Memo to OMB on Pre-Test for SLEPS

MEMORANDUM
MEMORANDUM TO:

Jennifer Park
Official of Statistical and Science Policy
Office of Management and Budget

THROUGH:

Jeri M. Mulrow
Acting Director
Bureau of Justice Statistics
Kevin M. Scott
Chief, Law Enforcement Statistics Unit
Bureau of Justice Statistics

FROM:

Elizabeth Davis
Statistician, Law Enforcement Statistics Unit
Bureau of Justice Statistics

DATE:

October 3, 2017

SUBJECT:

BJS request for OMB Clearance to conduct a pre-test for the
Survey of Law Enforcement Personnel in Schools (SLEPS), under
the OMB generic clearance agreement (OMB Number 1121-0339).

Introduction
The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) is planning to conduct a new data collection to gain a
better understanding of the roles, functions, and supporting infrastructure of police officers in
schools through a project titled the Survey of Law Enforcement Personnel in Schools (SLEPS).
One of the primary goals of SLEPS is to generate detailed, accurate, and reliable national
statistics describing the scope, size, characteristics, and functions of law enforcement personnel
who work and interact in a school environment. To accomplish this goal, the SLEPS will employ
a two-phase approach with a sample of agencies from the 2017 CSLLEA that will survey both
law enforcement agencies and their officers who work in schools.
This new data collection is a component of a larger school safety agenda. As outlined in the
Department of Justice Appropriations Act, 2014 (Public Law 113-76), Congress tasked the
National Institute of Justice (NIJ) to undertake the Comprehensive School Safety Initiative
(CSSI), a research-focused program to increase the safety of schools nationwide. The CSSI
identified a number of school safety-related topics for which more extensive data and research
are required; one such topic is the presence of law enforcement in schools. There have been
isolated local efforts to empirically examine law enforcement involvement in schools; however,
no comprehensive national-level data exists on the extent of law enforcement involvement in the
nation’s schools or on their typical roles and responsibilities. To address the lack of national,
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detailed data, NIJ entered into an interagency agreement with BJS to improve the amount of
information pertaining to the roles, responsibilities, and actions of local law enforcement in
schools.
Currently, BJS has limited data available on the presence of law enforcement in schools. BJS
collected the number of school resource officers (SROs) or other sworn personnel whose primary
duties are related to school safety on the 1997, 1999, 2000, 2003, 2007, and 2016 Law
Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) Survey (the question asking
about the number of SROs was not included in the 2013 LEMAS). BJS also collected the count
of SROs on the 2000 and 2008 Census of State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies
(CSLLEA) and plans to collect the number of SROs on the 2017 CSLLEA. The narrow scope of
the school safety question on these questionnaires provides no insight on the roles of officers in
schools or on the infrastructure in place to support these officers.
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) conducts the School Survey on Crime and
Safety (SSOCS), which surveys principals at a nationally representative sample of over 3,000
public schools. SSOCS asks principals about the presence and activities of school security staff,
including sworn law enforcement personnel. The most recent data available cover the 2009-2010
school year and contain only high level details on the school’s security staff as a whole. SSOCS
was fielded again in the spring of 2016 with more detailed school security questions, including a
distinction between types of security staff and their roles in the school. While there is a level of
overlap between the SSOCS and SLEPS data collections (e.g., both surveys ask about the
functions of SROs and the equipment they carry), this overlap is not duplicative, but rather
complementary. The SSOCS does not provide the detailed information we seek to gain regarding
the number of law enforcement agencies with officers working in schools and the infrastructure
within these agencies to support school safety. Additionally, the data collected by the SSOCS on
officers working in schools do not explore officer characteristics such as training and experience.
To address the need for national-level data on the prevalence and roles of law enforcement in
schools, BJS awarded a contract to RTI International under a competitive solicitation to develop
and test the SLEPS. RTI has subcontracted with the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) to
assist with the SLEPS since PERF has experience with conducting officer-level surveys and
existing relationships with law enforcement agencies.
Concepts and topics for the SLEPS were developed and prioritized through ongoing discussions
among the project team, NIJ, practitioners, researchers, and other key stakeholders. The project
team also convened an Expert Working Group (EWG) to solicit input and feedback on topics of
interest and utility, following up with a subset of the EWG to review early drafts of SLEPS
questionnaires. The EWG was included individuals who could provide the perspective of data
providers and consumers of the SLEPS information. The group was comprised of officers who
work in schools, those who supervise officers who work in schools, a representative from the
National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO), experts from the academic field,
and representatives from various federal agencies with vested interests in school safety topics.
In fall 2016, BJS requested and received OMB approval to conduct cognitive testing under the
generic clearance agreement (OMB Number 1121-0339) of (1) a SLEPS law enforcement
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agency (LEA) survey, which included a school resource officer (SRO) rostering form, and (2) a
SLEPS SRO survey. The interviews were designed to (1) thoroughly test the survey instruments
to ensure question clarity and reliability and (2) assess the willingness of law enforcement
agencies to provide rosters of their officers working in schools. In November and December
2016, the project team completed 18 SRO interviews and received only minor suggestions to
improve the clarity of the SRO instrument. The project team completed 20 LEA interviews and
the findings led BJS to make significant changes to the LEA survey to make it more streamlined
and to improve the flow and navigation through the instrument. During testing, most LEA
participants indicated that they would be willing to complete the roster form attached to the LEA
survey, but noted that they may not be able to provide the information at the level of detail
requested, or that they may need departmental approval to provide the requested information.
Based upon the feedback received during the cognitive testing of the LEA survey and subsequent
revisions, BJS requested and received OMB approval to conduct cognitive testing of the revised
LEA survey under the generic clearance agreement (OMB Number 1121-0339) in May 2017.
This round of testing was designed to (1) thoroughly test the revised LEA survey instrument to
ensure question clarity and reliability and (2) assess the willingness and ability of agencies to
provide rosters of their officers working in schools by requesting agencies to complete the roster
form. During spring and summer 2017, the project team completed 17 LEA interviews and
collected 14 rosters.
The current request is to conduct a pre-test for the SLEPS under the generic clearance agreement
(OMB Number 1121-0339). The activities described below are designed to rigorously test the
proposed protocol to obtain officer rosters from law enforcement agencies and subsequently
survey a sample of the rostered officers, beginning in late 2017 and concluding in early 2018.
Following the completion of this pre-test, BJS plans to seek OMB clearance to implement fullscale data collection in 2019.
Request to Conduct Pre-test of the LEA and SRO Survey Protocols
There are a number of challenges associated with conducting an officer-level survey, including
gaining access to agencies and officer rosters, sampling, and potentially low response rates. For
example, PERF previously conducted an officer-level survey on body armor that asked agencies
to provide rosters of all sworn patrol officers and found that at least half of the selected agencies
were unwilling to provide this information, leading PERF to rely on agency staff to draw the
officer-level sample. Considering these challenges, along with the fact that the SLEPS will be
BJS’s first attempt at conducting an officer-level survey, BJS would like to conduct a pre-test of
survey protocols to evaluate the full range of the planned data collection protocol, including
obtaining rosters of officers working in schools from law enforcement agencies and subsequently
sampling from the rosters and administering the SRO survey to officers.
The selection and participation of SROs within LEAs is of critical importance for obtaining
accurate and precise SRO-level estimates. For the sample design to be successful, BJS needs to
achieve a high level of cooperation and participation from LEAs when rostering and distributing
the survey to SROs, and BJS needs a high proportion of SROs to participate in the study. By

