An Impact Evaluation of Training in Multi-Tiered Systems of mSupport for Behavior (MTSS-B)

Appendix L: District Data Request

Note: This is a template of the district data request letter for records from SY 2014-2015-SY 2017-2018.

MDRC

16 East 34^th Street

New York, New York 10016

<Date>

<District contact person name and address>

Dear <data contact>,

This memo presents our request for records data for Multi-Tiered Systems of Support for Behavior (MTSS-B) study. We greatly appreciate the support that you and your colleagues have provided with this collection thus far.

We would like to arrange a conversation with you and any other key players in this process to review the content of our data request and the delivery timeline. The SY 2014-15 data was transmitted < how the data was transmitted > and we will assume that this round of data will be transmitted the same way. We are happy to accommodate other methods of data transmission if this is your preference.

This data request concerns the following schools in your district:

NCES ID

School Name

We appreciate your support and want to assure you that the confidentiality of the data will be safeguarded. Information collected for this study comes under the confidentiality and data protection requirements of the Institute of Education Sciences. All information from this study will be kept confidential as required by 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 reported. We will not provide information that identifies specific individuals, schools, or your district to anyone outside the study team, except as required by law. We are requesting these data solely for use in accordance with the U.S. Department of Education study.

In addition, all staff from MDRC and DIR who are involved in this project have been screened by the federal government in order to work with student-level data and have signed confidentiality agreements. All data files will be stored on a firewall-protected secure server.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me by phone or email. <District Liaison> will be in touch within the next week to set up a phone appointment with you and/or any other key colleagues to discuss this request in more detail and the second wave of data we are requesting now in particular. In the meantime, if you have questions, please contact Barbara Condliffe and/or Mark van Dok at barbara.condliffe@mdrc.org (212-340-8657) and/or mark.vandok@mdrc.org (212-340-8664).

Thank you for your cooperation with this request.

Sincerely,

Fred Doolittle

Project Director

MDRC

16 East 34^th Street

New York, NY

Phone: 212-340-8638 | E-Mail: fred.doolittle@mdrc.org

MDRC Data Request

MTSS-B Study

Attachment A

What follows are specifications about delivery dates, variables, and samples for each data type in the current request for {Date} Student/Staff data. If you have any questions about any of this, please don’t hesitate to ask us.

Expected Delivery for all data files: DATE

Student and Staff Sample Definitions for School Year (SY) {YEAR}

• On the student files, include SY {YEAR} data for students who were enrolled in one of your MTSS-B study schools at any point during the SY {YEAR} (grades 1-5 for all data types described below except for testing data that is only available for grades 3-5)

• On the teachers/staff files, include all teachers/staff who worked in one of your MTSS-B study schools at any point during the SY {YEAR}.

Summary of Data Types and Sample Specifications

Data Type	Sample Specifications
1. Student Demographics	Students in grades 1-5 in SY {YEAR}
2. Student Behavioral Incidences	Students in grades 1-5 in SY {YEAR}
3. Student State Reading/Math Test Scores	Students in grades 3-5 in SY {YEAR}
4. Student Special Education Identification	Students in grades 1-5 in SY {YEAR}
5. Staff Characteristics	All staff in SY {YEAR}

Variables by Data Type

Student Demographics (as of the end of SY {YEAR})

1. NCES school ID

2. School name

3. Student research ID (please use the same district ID in all files)

4. Gender

5. Date of birth (actual or month and year)

6. End of year LEP/ELL status codes

7. Race/Ethnicity codes

8. End of year Special education/IEP status codes (e.g. has an IEP, Yes/No)

• If student has an IEP, is he or she placed in a self-contained classroom (Y/N)

9. Poverty codes (Free/Reduced price lunch eligibility codes, Title 1 status, or any other poverty measure)

10. Grade level

11. Entering or exiting date from each school attended during the school year

12. School year

Please provide a codebook or data-dictionary which defines all variables and all the values these variables can have. You can provide one or many codebooks, just so long as we can clearly interpret all provided variables.

