State Education Logo THE STATE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT/ THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK/ALBANY, NY 12234

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER FOR VOCATIONAL AND EDUCATIONAL SERVICES FOR INDIVIDUALS WITH DISABILITIES
Tel. (518) 474-2714
Fax. (518) 474-8802

To:

Superintendents of Public School Districts
Chief Administrative Officers of Approved Private Schools that Provide Educational Services to Students with Disabilities Pursuant to Article 81 of the Education Law
Chief Administrative Officers of State Agencies that Provide Educational Services to Students with Disabilities
Superintendents of State-Operated Schools

From:

Rebecca H. Cort RebeccaCortSignature

Subject:

Important Information about Special Education Data Collection for the 2007-08 School Year

Date:

February 26, 2008

Below is important information about several topics related to special education data collection for this school year.  We appreciate the efforts being made to provide the many federally required data elements to the Department and want to bring to your attention several additional actions that need to be taken by you this year to ensure that the process moves forward in a timely manner:

    • Verify the December 3, 2007 Special Education Snapshot data between February 19, 2008 and March 31, 2008;
    • Submit a Statement of Assurance and Certification form to SEDCAR, signed on or soon after April 4, 2008 for the December 3, 2007 Special Education Snapshot data;
    • Submit the exiting data for students with disabilities to the Level 2 warehouse by July 25; These data were collected in the PD-5 report in previous years;
    • Submit Special Education Events data to the Level 2 warehouse by October 1, 2008 and verify these data between October 7 and November 3, 2008;
    • Submit an electronic Statement of Assurance and Certification form to SEDCAR, on or after November 3, 2008 for the Special Education Events data; and
    • Note below the description of two data reporting requirements that have been eliminated for the 2007-08 school year.
  • Due date of the special education data to the State’s Level 2 date warehouse: As you know, the due date of the Special Education Snapshot data regarding preschool and school age students with disabilities who were provided special education services as of December 3, 2007 was extended from December 17, 2007 to February 8, 2008. Thank you to all school districts and other schools who were able to provide these data to the Level 1 data warehouses and thank you also to those Regional Information Centers who were able to submit data to the Level 2 data warehouse by this date. Due to the major systems change this year that required the coordination between general student management systems and the special education student management systems, many school districts were unable to provide data to Level 1 warehouses in time for Level 1 data warehouses to submit data to the Level 2 data warehouse. Also, this year, there were delays in the State Education Department and in the Regional Information Centers due to a number of operational issues. For these reasons, the verification time period for finalizing the December 3, 2007 Special Education Snapshot data is extended from March 7, 2008 to March 31, 2008. Please submit data to Level 1 and Level 2 data warehouses as soon as possible so that there is sufficient time to complete the verification process and finalize these data by March 31, 2008. The schedule of when data will appear in the Department’s special education verification reports based on data in Level 2 data warehouse is posted at :
    https://www.p12.nysed.gov/sedcar/verif/refresh_schedule.htm.  Based on this schedule, please plan on sufficient time to resubmit data, if necessary, through Level 1 data warehouse after reviewing the verification reports.

    Please note that the State must submit these data to the United States Education Department as a condition for the receipt of Federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) funds. This means that the Local Education Agencies must submit these data to the State as a condition for their receipt of federal funds under Sections 611 and 619 of IDEA.

  • Special Education Verification Process: The special education verification period is from February 19, 2008 through March 31, 2008. The data that are in the Level 2 data warehouse by March 31, 2008, as displayed in the verification reports on April 4, 2008 will be final and will be used to determine school districts CPSE administrative funds allocation amount.  These data will also be used to compute the proportionate amount of IDEA vendor funding amount that school districts will need to make available to the approved special education providers, Charter Schools, and use for parentally placed students with disabilities in nonpublic elementary and secondary schools located in the school district.

    The SEDCAR unit has issued user IDs and passwords to the chief information officers and to a representative from each Regional Information Center. The special education contact persons may continue to use their previously issued user IDs and passwords for the PD data system to access the verification reports. All individuals that have user IDs and passwords may log in to the secure site at http://www.pd.nysed.gov to view the special education verification reports based on individual student data submitted to the Level 2 data warehouse.

    There are three verification reports for preschool students with disabilities and four verification reports for school age students with disabilities. In addition, there is one report for the approved preschool special education service providers. There is also one report for the service providers (building of enrollment) of school age students with disabilities. For school age students with disabilities, this includes BOCES, Charter Schools, approved private schools for students with disabilities, State-supported schools, and other school districts in which students were reported as enrolled by school districts. These schools will use their previously assigned PD user IDs and passwords to view these reports.  These schools will not be provided any individual student information, but instead, will see aggregated numbers of students as reported by each school district. These schools/programs may contact school districts during the verification time period if their record of number of students from each school district does not match the school districts reported number. Please work with these schools to ensure your data are complete, accurate and consistent regarding the primary service provider for preschool children and the building of enrollment for school age students with disabilities.

    All school districts, State agencies, child care institutions with affiliated schools that provide educational services pursuant to Article 81, and the State-operated schools must submit a signed copy of the Statement of Assurance and Certification form which is signed on or soon after April 4, 2008, to the address provided on the form. The form may be printed from the verification reports website.

  • As stated in the 2007-08 SIRS Policy Manual, the following data are due to the Level 2 data warehouse on July 25, 2008: Student demographic and enrollment data (Data Sets B, C and D) for students in grades preschool and preK-12 and ungraded students not already in the repository system (new enrollees); and
    Enrollment data (Data Set B) with ending reason and date for students discharged during the school year. The verification period for these data will be announced at a later time. These data will be used for the exiting report for students with disabilities, which in previous school years was submitted through the PD-5 report.
  • Special Education Events Data: These data reflect the entire 2007-08 school year and are due to the Level 2 data warehouse by October 1, 2008. The verification time period for these data will be from October 7, 2008 to November 3, 2008. Due to the extensive amount of data that are required to evaluate the State and LEA performance on all the required special education indicators described in the State’s Performance Plan, the following two requirements are eliminated for the 2007-08 school year in order to reduce the data reporting burden as much as possible:
    • The date students with disabilities make application for Vocational Rehabilitation Services. While we strongly encourage appropriate referral of students with disabilities who may qualify and who may benefit from being referred to VESID or CBVH for vocational rehabilitation services, we are dropping the requirement for reporting to the Department the date when students made application for these services.

    • The postsecondary outcomes of students with disabilities one year after leaving high school reported to the data warehouse. This requirement is dropped for the 2007-08 school year. Again, in an effort to reduce the data reporting burden, it is not required that school districts receive these data from SUNY Potsdam, verify the local student ID and report them to the warehouse.

If you have any questions regarding special education data reporting responsibilities for this school year, please contact the SEDCAR unit by telephone at (518) 474-7965 or by e-mail at datasupport@nysed.gov.

Thank you for your continued cooperation and effort in submitting these data through the Student Information Repository System for individual students that will assist the State to meet its reporting responsibilities and responsibilities related to implementing the State’s Performance Plan.

 

cc:

Johanna Duncan-Poitier
Jean Stevens
Inni Barone
James DeLorenzo
Regional Information Centers
Chief Information Officers of School Districts
PD Contact Persons for Special Education Data

 

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