student in a district and the annual loss runs into the hundreds of thousands. The barrier is not the law. The barrier is the paperwork, and paperwork is exactly what ADE automates.

Long-Term IS vs. Short-Term IS: When the Rules Change

Both short-term and long-term independent study are governed by the same article of the Education Code (§§ 51744-51749.6), and both recover ADA based on the teacher-judged time value of student work. The difference is a bright line at 16 school days. Below it, a set of operational relief provisions applies. At or above it, the full compliance regime switches on. The table below shows exactly what changes.

Requirement Short-Term IS (fewer than 16 school days) Long-Term IS (16 or more school days)
Master Agreement Timing May be signed at any time during the school year (EC § 51747(g)(9)(A)(ii)) Must be signed before the first day of independent study instruction; no ADA may be claimed until it is signed (EC §§ 51747(g)(9)(A), 46300.7)
Synchronous Instruction Not required (exempt under EC § 51747(i)) Required and documented by grade band: daily for TK-3; at least weekly for grades 4-8 and 9-12 (EC § 51747(e))
Live Interaction Not required (exempt under EC § 51747(i)) Required daily for grades 4-8, in addition to weekly synchronous instruction (EC § 51747(e)(2))
Daily Participation Documentation Not required Required: each pupil’s participation in live interaction and synchronous instruction is documented each school day it is offered (EC § 51747.5(c))
Tiered Reengagement Not required (exempt under EC § 51747(i)) Required when a student misses more than 10% of instructional time over four continuous weeks, misses more than 50% of scheduled synchronous time in a school month, or violates the agreement (EC § 51747(d))
Transition-to-Classroom Plan Not required (exempt under EC § 51747(i)) Required: return a student to in-person instruction in no case later than five instructional days (EC § 51747(f))
ADA Calculation Basis Time value of work product, personally judged by a credentialed teacher (EC § 51747.5(b)) Same, plus the combined time value of work product and documented participation in synchronous instruction, as applicable by grade level (EC § 51747.5(b))
Required Signatories Student, parent/guardian (if under 18), supervising credentialed teacher, and special-education designee as applicable Same four roles, all dated, all before the first day of instruction
Audit Exposure If Non-Compliant Loss of ADA for the affected short-term window Loss of ADA for the affected long-term window, which can span months of a single student’s funding

Key Takeaway

Short-term IS is a light-footprint tool for scattered absences. Long-term IS is a higher-stakes, higher-value program for extended absences, and it demands continuous documentation that no site office can sustain by hand. ADE is the system that makes long-term IS operable: it enforces the before-day-one signature as a hard gate, structures the grade-band synchronous logging, runs the reengagement triggers automatically, and tracks the five-day transition clock, so the program your district was afraid to run becomes routine.

Important: the two programs work together. A student who begins on short-term IS and crosses the 16-day threshold moves into long-term IS, at which point the full requirements apply going forward. ADE tracks cumulative IS days per student and flags the approaching threshold so the transition is planned, not discovered during an audit.

How ADE Powers Long-Term IS and Reduces Staff Workload

ADE’s Long-Term IS module reuses the entire short-term instructional engine (the standards-mapped EDI lesson library, the work-product capture, the teacher time-value workflow, and the one-click audit exports) and adds the long-term compliance controls as enforced, automated steps. The credentialed teacher’s statutory role is preserved; the manual labor around it is removed.

Step-by-Step Workflow

Enroll the Student and Set the Placement

Staff create a long-term IS enrollment with the student’s grade level, the placement start and end dates (which may not exceed the school year), and an IEP flag where applicable. ADE derives the student’s grade band (TK-3, 4-8, or 9-12), which drives the synchronous and live-interaction cadence the system will expect for the rest of the placement.

Master Agreement, Signed Before Day One: The Hard Gate

ADE generates a master agreement containing every EC § 51747(g) element, the voluntary sign-off statement, the placement dates, and the district’s missed-assignment evaluation threshold. Signatures collect through a secure code-based signing page that captures a digital signature with timestamp, IP address, and user-agent (paper signing is supported for families without digital access). For a student with an active IEP, the special-education designee’s signature line is added automatically, and the agreement cannot reach fully-executed status without it. The gate is absolute: ADE will not allow any work to be assigned, and no ADA can accrue, until the agreement is fully signed and dated on or before the placement start date. If anyone attempts to start the placement before the signature, the system blocks it and explains the rule. This single control eliminates the most common cause of disallowed long-term ADA.

