Common Core of Data (CCD)

3. KEY CONCEPTS

The concepts described below pertain to the levels of data collection (school, agency, state) and school locale in the CCD. For a comprehensive list of CCD terms and definitions, refer to the glossaries in various CCD annual publications (such as CCD files and documentation, First Look reports, and technical user guides) available at https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/.

Local Education Agency (LEA). An LEA has administrative responsibility for providing instruction or specialized services to one or more elementary or secondary schools. Most LEAs are regular school districts that are locally administered and directly responsible for educating children. Others are supervisory unions (which provide administrative systems for the smaller regular districts with which they are associated); regional education service agencies (which offer research, data processing, special education or vocational program management, and other services to a number of client school districts); state–operated school districts (e.g., for the deaf and blind); federally operated school districts (e.g., operated by the Department of Defense Education Activity); and other agencies not meeting the definitions of the preceding categories (e.g., operated by a Department of Corrections). Since school year 2007–08, a charter agency type code has been used to differentiate charter agencies from other types of agencies.

Public Elementary/Secondary School. An institution that is linked with an education agency, serves students, and has an administrator. It is possible for more than one CCD–defined school to exist at a single location (e.g., an elementary and secondary school sharing a building, each with its own principal). One school may also be spread across several locations (e.g., a multiple “storefront” learning center managed by a single administrator).

The CCD classifies schools by type. Regular schools provide instruction leading ultimately toward a standard high school diploma; they may also offer a range of specialized services. Special education and vocational schools have the provision of specialized services as their primary purpose. Other alternative schools focus on an instructional area not covered by the first three types (e.g., developing basic language and numeracy skills of adolescents at risk of dropping out of school).

Some schools do not report any students in membership (i.e., enrolled on the official CCD reporting day of October 1). This occurs when students are enrolled in more than one school but are reported for only one. For example, students whose instruction is divided between a regular and a vocational school may be reported only in membership for the regular school. In other cases, a school may send the students for which it is responsible to another school for their education—a situation most likely in a small community that does not have sufficient students to warrant keeping a school open every year.

School Locale. Beginning with the 2006–07 CCD files, the locale code methodology was changed from a 1–digit code based on metropolitan statistical areas to a 2–digit code based on urban clusters. To distinguish the two systems, the new system is referred to as “urban–centric locale codes.” The urban–centric locale code system classifies territory into four major types: city, suburban, town, and rural. Each type has three subcategories. For city and suburb, these are gradations of size – large, midsize, and small. Towns and rural areas are further distinguished by their distance from an urbanized area. They can be characterized as fringe, distant, or remote. The new system has 12 urban–centric locale codes. American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Department of Defense Dependent Schools (overseas) were not assigned a locale code because the geographic and governmental structures of these entities do not fit the definitional scheme used to derive the code.

 

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