School List and Directory Information

LETTER TO:

FROM:

DATE:

PAGE: 0

APPENDIX B

SCHOOL ROSTERS DATA REQUEST LETTER

[DATE]

Dear [District Contact]:

Thank you for recently providing your district’s list of schools that will participate in the FAFSA Completion Project expansion. We are now requesting directory information for current seniors (those in 12^th grade in 2012-13) at each of these schools, to the extent that providing this information is consistent with the relevant provisions of FERPA and its implementing regulations (20 U.S.C. 1232g and 34 CFR Part 99). Please do not include directory information (or request FAFSA completion data) for any students or their parents that have opted out of the disclosure of this student directory information.

Obtaining directory information at this time has two purposes. First, it will lay the foundation for the evaluation of the Project that our colleagues from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) are conducting on our behalf; they will extract outcomes for these students from Department databases to determine if our project is effective. Second, the files you prepare with this directory information will constitute the “master files” for the process of obtaining FAFSA completion status data for individual students from the Department’s contractor beginning in January 2013.

In order to fulfill this request, please follow these conventions in preparing the directory information:

1. Create a separate file for each high school that will participate in the demonstration project, both those that will begin gaining access to FAFSA completion data in January 2013 (the treatment group) and those that will start a year later (the control group).

2. Name each file as district name.high school name (e.g., San Antonio.Jefferson)

3. Within each school file, include each senior enrolled in a participating school at the time of this request on a separate line, in the following way:

First name,Last name,Date of birth in mmddyyyy format,zipcode

(example: George,Smith,02011993,12355)

I want to assure you that this directory information for seniors, as well as the data on FAFSA completion and financial aid receipt and use that IES obtains for these students, will be held in the strictest confidence. As required by the policies and procedures of 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. The reports prepared by IES for the evaluation of the Project will summarize findings across districts and schools and will not associate responses with an individual or school. We will not provide information that identifies any individual to anyone outside the study team, except as required by law. Any willful disclosure of such information for nonstatistical purposes, without the informed consent of the individual, is a class E felony.

We would appreciate your sending these separate high school files with directory information to me at the project mailbox ([email protected]) by [DATE]. Providing the directory information for seniors in each school is required of all districts participating in the FAFSA Completion Project expansion. Failure to submit the files by the deadline could result in your district being denied access to student-level FAFSA completion data.

We look forward to working with you to get the FAFSA Completion Project expansion up and running. If you have questions about the project or this request, please feel free to contact me at [email protected] or (202) 377-3204.

Sincerely,

Dena Bates

FAFSA Completion Project

Federal Student Aid

U.S. Department of Education

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