Assign Standards-Aligned Work and Set Time Value

The supervising credentialed teacher assigns ADE lessons aligned to the standards the student is covering, mapped automatically through the lesson-to-standards database. As work is completed, the teacher reviews the platform data (time on task, mastery score, CFU results) and personally judges the time value of each work product per EC § 51747.5(b). Time value can only be set by a user whose profile carries a verified California credential number; the system blocks and logs any other attempt. Each assignment also carries a due date, and the same automated engine that governs short-term IS refuses credit for work completed after the due date.

Log Live Interaction and Synchronous Sessions by Grade Band

From the Additional Work area, the supervising teacher opens a structured session log and records each live-interaction or synchronous session: the date, the scheduled minutes, and the minutes the student actually attended. ADE knows the student’s grade band and flags any gap against the required cadence (daily synchronous for TK-3, daily live interaction plus weekly synchronous for 4-8, weekly synchronous for 9-12). Participation minutes combine with work-product time value to compute the day’s ADA, and any scheduled session the student misses is recorded as nonparticipatory, feeding the reengagement counters.

Automatic Tiered Reengagement

A daily process evaluates every active long-term enrollment against the three statutory triggers: more than 10% missed instructional time over four continuous weeks, more than 50% missed synchronous time in a school month, and any agreement violation, including reaching the missed-assignment threshold. When a trigger fires, ADE opens a reengagement case, prompts confirmation of current parent contact information, and stamps the parent notification within one school day, flagging the case if that window is at risk. The case cannot be closed without a written reengagement plan on file, and the system supports scheduling and recording the pupil-parent-educator conference.

Five-Day Transition Tracking

When a family requests a return to in-person instruction, staff log the request and ADE calculates the return-by date five instructional days out, counting only school days on the district calendar. A countdown surfaces on the dashboard and flags any request at risk of exceeding the five-day limit, and the completed transition is retained in the audit file.

Separate Long-Term Reporting and One-Click Audit File

Long-term IS appears in admin reporting as its own clearly labeled table, structurally separate from short-term, so the two are never confused on audit. For any student, one click produces a complete Long-Term IS Audit File: the signed master agreement with the before-day-one flag and all dated signatures, the supervising teacher’s credential reference, the full assignment ledger with certified time values, the live and synchronous participation log, every reengagement case with its notification timestamps and written plans, and any transition record.

SB 153 Validation

SB 153’s expansion of eligible work product evidence to include “work completed on online or computer-based instructional platforms” (EC § 51747.5(b)(2)(A)(ii)) makes ADE lesson completion data the documentary basis for the credentialed teacher’s time-value judgment, and its confirmation that long-term IS ADA combines work-product time value with documented synchronous participation is exactly the calculation ADE performs.

How We Are Compliant: Every Applicable Audit Procedure, Checked

The 2025-26 Guide for Annual Audits of K-12 Local Education Agencies and State Compliance Reporting (Section D, “Independent Study”) instructs your auditor to sample pupils with IS-generated ADA and perform a specific list of verifications. Long-term IS is subject to the full set, including the checks that short-term placements are relieved from. The table below shows how ADE complies and what evidence the auditor receives. Three levels of assurance appear throughout: Database-enforced means the rule is physically impossible to violate in the system; Recorded means the system captures the evidence automatically; District-operational means the fact is yours to keep true (covered honestly in the district-side section).