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conducting this test up front, BJS can evaluate how successful the planned SRO-level protocol
will be in the full SLEPS implementation and adjust plans and protocols accordingly.
Design of the LEA and SRO Field Tests
The pre-test will be implemented through several steps and has an expected duration of 5
months. The project team has identified a sampling frame based upon BJS’s Law Enforcement
Agency Roster (LEAR), in combination with SRO data from the 2008 and 2014 CSLLEA and
verification calling. In order to ensure representation across varying agency sizes and number of
SROs, the pre-test is designed to sample 250 law enforcement agencies with an expected sample
yield of 462 SROs.
The strata are based upon the number of expected SROs employed by each agency. Analysis of
the universe indicated that while the majority of SROs are employed by a small percentage of
law enforcement agencies, most agencies that employ SROs only employ small numbers of
SROs. The sampling is more heavily focused on agencies employing 1-5 SROs as compared to
larger SROs because, of agencies with SROs, most fall under the category of 1-5 SROs (see
Table 1). The sampling also allows the project team to learn more about agencies for which the
number of SROs is currently unknown. The New York Police Department (NYPD) will be
sampled with certainty because of their participation in the second round of cognitive testing,
during which they expended significant effort to provide a roster of their approximately 4,700
officers working in schools. The project team decided to include NYPD in the pre-test to
maximize the information provided in cognitive testing and make use of NYPD’s significant
effort in already completing a roster.
The project team has also determined that the sampling rate of officers within agencies should
vary, as doing so allows some evaluation of what factors are associated with (a) agency
willingness to provide rosters, and (b) SRO willingness to respond to the survey while
minimizing the total burden. Specifically, the project team developed the following sampling
plan of SROs:
•
•
•
•

