School districts can continue to upload data to CALPADS, the beleaguered student longitudinal data system.

That’s the word from the Department of Education, which says CALPADS will continue to accept information during the next two months, when the system is being overhauled and fixed.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell took the unusual step earlier this month of calling in a technical team to find defects in the system that have caused outages, errors and slowness in the system since CALPADS started up in October. As I reported on Friday, a consultant warned of system failure unless comprehensive fixes were made.

Districts have been uploading enrollment and dropout information, known as Fall 1 data. Recognizing that districts have faced headaches with CALPADS, O’Connell has extended the submission deadline indefinitely at this point. And he has said districts should not upload other types of information required under the Fall 2 and  Spring 1 submissions via CALPADS this year.