What the Auditor Tests Underlying Law How ADE Complies Audit Evidence
Master agreement signed before the first day of instruction; no ADA before signature §§ 51747(g)(9)(A), 46300.7 Database-enforced: no work can be assigned and no ADA can accrue until the agreement is fully signed and dated on or before the placement start date; earlier starts are blocked Master agreement PDF with dated signatures and before-day-one flag; the Long-Term IS Audit File
Agreement contains all required elements, with signatures by pupil, parent/guardian, supervising teacher, and special-education designee as applicable § 51747(g) Recorded + enforced: generated agreements always contain the required statements; ordered signature workflow with full signer metadata; the SPED-designee line is added automatically for IEP students and the agreement cannot fully execute without it Signed agreement PDFs; the audit file’s signature-record table with “REQUIRED – unsigned” flags
IS attendance maintained on a separate register, tracked separately from other ADA § 51747.5 Database-enforced: long-term IS records live in their own reporting surface, separate from regular attendance, from short-term IS, and from Attendance Recovery; ADE never writes to the district SIS The Long-Term IS register; the one-click audit file
Attendance based on the time value of work product personally judged by a credentialed teacher, combined with documented synchronous participation § 51747.5(b) Recorded + enforced: per-assignment time value can be set only by a credential-verified user; participation minutes are logged per session and combined into the day’s ADA Verification records (verified-by, verified-at, scores); the participation log; the register
Synchronous instruction and live interaction offered by grade band and participation documented each school day §§ 51747(e), 51747.5(c) Recorded: a structured session log captures scheduled and attended minutes per session; cadence gaps against the grade-band requirement surface as exceptions; nonparticipation is recorded per day The live and synchronous participation log; the grade-band cadence exception report
Tiered reengagement triggered on the statutory thresholds; parent notified within one school day; written plan on file § 51747(d) Recorded + enforced: a daily process opens a case on any trigger, stamps the one-school-day notification and flags misses, and blocks case closure without a written plan Reengagement case records with trigger type, notification timestamps, and written plans
Transition to in-person instruction in no case later than five instructional days § 51747(f) Recorded: the return-by date is computed five instructional days out on the district calendar; at-risk requests are flagged; completion is retained Transition request records with requested, target, and completed dates
No attendance for work submitted after the specified due date (“make-up”); not more than one day of attendance per calendar day §§ 51747, 46300 Database-enforced: overdue assignments expire automatically and cannot earn credit; the daily ADA cap and annual full-time ceiling are enforced Register status columns (expired / “Late – no credit”); ADA ceiling validation log
Attendance traces to the register, the record of work completed, and the assignment record; work samples retained, relating to the assignment and reflecting the adopted curriculum §§ 51747.5, 51745(a) Recorded: per-assignment work sample PDFs capture the student’s actual assessed work, tied to the assignment, the standard codes, and the district’s uploaded pacing guide Work sample PDFs; the Long-Term IS register
Documented time on online platforms and hours of pupil work product; grade-book evidence of engagement § 51747.5(b) Recorded: time on task, mastery scores, and first-attempt CFU percentages are captured per lesson and carried consistently across the register, exports, and work samples Register and export score columns; work sample grade-book block
Participation is voluntary; classroom instruction offered as the alternative § 51747 Recorded: the voluntary sign-off statement is in every master agreement and acknowledged at signing Signed agreement PDFs with acknowledgments
IS taught and supervised by a holder of a valid California credential; ADA within teacher-to-ADA ratio limits §§ 51747.5(a), 51745.6 Recorded + district-operational: the supervising teacher’s credential is on file and gates time-value entry; aggregate ratio management is the LEA’s Credential reference on the agreement and verifications; LEA ratio documentation
Records maintained for the annual audit; data privacy (FERPA, COPPA) 5 CCR §§ 11703-11704; 20 U.S.C. § 1232g Recorded: all records under row-level security with role-based access; one-click audit file, agreement PDFs, work samples, and exports on demand Long-Term IS Audit File; agreement PDFs; work sample PDFs; CSV exports

The Reports Your Auditor Receives

When the auditor asks for records, your staff clicks one button. District and school administrators generate every report below organization-wide from the Long-Term IS dashboard; teachers generate the same documents per class. Nothing is assembled by hand.

