Appendix B Advance Letters

OMB Control Number XXX. Expires: XXXX

DOE logo Date:

Dear [Chief State School Officer] [FIRST NAME] [LAST NAME] of [STATE]:

We are writing to notify you that we will be contacting your state Section 619 coordinator to request their participation in a U.S. Department of Education Institute of Education Sciences (IES) study. The Evaluation of Preschool Special Education Practices study is being conducted to understand curricula and interventions that are used with preschool children with disabilities to promote their learning of language, literacy, and social-emotional skills.

This study will provide descriptive information about how, by whom, and in what settings preschool children with disabilities are served. Information at this level of detail is not currently known. All states and districts are required under the Education Department General Administrative Regulations (34 C.F.R. § 76.591) to participate in this study. Your assistance to encourage participation is much appreciated. The study involves surveys of all 50 states and the District of Columbia as well as a nationally representative sample of 1,200 district special education coordinators. We will conduct a 30-minute web-survey of preschool special education coordinators to learn more about their specific contexts.

We will ask the Section 619 coordinator to complete an editable pdf survey that we will email to them. The survey takes 30 minutes to complete, and we are asking for responses by no later than [FILL DATE]. Information collected for this study comes under the confidentiality and data protection requirements of the Institute of Education Sciences (The Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002, Title I, Part E, Section 183). Responses to this data collection will be used only for statistical purposes. Personally identifiable information about individual respondents will not be released. Please note that data on state policies and practices may be reported by state.

We provided the names of the districts sampled from your state to the Section 619 coordinator. Your support is important to the success of the study, so if you receive inquiries from local administrators, we appreciate your encouragement of their participation in the survey. If you have any questions, please contact the study team toll-free at 1-866-XXX-XXXX or via email at XXXX@mathematica-mpr.com.

Sincerely,

NAME

National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance

Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education