Email Notifying of PSA Update:
April 21, 2020
Dear Private School Administrators:
NEW PRIVATE SCHOOL AFFIDAVIT APPLICATION
The California Department of Education (CDE) is pleased to announce the development and release of a new and improved online Private School Affidavit (PSA) application. Beginning April 21, 2020, the new PSA application will be available from the CDE Private School Affidavit Information web page at http://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/ps/affidavit.asp. This letter provides private school owners and administrators with highlights on the new application, updates to the affidavit filing process, as well as information for accessing the new PSA application.
Highlights of the New Application
The New PSA Application features the following enhancements:
· A new and improved multistage filing interface.
· Readily available filing instructions and on-screen field help.
· Ability to review and edit your affidavit before filing.
· Ability to edit, view, and print a filed affidavit.
· Improved data validations, including the prevention of duplicate filings.
Updates to the Affidavit Filing Process
· Anyone who filed an affidavit in the prior year will now have the ability to prefill their current year affidavit with select information from the prior year’s affidavit. Previously this feature was only available to private schools with more than five students.
· New confirmation codes will be issued to anyone who filed an affidavit in the 2019–20 and 2018–19 school years. These new confirmation codes will be your key to access and/or file your 2019–20 affidavit, as well as file your 2020–21 affidavit. You will no longer need a password to access the PSA application.
Accessing the New PSA Application
As previously mentioned, new confirmation codes will be issued in order to access and/or file your 2019–20 PSA. Your newly assigned confirmation code for the private school that you filed a 2019–20 affidavit for is provided below. [Confirmation code hidden for privacy].
Note: If you filed an affidavit for more than one school, only information for one of your schools will be provided. You may use the Retrieve Current Year Affidavit feature in the new PSA application to retrieve confirmation codes for all of your schools by going to http://www3.cde.ca.gov/psa/retrieve/cyear and entering the school owner or administrator’s email address, or you may contact our office to request this information.
Resources
For detailed instructionson filing the PSA using this new application, visit the CDE Private School Affidavit Instructions web page at http://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/ps/psainstructions.asp.
Additional information regarding the PSA filing process and accessing your filed affidavit through this new application can be found on the CDE Private School Affidavit Information web page at http://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/ps/affidavit.asp.
We hope that you find this new application more user friendly and that it streamlines your filing process.
Follow-Up Email:
April 22, 2020
Dear Private School Administrators:
This email is in response to the one you received yesterday regarding the new online system that is used by private schools to file their annual Private School Affidavit (PSA) with the California Department of Education (CDE). That email was a courtesy to let you know that the PSA filing system has been upgraded to a new, more modern, and user-friendly system. We’d also like to clarify that the PSA filing period has not changed. Private schools are still required to annually file their PSA between October 1 and October 15.
Since you have already filed your PSA for the 2019-20 school year, there is no action for you to take at this time. However, if there are corrections that you would like to make to your 2019-20 filed PSA, you can now submit these corrections using the new PSA filing system!
Further, we would like to clarify the use of the word “application” in our previous email. This was in reference to the “web application” that is used to file the PSA, not in reference to the affidavit itself. In future communications and references we will refer to the “web application” as a filing system to avoid future misunderstandings.
We apologize if our first email was not clear, or if the terminology used caused confusion or lead you to believe that the filing process and timeframe had changed. That was not our intent.
We hope this follow up email has eased your concerns and provided clarity.