The Long-Term IS Audit File (one click, PDF)

A single document per student, headed with the statutory citation (EC §§ 51744-51749.6 / audit guide Section D), a Pacific-time generation timestamp, and a FERPA notice, containing:

  • The master agreement record – every required EC § 51747(g) element, the placement start and end dates, all dated signatures (student, parent, supervising teacher, and special-education designee where required, with a loud “REQUIRED – unsigned” flag if missing), and the signed-before-day-one confirmation
  • The assignment ledger – every assignment: standard codes, due date, completion date, status (including expired and “Late – no credit”), time on task, mastery and CFU scores, certified time value, and verified-by/when
  • The live and synchronous participation log – each session with its date, scheduled minutes, attended minutes, and the participation determination, with grade-band cadence gaps flagged
  • The reengagement history – each case with its trigger type, the parent notification timestamp against the one-school-day window, the written plan, and any conference record
  • The transition record – request, five-instructional-day target, and completion, where applicable

Master Agreement PDFs (per agreement)

  • The complete agreement with every required statement, the placement dates, the voluntary sign-off, and all signature blocks, including the special-education designee block with the sign-twice notation when the designee is the supervising teacher

Student Work Samples (per completed assignment, PDF)

  • Every embedded assessment question in instructional order, the student’s own answers (including spoken-response transcripts), correct/incorrect/not-answered per question, the grade-book scores, the standard codes, and the teacher verification stamp, with a FERPA footer

Registers and CSV Exports

  • A dedicated Long-Term IS register and exports carrying the real audit fields (placement dates, agreement status, synchronous participation rates, reengagement status, transition status, verification records), plus a FERPA-safe anonymized CSV and summaries to support CALPADS STAS and PADC preparation

Funding Preservation: Understanding the Financial Upside

How Long-Term IS Funding Works

Long-term IS is best understood not as recovering scattered days but as preserving a student’s normal, ongoing ADA through an extended absence that would otherwise generate nothing. Each school day the student completes standards-aligned work whose time value, judged by a credentialed teacher and combined with any required synchronous participation, equals the applicable minimum instructional day, the district earns that day of ADA. Across a multi-week or multi-month placement, that adds up to the bulk of the student’s regular funding, retained rather than lost.

Because a student cannot exceed full-time enrollment across the year, long-term IS does not stack extra funding above a student’s normal entitlement. What it does is protect the entitlement that a long absence would otherwise erase, which for an individual student is a far larger number than any short-term recovery.

District-Wide Impact: A 6,000-Student District

The size of the opportunity depends on how many students face extended absences and how many days each would otherwise lose. The table below models preserved ADA across a district’s extended-absence population. These are students who, without long-term IS, generate zero for the length of their absence.

Scenario Students on Long-Term IS Avg. School Days Preserved Total Preserved Days Est. Funding Preserved*
Conservative 60 30 1,800 ~$144,000
Moderate 120 40 4,800 ~$384,000
Aggressive 200 50 10,000 ~$800,000

*Based on approximately $80/day LCFF funding. Actual per-day funding varies by grade span and district entitlements. Preserved days are bounded by full-time enrollment per student across the year. Consult your district’s budget office for your specific rates.

Key Takeaway

Every school day an extended-absence student spends outside a compliant program is a day of ADA permanently forfeited. Long-term IS converts those forfeited days back into fundable, credit-bearing instruction, and it keeps the student enrolled and progressing toward graduation. At $50 per student per year, ADE’s cost is a small fraction of the funding a single semester-long placement preserves. The barrier was never the funding math. It was the documentation risk, and that is precisely what ADE removes.

Workload Reduction: The Operational Case for ADE

Long-term IS carries a heavier documentation load than any other attendance-recovery pathway, because the obligations are continuous across the whole placement. Done by hand, it is unsustainable at scale, which is why so many districts avoid it. ADE eliminates the manual steps while preserving the credentialed teacher’s statutory role.