The student ID on the file should be the actual unique district ID assigned to the student, which distinguishes this student from any other student in the district. This should not be a number created just for this data request. The actual district ID is necessary to merge the demographic and other student data provided by the district and to track students over time and should be the same as the student ID provided in the last round of data deliveries.

­Student Behavioral Outcomes

1. School name

2. School NCES Code

3. Student ID (please use the same district ID provided with demographic data)

4. Start date for each spell of expulsion in School Year

5. Start and end date for each spell of suspension in School Year

6. Count of days attended school in School Year (for each school attended)

7. Count of total days enrolled in school in School Year (for each school attended)

8. Date for each office disciplinary referral during School Year (if available).

Student State Reading/Math Tests

1. NCES school ID

2. School name

3. District-assigned student ID (please use the same district ID in all files)

4. Indicator for whether student took the regular or modified math assessment

5. Indicator for whether student took the regular or modified reading assessment

6. Student grade level

7. Test date: mm/dd/yyyy

8. Test type: math or reading

9. Test name: e.g. SAT 10, NWEA, etc.

10. Total raw score

11. Total scaled score

12. Proficiency category: e.g. above/at/below proficiency

13. Retention/promotion decision at the end of School Year

Please provide a brief description (or references/citations) of the standardized math and reading tests for each relevant grade.

Student Special Education Status

a. NCES school ID

b. School name

c. District-assigned student ID (please use the same district ID in all files)

d. Student grade level

e. Date referred for assessment: mm/dd/yyyy

f. IEP status: Y/N

g. Date identified for IEP: mm/dd/yyyy

h. Date exited IEP (if applicable): mm/dd/yyyy

i. 504 status: Y/N

j. Date identified for 504 plan: mm/dd/yyyy

k. Disability category*

l. Inclusion status (e.g. 1 if supported in age-appropriate general education classes and receiving specialized instruction within the context of the core curriculum and general class activities; 0 if no)

*The 14 Federal Disability categories and acronyms are provided below. If your district uses different classifications, please include an explanation of those classifications and their equivalent federal disability categories in documentation.

	Category	Acronym
	Autism	Aut
	Developmentally Delayed	DD
	Emotional Disturbance	ED
	Deaf-blindness	DB
	Deafness	D
	Visual Impariment and Blindness	VI
	Hearing Impairment	HI
	Orthopedic Impairment	OI
	Other Health Impairment	OHI
	Intellectual Disability	ID
	Multiple Disabilities	MD
	Specific Learning Disability	SLD/LD
	Speech/language Impairment	SLI
14.	Traumatic Brain Injury	TBI

Staff Background Characteristics

1. NCES school ID

2. School name

3. Staff research ID (please use the same research ID in all related files)

4. Staff position title

5. Staff gender

6. Staff race/ethnicity

7. Full Time Equivalency (FTE). For instance, a full time staff has a value of 1; a part-time staff has a value of 0.5. If FTE is not available, “Full-time (y/n)” may be used. 

8. Highest level of educational attainment

9. Credential (e.g. if teacher, certification)

10. Years of experience working as staff in the district

11. Years of experience working as staff in the school

Please note that we are asking not just for teachers, but for all staff.

Please provide the actual unique district ID assigned to the staff, which distinguishes this staff from any other staff in the district. This should not be a number created just for this data request. The actual district staff ID is necessary for merging and tracking purposes.

According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, no persons are required to respond to a collection of information unless such collection displays a valid OMB control number.  The valid OMB control number for this information collection is #1850-0921.  The time to fulfill this data request is estimated to average 18 hours, including time to review instructions, search existing data resources, gather the data needed, and complete and review the information collection. The obligation to respond to this collection is voluntary.  If you have comments or concerns regarding the status of your individual submission of this form, application or survey, please write directly to Lauren Angelo, U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, 555 new Jersey Avenue, NW, Suite 502h, Washington, D.C. 20208 or email lauren.angelo@ed.gov.