The October 6, 2010 special education snapshot reports containing child count and least restrictive environment data (VR1-9 reports) are required to be certified on or within one week from January 12, 2011. Data for these reports are submitted to the Student Information Repository System (SIRS) through your regional information center (RIC) or large city data center and displayed in the VR1-9 reports in the PD Data System at http://pd.nysed.gov. The State began displaying data that were submitted from your RIC or large city data center on Friday October 15, 2010, in the PD data system on Wednesday, October 20, 2010. There will be weekly submissions of these data from the RICs or large city data centers every Friday until January 7, 2011, which will be displayed in the PD data system every Wednesday until January 12, 2011.

Two certification options will appear below VR1-6 and VR8 reports on January 12, 2011. These reports are certified as a group and not individually. Please note that there will be no additional refreshes to the special education data displayed in VR1-9 reports on January 12, 2011 except for the circumstances described in the last paragraph below. These data will be considered final and will be used in all federal and State reports and decisions. 

These certifications are to be provided by the PD data system contact person. After the electronic certification is provided, a signed Certification and Assurance Form (CAF) must be sent from the superintendent or chief administrative officer to the Special Education Data Collection, Analysis and Reporting (SEDCAR) office through regular mail. The CAF will become available in the PD data system’s navigation menu under the 2010-11 school year, October Verification Reports. The two certification options for the 2010-11 school year will be as follows:

1. I certify that my district’s data are complete and accurate.
2. I cannot certify that my district’s data are complete and accurate, however I understand:
   • I must make any remaining changes in SIRS to report complete and accurate data;
   • The PD Data System will not be refreshed to display additional changes; and
   • Submission of complete and accurate data within State established timelines is a federal compliance requirement (IDEA, section 613(a)(7); section 618(a); 34 CFR sections 300.640 to 300.644).

There will be an “appeals” period between January 12, 2011 and January 26, 2011. A school district or an educational program whose data were not accurately reported by the RIC or whose data did not correctly appear in the State’s PD data system reports because of a data system issues at the RIC or NYSED may submit an “appeal” for another data submission from the RIC on January 21, 2011. Appeals will not be granted on the sole basis of the failure of a district or educational program to submit complete or accurate data to Level 2 of the SIRS by the State’s established due date. Appeals may be granted if a district or educational program can prove to the satisfaction of NYSED that 1) though correct data were submitted to Level 2 of SIRS by the NYSED due date, the final data in the PD data system reports do not reflect those data. All of the following steps must be completed for an appeal:

• Notify SEDCAR by phone at 518-474-7965 or by email at datasupport@nysed.gov immediately after January 12, 2011 about a data system issue that resulted in groups of students or categories of data to be inaccurate or missing on the last refresh date (January 12, 2011);
• Click certification option 2 (stated above) in the PD data system;
• Complete an “appeals template” to explain reason for the appeal and document the data system issue. The appeals template is posted at: https://www.p12.nysed.gov/sedcar/files/excel/appeals_template_2010-11.xls;
• Work with RICs to ensure they have complete and accurate data by no later than their due date for sending data to L2 of the SIRS on January 21, 2011; and
• If the appeal is granted, review your data in the PD data system on January 26, 2011 and if accurate, provide your certification of accurate data.
• Submit your CAF signed by the superintendent or chief administrative officer to the Special Education Data Collection, Analysis and Reporting (SEDCAR) office through regular mail.

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