Long-Term IS Task Without ADE (Manual) With ADE
Master agreement before day one Manually assemble the agreement, chase four signatures, and hope the dates land before the start; a late signature silently forfeits ADA Auto-generated with all elements; ordered signing; a hard gate that will not let the placement start unsigned
Standards-aligned assignments across months Build or source aligned work for every subject, every week, for the length of the placement Assign from the standards-mapped EDI library in minutes; alignment is built in
Synchronous and live-interaction scheduling and logging Track the correct grade-band cadence and hand-log participation every school day for every student Structured session log with attended minutes; automatic cadence-gap flags by grade band
Time value of work product Review paper work and estimate hours with no standardized data Time on task, mastery, and CFU data presented; teacher confirms the judgment in minutes
Tiered reengagement Manually watch attendance and participation, remember the one-school-day notification, and write plans by hand Triggers fire automatically; the one-school-day notification is stamped and flagged; cases require a written plan to close
Five-day transition tracking Calculate five instructional days by hand and hope nothing slips Automatic countdown on the district calendar with at-risk flags
Audit documentation Assemble agreements, participation logs, reengagement records, and work samples from scattered files One-click Long-Term IS Audit File per student
CALPADS / PADC preparation Compile data from multiple sources each reporting period CSV exports formatted for STAS and PADC preparation in minutes

Time Savings Estimate

For a site running 25 long-term IS placements across a year, the continuous manual documentation (agreements, daily participation logs, reengagement paperwork, and audit assembly) can consume hundreds of staff hours. ADE reduces that to a small fraction, and it removes the single largest source of disallowed ADA by making the before-day-one signature impossible to skip. Those recovered hours go back to students.

Keeping Extended-Absence Students Connected

Long-term IS is not only a funding mechanism. For a student facing a serious illness, a mental health crisis, a new baby, or a family upheaval, it is often the difference between staying enrolled and dropping out. ADE is designed to make the placement a genuine continuation of school, not a holding pattern.

1. It keeps the instruction real.

ADE’s EDI lessons follow the same explicit-instruction sequence a skilled teacher uses in the classroom: modeling, guided practice, checking for understanding, and closure, aligned to the specific standards the student is covering. A student on long-term IS keeps moving through grade-level content rather than falling months behind.

2. The required live contact becomes a lifeline.

The grade-band synchronous and live-interaction requirements are, in practice, a mandate to stay in real-time contact with a vulnerable student. ADE structures and documents that contact, turning a compliance obligation into a reliable human touchpoint during a hard stretch of a student’s life.

3. Reengagement catches the slide early.

The tiered reengagement engine surfaces disengagement the moment it crosses a threshold and forces prompt parent contact. For an extended-absence student, that early signal is exactly when intervention matters most, and ADE makes sure it is never missed by a busy office.

4. The transition plan is a real on-ramp back.

When the student is ready to return, the five-instructional-day transition is tracked to completion, so the return to the classroom is smooth and prompt rather than delayed by paperwork.

5. The evidence supports the whole support team.

Mastery scores, participation logs, and reengagement records give counselors, SST and SARB teams, and IEP teams a clear picture of how the student is doing, and feed LCAP documentation for the district’s most vulnerable populations.

What No Software Can Make Compliant: The District Side of the Audit

We believe in being straight with superintendents: a state audit tests your program, not just your software. ADE enforces every rule a database can enforce and produces every record the guide asks the auditor to examine, but the following responsibilities remain with the LEA and cannot be delegated to a technology platform. Any vendor who tells you otherwise is not being honest, and on long-term IS the district-side obligations are larger than on short-term.

Adopt Long-Term IS Board Policies

Before offering long-term IS, the governing board must adopt written policies that include the grade-band synchronous and live-interaction plans, the tiered reengagement procedures, the transition plan, and the missed-assignment evaluation standard. ADE provides model policy language, but adoption is the LEA’s act.

Action Item

Adopt or update long-term IS board policies before launch, ensuring they reflect the SB 153 16-day definition and include the § 51747(d), (e), and (f) plans that apply specifically to long-term placements.

Actually Offer and Staff the Synchronous Instruction

The system documents synchronous instruction and live interaction, but the LEA must actually provide it on the correct grade-band cadence with credentialed staff. This is a scheduling and staffing commitment the district must make.

Action Item

Assign credentialed staff and a schedule for the required synchronous and live-interaction sessions by grade band before enrolling long-term students.