Agencies with 1-5 SROs – sample all SROs
Agencies with 6-10 SROs – sample 75% of SROs (with a minimum of 5)
Agencies with 11-30 SROs – sample 50% of SROs (with a minimum of 8)
Agencies with 31+ SROs – sample 10% of SROs (with a maximum of 50)

Table 1: Sample Design Information for SLEPS Pretest

Stratum
Cert
(NYPD)
31+ SROs
11-31 SROs

#
Agencies
on
Frame1

# Agencies
Sampled
for Pretest1

Expected #
of Agency
Respondents

1
75.8
238.9

1
7.7
24.3

1.0
5.5
17.5
4

Expected
# of
Agencies
Providing
Rosters
1.0
3.9
12.2

Expected #
of SROs to
Receive
Survey per
Agency

Expected
# of
Sampled
SROs

Expected #
of
Responding
SROs

50.0
10.7
9.3

50.0
41.4
112.9

40.0
33.1
90.3

Stratum
Cert
(NYPD)
6-10 SROs
1-5 SROs
0 SROs
Unknown
SROs
TOTAL

Expected #
of SROs to
Receive
Survey per
Agency

Expected
# of
Sampled
SROs

Expected #
of
Responding
SROs

1.0
21.3
61.7
0.0

50.0
5.7
1.8
0.0

50.0
121.8
110.6
0.0

40.0
97.4
88.5
0.0

28.7

20.0

1.3

25.8

20.6

179.8

120.0

462.5

370.0

#
Agencies
on
Frame1

# Agencies
Sampled
for Pretest1

Expected #
of Agency
Respondents

1
421.2
4,882
9,811

1
42.9
124
10

1.0
30.8
89.1
7.2

637

40

16,067

250

Expected
# of
Agencies
Providing
Rosters

1

SRO strata shown do not correspond perfectly to the sampling strata on the frame. Accordingly, the number of
agencies on the frame in the categories 6-10 SROs, 11-31 SROS, and 31+ SROs were estimated and can shift across
draws.

LEA Field Test Protocol
Included in the universe file is a point of contact (POC) for the law enforcement agency. On day
1 of the agency pre-test, RTI will send the agency POC the agency survey materials. There will
be two conditions tested and they will be split evenly and assigned randomly across the 250
sampled agencies. Under the first condition, agencies will have the option of responding online
or by paper (online/paper condition), while under the second condition, agencies will only be
given the option of responding online (online only condition). All agencies will receive a paper
copy of the survey if they do not respond within 28 days (see below). Agencies under the first
condition will receive a cover letter inviting the agency to complete the survey online or by paper
(attachment A), a letter of support from PERF (attachment B), a paper LEA questionnaire
(attachment C), a roster form requesting that the agency provide a roster of their officers working
in schools (attachment D), an LEA informed consent form (attachment E), and a postage paid
return envelope. Agencies under the second condition will receive a cover letter inviting the
agency to complete the survey and roster online (attachment F) and the letter of support from
PERF. When agencies login to complete the survey online, they will be prompted to read and
accept the LEA informed consent. Agencies will be given the option to either designate a POC to
coordinate the distribution of the SRO surveys to sampled officers or provide officer contact
information on the roster so that the project team may contact the officers directly.
On day 14 of the agency pre-test, 2 weeks after the agency survey materials are mailed, a
postcard (attachment G) will be sent to all sampled agencies thanking those that completed the
survey and reminding those agencies that have not yet responded to complete the survey. This
reminder/thank you postcard will be sent to all of the 250 sampled agencies.
On day 28 of the agency pre-test, 2 weeks after the mailing of the thank you/reminder postcard, a
replacement package will be mailed to nonresponding agencies. The replacement package will
consist of a reminder letter with login information (attachment H), the LEA survey and roster

