Contact:
Ghedam Bairu (202) 502-7304 |
Appendices
|
Appendix A. Federal Reporting Requirements | |
Office for Civil Rights | |
Office of Special Education Programs | |
Safe and Drug-Free Schools Program | |
Appendix B. Other NCES Handbooks |
Appendix A. Federal Reporting Requirements
Three offices of the U.S. Department of Education currently require incident data to be submitted annually:
These offices require a significant amount of information on incidents and disciplinary actions at the school, district, and state levels. A reliable database can substantially reduce the amount of time needed to comply with the requirements described below.
Reporting requirements vary greatly among these offices given the differences in statutory mandates. For example, the data the SDFS office requires on disciplinary incidents differ from those required by OSEP. OSEP requires specific information only on drug and weapon offenses. In contrast, SDFS collects data on many different types of incidents. Providing the data necessary to comply with these requirements involves sorting incident and disciplinary action data with variables such as educational level, gender, race/ethnicity, and disability category. This underscores the need for the incident database to interface with student information systems as discussed in Chapter 4. Again, a database with this capacity that can easily be programmed to produce ad hoc reports will speed fulfillment of these Federal and any state and local reporting requirements.
Note: these requirements, though current as of January 2002, are subject to change. |
Office for Civil Rights
OCR collects school and district level data on the Civil Rights Compliance
Reports. For each school, OCR collects the number of students subject
to specific disciplinary actions during the school year. One question
the OCR report asks for the number of students who receive
For the OCR reports, students are to be counted once under corporal punishment and out-of-school suspension regardless of the number of times they experience these disciplinary actions. This information is to be subdivided by
A second question on the OCR report requests information on disciplinary actions for students with disabilities. Information is required on the unduplicated count of disabled students who receive
Again, students are to be counted once for each category regardless of the number of times they were disciplined. These data are further categorized based on whether students are served under the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA) or Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
For further information, visit OCR on the World Wide Web at http://www.ed.gov/offices/OCR/publications.html.
Office of Special Education Programs
OSEP collects discipline data from states on students with disabilities.
The program's questions cover the number of children with disabilities
who were subject to
OSEP requires that these data be sorted by disability category and by race/ethnicity.
For further information, visit OSEP on the World Wide Web at http://www.ed.gov/offices/OSERS/OSEP/.
Safe and Drug-Free Schools Program
The SDFS Program collects two types of information from states to fulfill
requirements of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Data needed
for the Gun-Free Schools Act Report are limited in scope in contrast
to those required for the State Education Agency Safe and Drug-Free
Schools Programs Report.
Gun-Free Schools Act Reporting. Under this data collection, states are required to submit data on firearm-related incidents. The required data include:
Disciplinary actions for students expelled, but referred to alternative settings are defined as "expulsion with services" in Chapter 4. Expulsion data must be sorted by type of firearm and educational level.
State Education Agency Safe and Drug-Free Schools Program Report. States must currently submit data on incidents sorted in a number of ways. A series of questions are asked for each educational level:
In addition, states are required to categorize schools by the number of incidents that occurred during the school year. The question asks: "How many schools in your state reported a) no incidents, b) between 1 and 5 incidents, c) between 6 and 10 incidents, etc." Incidents to be reported here include the following:
The SDFS form does not provide definitions for "unclassified offenses, " "other major offenses, " and "other state (district or municipal) defined offenses." It is recommended that School Threats (code 2700) be included in the "other major offenses" category. Under "other state (district or municipal) defined offenses" include Attendance Policy Violations (code 1200), Harassment, Non Sexual (code 1800), Suicide (code 3000), and Other Offenses (code 9900). It is important to report "unclassified offenses" as appropriate to meet state or local requirements.
These requirements are likely to change based on the 2001 Education Legislation, No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which resulted changes to the SDFS program. For further information, visit SDFS on the World Wide Web at http://www.nochildleftbehind.gov/.
In summary, responding to current Federal reporting requirements requires a great deal of information. These requirements are likely to increase as the Department of Education works to implement No Child Left Behind. With a comprehensive database, schools and school districts can substantially reduce the amount of time needed to complete mandated reporting.
Appendix B. Other NCES Handbooks
National Forum on Education Statistics/National Center on Education Statistics
Publications
These documents are available at http://nces.ed.gov/forum/publications.asp.