Secure the Master Agreement Before Day One

ADE will not let a placement start without a fully-signed agreement dated on or before the start, but the LEA must ensure families actually complete signing before the intended first day, which means starting the agreement process early enough to collect all four signatures in time.

Action Item

Build the signing step into your intake so agreements are initiated well before the planned start date. For a student with an IEP, confirm the IEP permits independent study and route the special-education designee signature early.

Teacher Evaluation of Time Value

The credentialed teacher must personally judge the time value of each work product (EC § 51747.5(b)). ADE presents the data; the professional judgment belongs to the teacher and cannot be automated.

Action Item

Train supervising teachers on a consistent time-value standard and document it in your IS policy. Ensure every supervising teacher’s California credential is verified in ADE so the time-value gate functions.

Bottom Line

Board-adopted long-term IS policies, credentialed staff actually delivering the required synchronous instruction, voluntary and uncoerced participation, residency, and the real-world return path to the classroom are program and personnel facts the LEA must make true. Everything the auditor will ask to see, and every rule that can be enforced in software, is handled: the before-day-one signature is an absolute gate, participation is logged by grade band, reengagement fires and notifies automatically, and the full audit file exports in one click. Keep your policies, staffing, and credentials in order, and you are in as strong a long-term IS audit position as a system can put you.

What We Need From Your District

Adoption is a short checklist. Here is what you provide, and what you get back:

Your Pacing Guides – and the Give-Back

Send us your pacing guides in the standard district format (Unit/Module, Timeframe, Focus California State Standards, Key Skills/Objectives, Assessments, Core Instructional Materials, Supplemental Material). We upload them, align every listed standard to our lesson library, and hand the guide back with a Supplemental Curriculum column filled in as “American Digital Education [Lesson Name]”. From then on, every long-term IS assignment is stamped against the matching pacing unit, the auditor-facing evidence that the work samples reflect your adopted curriculum, not an alternative one.

  • Pacing guides for the subjects and grades you will run long-term IS in
  • Placement details up front – grade level, start and end dates, and IEP status, so the grade-band cadence and signature requirements engage correctly
  • A synchronous and live-interaction schedule with the credentialed staff who will deliver it, by grade band
  • Signature follow-through before day one – families sign through the secure code link or on paper before the placement begins; the system will not start an unsigned placement
  • Rosters and current grade levels (SSO/roster sync supported)
  • Your board policy documents, so the policy statements in the generated agreements match adopted policy

Implementation Roadmap

Month 1: Policy and Preparation

  • Adopt or update board policies for long-term independent study, including the § 51747(d), (e), and (f) plans and the missed-assignment evaluation standard
  • Assign credentialed staff and a schedule for grade-band synchronous instruction and live interaction
  • Designate the IS Coordinator and the supervising teachers, and verify their California credentials in ADE
  • Prepare the master agreement template with the voluntary sign-off text approved by district counsel
  • Set the district’s minimum instructional-day minutes by grade level and upload the instructional calendar (drives the four-week, school-month, and five-instructional-day math)

Month 2: Staff Training and Launch

  • Train teachers on the long-term workflow: enrollment, the before-day-one agreement gate, assigning work and time value, and logging synchronous and live sessions
  • Train administrators on the Long-Term IS dashboard: the compliance exceptions panel, reengagement cases, and the transition countdown
  • Pilot with a small number of extended-absence students, confirming every documentation field populates and the audit file assembles correctly
  • Train attendance staff on long-term IS ADA preparation for PADC and CALPADS STAS

Month 3: Reporting, Scaling, and Refinement

  • Run the first long-term IS ADA preparation cycle and pull audit files for a sample of students as a dry run
  • Review the compliance exceptions panel and clear any cadence gaps, unsigned agreements, or overdue reengagement notifications
  • Expand from the pilot to full deployment across sites
  • Report preserved funding and student outcomes to the board as part of budget and LCAP reporting

Audit Readiness Checklist

Use this checklist to prepare for the annual audit’s verification of long-term IS conditions of apportionment.