5

form, and a postage paid return envelope. It is anticipated that 80% percent of sampled agencies
(200 agencies) will receive replacement questionnaire packages.
On day 49, three weeks following the replacement questionnaire mailing, RTI telephone
interviewing staff will begin telephone prompts with nonresponding agencies. The agencies will
have the option to complete the questionnaire over the phone with the interviewer during the
reminder call. It is estimated that 60% of sampled agencies (150 agencies) will receive
nonresponse telephone prompts and that 16% of the sample (40 agencies), will opt to complete
the survey over the phone during the nonresponse telephone call. The assumption of 40%
response rate is based on BJS work with the Death in Custody Reporting Program and the
Annual Surveys of Probation and Parole.
Agency data collection will run for just over 2 months, concluding on day 67. It is anticipated
that by this point, 72% of agencies will have responded to the survey (180 agencies) and that
50% of agencies will have provided an officer roster (125 agencies). Once the agency data
collection ends, RTI will take one month to use the officer rosters provided by the agencies to
select a sample of officers for the officer survey and prepare the officer-level questionnaire
packets.
SRO Field Test Protocol
On the first day of the SRO pre-test, RTI will send out the SRO survey materials. For those
agencies that designated a POC, RTI will send a cover letter to the POC (attachment I) along
with individual letters (attachment J) for the POC to distribute to each officer selected. Six POCs
from each stratum identified in Table 1 above, along with the NYPD POC, will also receive a
letter requesting they track the time they spend coordinating the participation of their agency’s
SROs in the pre-test (attachment K), for a total of 25 POCs. For those agencies that elect to have
the project team contact officers directly and provided officer contact information, the invitation
letter (attachment J) will be sent directly to each individual officer. The invitation letter will
include the website and unique login information for each officer. Upon logging in to complete
the survey online, officers will be prompted to read and accept the SRO informed consent
(attachment L).
On day 14, two weeks following the initial mailout, thank you postcards and reminders will be
sent. For agencies that designated a POC, RTI will send a cover letter (attachment M) along with
thank you/reminder postcards (attachment N) for the POC to distribute to each sampled officer.
For agencies that elected to have the project team contact officers directly, the postcards will be
sent directly to the officers. This thank you/reminder postcard will be sent to all of the 462
sampled officers.
On day 28, two weeks after the thank you/reminder postcard mailing, questionnaire packages
will be sent to those officers who have not yet responded. The replacement mailing will be sent
to either the POC at the agency or directly to the officer, depending on the option that the agency
selected at the conclusion of the LEA survey. For agencies that designated a POC, the mailing
will include a cover letter to the POC (attachment O) and questionnaire packages for
nonresponding officers consisting of an SRO reminder letter (attachment P), a paper version of
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the SRO survey (attachment Q), the SRO informed consent form, and a postage paid return
envelope. For agencies that elect for direct contact, the mailing will include the SRO reminder
letter, SRO survey, the SRO informed consent form, and a postage paid return envelope and will
be sent directly to the nonresponding officers at their agency’s mailing address. It is estimated
that 40% of the officer sample (approximately 185 officers) will receive these replacement
packages.
The officer data collection will run for about 6 weeks, concluding on day 39. It is estimated that
by this point, 80% of officers will have responded to the survey (370 officers). Following the
conclusion of this data collection, RTI will begin data and paradata analyses for inclusion in a
summary of pre-test findings and recommendations to inform inputs for the OMB package for
the main SLEPS data collection.
Burden Hours
The burden hour estimates are divided across the 2 testing activities: 1) the pre-test of the law
enforcement agencies, and 2) the pre-test of the officer-level survey. Further details about the
burden hour estimates are provided in the following table and text.
Table 2: Burden Estimates for SLEPS Pretest

