School Leader Interview Consent Letter

School Leader Interview Consent Letter

[To be sent to School Principal prior to data collection]

Dear School Leader,

RTI International is conducting interviews with school leaders for the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE) to explore the feasibility of conducting a future nationwide evaluation of college- and career-focused schools. As you probably know, OCTAE supports the use of career pathways for high school students and is interested in expanding the evidence base on pathway-type approaches and their effects on student outcomes.

The purpose of the interview is to gain a better understanding of individual school’s student admission practices. In particular, we are interested in identifying schools that have more applicants than can be accommodated and that either currently use, or could use, lotteries to determine which applicants can enroll in the schools. These represent opportunities to learn from settings that already have a random student selection process in place and therefore, have the potential to provide rigorous evidence about the benefits of college- and career-focused schools.

[NETWORK NAME] represents a promising model that is of interest to the Department. The purpose of these calls is not to evaluate your particular school and your name will not be used in any reports. However, with your permission, we may share your school’s name or some of your responses with OCTAE. One of the goals of these interviews is to develop a preliminary list of schools from college- and career-focused networks and initiatives who may be ideal candidates for a lottery-based study.

Your responses are critical to the success of this effort. Your participation is voluntary and you have the right to refuse to answer any question in the interview. Your decision to participate or not to participate will have no impact on your organization’s relationship with [NETWORK NAME] or OCTAE.

The interview will last 10–15 minutes, and we may contact you later for clarification of responses if needed. We value the information you share with us and want to make sure we capture all of it as accurately as possible. Thus, we will be taking notes and audio taping this interview. If at any time you would like to tell us something in private, please let us know.

If you have any questions or concerns about the study, please call Dr. Jeffrey Rosen (Project Director at RTI) at toll-free, 1-800-334-8571 ext. 25242. If you have questions about your rights as a study participant, you may call the RTI Office of Research Protection toll-free, at 1-866-214-2034.

Thank you very much for your cooperation in this important study.