Highlights

The following are highlights from a national survey of over 800 district superintendents. The survey was conducted to provide the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) with information for revising the biennial Elementary and Secondary School Civil Rights Survey (the E&S Survey). OCR was interested in designing an automated reporting survey for use in the 1992 E&S Survey and in revising the questionnaire forms for the 1994 E&S Survey.

• Nearly all public school districts--9O percent or more--administer in-school suspensions, out-of school suspensions, and expulsions (Table 2 and Table 2 Continued). Thirty percent administer corporal punishment. Proportionately more districts in the Southeast administer corporal punishment than do districts in any other region.
   
• The number of times expulsions were administered would be very easy to report for 67 percent of public school districts; out-of-school suspensions, for 52 percent; in-school suspensions, for 45 percent; and corporal punishment, for 38 percent (Table 3 and Table 3 Continued). Unduplicated counts of students would be very easy to report for expulsions, according to 61 percent of public school districts; for out-of-school suspensions, 44 percent; for in-school suspensions, 38 percent; for corporal punishment, 30 percent.
   
• About 80 percent of public school districts offer gifted and talented programs (Table 4 and Table 4 Continued). Just over 50 percent offer advanced placement and honors programs. Only 5 percent offer magnet programs. Eighty percent or more of districts that offer these academic programs would be able to report enrollment information by sex, race/ethnicity, disability (handicap), or limited English proficiency status.
   
• Almost three-fourths of public school districts classify biracial/bi-ethnic students on records for their own purposes as a single race/ethnicity (Table 5). Large districts were more likely to classify biracial/bi-ethnic students as a single race/ethnicity (94 percent) than were small districts (69 percent).
   
• More than half of public school districts (58 percent) could report information on the number of students with disabilities who are homeless (Table 6). Greater proportions of rural districts (62 percent) and suburban districts (54 percent) could report this information than could urban districts (31 percent).
   
• Approximately 5 percent of public school districts indicated they could identify students whose mothers were alcohol dependent or used illegal drugs during their pregnancy (Table 6). About 20 percent said they could identify some but not all such students.
   
• Thirty percent of public school districts currently have an automated, integrated student record system, and another 9 percent have one planned for the 1992-93 school year (Table 7). Sixty seven percent of urban districts, 39 percent of suburban districts, and 21 percent of rural districts currently have automated systems.

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