Data collection activity by respondent level
Agency level
Review rostering request materials
Complete and return agency-level
questionnaire
Complete and return rostering form
Disseminate SRO-level survey1
Assist in non-response follow-up1
Track time to coordinate SRO survey
participation
SRO level
Review questionnaire materials
Complete and return SRO survey
TOTAL HOURS

Average burden
per respondent
(minutes)

Total
respondents

Est. burden
hours

10

250

41.50

25
13
35
70

180
125
94
94

75.00
25.96
54.55
109.10

30

25

12.50

10
30

462
370

77.00
185.00
580.61

1

Assumes that 75% of agencies will designate a POC to disseminate the SRO-level survey rather than elect for direct
contact of officers.

It is estimated that it will take respondents approximately 10 minutes to review the mailout
materials. Feedback obtained during the second round of cognitive testing indicated that the
survey took between 15 and 40 minutes to complete, leading to an average estimated burden of
25 minutes to complete the LEA survey. The time to complete the roster varies widely, as
response times during cognitive testing ranged from a couple of minutes to 16 hours. With the
7

exception of the very large NYPD rostering effort that took 16 hours, all other rosters were
completed within 30 minutes. In determining an average burden estimate for the roster, the
project team considered that while it takes more time for larger agencies to complete their roster,
the majority of agencies are smaller. The project team concluded that across the number of
agencies and their sizes, the average estimated time to complete the roster, weighted to reflect
the different sample strata, is about 13 minutes. This excludes NYPD, because the project team
will use the roster that NYPD completed during cognitive testing.
The dissemination of the SRO survey materials is estimated to average about 35 minutes,
accounting for the time it will take the POC to review the package and then distribute the officer
packets, either at roll call or to officer mailboxes. This is estimated to apply to 75% of agencies
that provide a roster (94 agencies), assuming that 25% of agencies will allow the project team to
contact officers directly, thereby eliminating the need for a POC.
The average for nonresponse follow-up, again weighted to reflect the different sample strata, is
estimated to be about 70 minutes for the POC. The amount of follow-up required will vary by
agency, with about an hour estimated for smaller agencies, 1.5 hours for larger agencies, and up
to 2 hours for NYPD. This estimate accounts for the potential of multiple contacts between RTI
and the POC, which would then be followed by the POC reaching out to the nonresponding
SROs. While each exchange is likely to last only minutes, the estimate is based upon the
potential for multiple contacts and the potential need to follow-up with a large number of
officers. As with the distribution of materials above, this step is estimated to apply to the 75% of
agencies that provide a roster (94 agencies); for the 25% of agencies that allow the project team
to contact officers directly, RTI will be able to follow-up with nonresponding officers directly.
To evaluate the accuracy of the estimated burden for POCs to disseminate the SRO survey
materials and conduct subsequent follow-up contacts, 25 POCs will be asked to track the time
they spend on these activities. This is estimated to take about 30 minutes, accounting for the time
it will take the POC to review the request, keep track of their time, and then participate in a
phone call of about 15 minutes with RTI to discuss their experience.
Institutional Review Board
The project team is obtaining approval from RTI’s IRB to ensure the testing protocols are
compliant with informed consent and data confidentiality standards (attachment R).
Contact Information
Questions regarding any aspect of this project can be directed to:
Elizabeth Davis
Statistician
Bureau of Justice Statistics
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U.S. Department of Justice
810 7th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20531
Office Phone: (202) 305-2667
E-mail: [email protected]
Attachments
Attachment A:
Attachment B:
Attachment C:
Attachment D:
Attachment E:
Attachment F:
Attachment G:
Attachment H:
Attachment I:
Attachment J:
Attachment K:
Attachment L:
Attachment M:
Attachment N:
Attachment O:
Attachment P:
Attachment Q:
Attachment R:

LEA cover letter with link and paper survey
PERF letter of support
LEA survey
Officer roster
LEA informed consent
LEA cover letter with link
LEA thank you/reminder postcard
LEA reminder letter
POC cover letter about SRO survey distribution
SRO cover letter
Request to LEA POC to track time
SRO informed consent
LEA POC letter for SRO thank you/reminder postcard
SRO thank you/reminder postcard
LEA POC SRO reminder letter
SRO reminder letter
SRO survey
IRB submission confirmation

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