Program Design

  • Board-adopted long-term IS policies on file, including grade-band synchronous plans, tiered reengagement procedures, transition plan, and missed-assignment evaluation standard
  • Credentialed staff and schedule in place for the required synchronous instruction and live interaction
  • Documentation confirming participation is voluntary and a classroom alternative was available

Master Agreement, Signed Before Day One

  • A signed master agreement on file for every long-term student, dated on or before the first day of instruction
  • All required EC § 51747(g) elements present, including placement dates and the missed-assignment evaluation standard
  • Dated signatures from student, parent/guardian (if under 18), supervising credentialed teacher, and the special-education designee for IEP students
  • For IEP students, confirmation the IEP permits independent study

Synchronous Instruction, Live Interaction, and Participation

  • Grade-band cadence offered: daily synchronous for TK-3; daily live interaction plus weekly synchronous for 4-8; weekly synchronous for 9-12
  • Daily participation documented for each school day live or synchronous contact was offered
  • Nonparticipation recorded and feeding the reengagement counters

Tiered Reengagement and Transition

  • Reengagement cases opened on the statutory triggers, with parent notification recorded within one school day
  • Written reengagement plans on file for every triggered case
  • Any return-to-classroom request completed within five instructional days, with the record retained

Time Value, Work Samples, and Due Dates

  • Time value of each work product personally judged by a credential-verified teacher, with verification records on file
  • Work sample PDFs retained per completed assignment, relating to the assignment and reflecting the adopted curriculum
  • No credit for work completed after the due date; no more than one day of ADA per calendar day; annual full-time ceiling respected

Reporting

  • Long-term IS attendance tracked separately and prepared for CALPADS STAS and PADC
  • No long-term IS ADA double-counted with short-term IS or Attendance Recovery for the same day

Frequently Asked Questions

What exactly makes an independent study placement “long-term”?

Under SB 153, long-term independent study is a placement of 16 or more school days; short-term is fewer than 16. The distinction matters because at the 16-day line the full compliance regime switches on: the master agreement must be signed before the first day, grade-band synchronous instruction and live interaction must be offered and documented, tiered reengagement procedures apply, and a five-instructional-day transition plan is required. A student who starts on short-term IS and crosses 16 cumulative days moves into long-term IS, and the full requirements apply going forward.

Why does the master agreement have to be signed before the first day?

For long-term IS, California law does not allow ADA to be claimed for any day before a completed, signed agreement, and the agreement must be signed before instruction commences (EC §§ 51747(g)(9)(A), 46300.7). Unlike short-term IS, there is no option to sign later in the year. If a long-term placement begins before the agreement is fully executed, the funding for those days is forfeited with no way to recover it. This is the most common cause of disallowed long-term ADA on audit, which is why ADE enforces it as a hard gate: no work can be assigned and no ADA accrues until the agreement is signed and dated on or before the start date.

What synchronous instruction is required, and how is participation tracked?

The cadence is set by grade band (EC § 51747(e)): daily synchronous instruction for TK through grade 3; both daily live interaction and at least weekly synchronous instruction for grades 4-8; and at least weekly synchronous instruction for grades 9-12. The LEA must offer this and document each student’s participation on every school day it is provided (EC § 51747.5(c)). In ADE, the supervising teacher logs each session with its scheduled and attended minutes; the system flags any gap against the grade-band requirement, records nonparticipation, and combines participation minutes with work-product time value to compute the day’s ADA.

What triggers tiered reengagement, and what does the district have to do?

Reengagement is triggered when a student misses more than 10% of required instructional time over four continuous weeks, misses more than 50% of scheduled synchronous time in a school month, or violates the written agreement (EC § 51747(d)). The district must verify current contact information, notify the parent or guardian within one school day of recording the missed day or lack of participation, conduct outreach, and hold a pupil-parent-educator conference where warranted. ADE opens a case automatically on any trigger, stamps and flags the one-school-day notification, and will not let the case close without a written reengagement plan on file.

How fast do we have to return a student to the classroom if the family asks?

In no case later than five instructional days (EC § 51747(f)). ADE logs the request, calculates the return-by date five instructional days out on your district calendar, shows a countdown, and flags any request at risk of exceeding the limit, then retains the completed transition in the audit file.

How is attendance calculated for long-term IS?

Attendance is never seat time. ADA is based on the time value of the student’s work product, personally judged by a credentialed teacher, combined with the documented time the student participated in synchronous instruction, as applicable by grade level (EC § 51747.5(b)). SB 153 confirmed that work completed on online or computer-based platforms qualifies as eligible work-product evidence, which is exactly what ADE captures. A student cannot generate more than one day of ADA per calendar day, and total ADA is bounded by full-time enrollment across the year.

Does long-term IS erase the student’s original absences or change our chronic absenteeism rate?

No. Long-term IS generates its own ADA through a separate accounting pathway; it does not remove the original absence from the register, and it does not by itself change chronic absenteeism rates reported on the Dashboard. What it does is keep the enrolled student learning and generating fundable attendance during an extended absence, and it produces the documentation your SST, SARB, and IEP teams and your LCAP reporting can use.

Can a student use both short-term IS and long-term IS in the same year?

Yes. A placement is short-term until it reaches 16 cumulative school days, at which point it becomes long-term and the full requirements apply going forward. ADE tracks cumulative IS days per student and flags the approaching threshold so the transition to the long-term requirements is planned in advance rather than discovered on audit. Long-term IS is reported as its own separate table so the two are never confused.

What about students with IEPs?

A student with an IEP may participate in long-term IS if the IEP team determines it is appropriate and the IEP permits it (EC § 51745(c)). When a student is flagged with an active IEP in ADE, a signature line for the certificated employee responsible for the student’s special education programming is added automatically to the master agreement (EC § 51747(g)(10)(D)), and the agreement cannot reach fully-executed status without it. If that designee is the supervising teacher, the teacher signs twice, and the agreement records it. The audit file flags any required-but-unsigned designee signature.

What is the cost?

ADE is $50 per student per year for the duration of your contract. A single semester-long placement preserves on the order of $7,000 of ADA that would otherwise be lost entirely, so the platform pays for itself many times over on even a handful of long-term students, before counting the value of keeping those students enrolled and on track to graduate.

How does the Long-Term IS module relate to your short-term program?

It reuses the same instructional engine (the standards-mapped EDI lessons, the work-product capture, and the teacher time-value workflow) and adds the long-term compliance controls: the before-day-one agreement gate, grade-band synchronous and live-interaction logging, the automatic reengagement engine, and the five-day transition tracker. Long-term IS appears as its own clearly separated table in admin reporting, with its own one-click audit file, so short-term and long-term records are never mixed.

Does the platform integrate with our SIS and CALPADS workflows?

ADE does not write to the district SIS; original absence codes remain unchanged by design. For CALPADS, ADE generates anonymized exports with long-term IS day counts and participation data formatted for STAS preparation, plus school-level ADA summaries that support manual PADC entry. The current workflow is export-based rather than a live API integration; direct SIS integration is on the product roadmap.

Appendix B: CDE Contacts

Office Purpose Contact
Educational Options Office Independent study program guidance and compliance independentstudy@cde.ca.gov
Attendance Accounting Office IS ADA conditions of apportionment; instructional time AttendanceAccounting@cde.ca.gov
Principal Apportionment Section (PASE) Reporting ADA through the PADC web application PASE@cde.ca.gov · 916-324-4541
Educational Data Management Division CALPADS reporting; chronic absenteeism data CALPADS@cde.ca.gov
Expanded Learning Division ELO-P and IS coordination ExpandedLearning@cde.ca.gov

This guide was prepared by American Digital Education based on California Department of Education guidance, California Education Code, and the 2025-26 Guide for Annual Audits of K-12 Local Education Agencies and State Compliance Reporting (Education Audit Appeals Panel, Section D), current as of August 2026. Statutory thresholds reflect Education Code sections 51745 to 51747.5 as amended by SB 153 (2024). LEAs should verify requirements against the most current CDE guidance at cde.ca.gov/sp/eo/is/ and the current audit guide at eaap.ca.gov, confirm the specific Section D procedure numbers against the current-year guide, and consult their legal counsel and county office of education before implementing a long-term independent study program.