2022 SCS OMB Supporting Statement A_final

Supporting Statement – 2022 National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) School Crime Supplement (SCS)

The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) request clearance to conduct the 2022 School Crime Supplement (SCS) as a supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) to collect information about school-related victimization. The NCVS and all related contacts and protocols have been previously approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) (OMB Control No: 1121-0111) and this request is specifically for a supplemental data collection instrument that will be added to the approved NCVS core from January 2022 through June 2022. The last SCS was administered from January 2019 through June 2019. It was approved under OMB Control No. 1121-0184, which expires December 31, 2021. The SCS is the only national data collection that provides reliable person-level information on school-related victimization. Data are collected from persons age 12 to 18 who complete an NCVS interview. Typically, the SCS is given every two years. However, the SCS was postponed as a result of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on in-person learning.

1. Justification

1. Necessity of the Information Collection

The BJS and NCES request clearance to conduct the 2022 SCS to the NCVS. The BJS is authorized to collect statistics on victimization under Title 34, United States Code (U.S.C.), Section 10132 of the Justice Systems Improvement Act of 1979 (see Attachment 1). Title 1 of the Education Sciences Reform Act (ESRA) mandates that the NCES collect, report, analyze, and disseminate statistical data regarding education in the United States. The current request is specifically for a supplemental data collection instrument that will be added to the approved NCVS core from January through June 2022 (see Attachment 2). Clearance for the NCVS, along with all related contacts and protocols for the 2022 collection year, is being requested through a separate OMB request and number (OMB Control No: 1121-0111).

The primary purpose of the SCS is to obtain information about school-related victimizations. This information helps policymakers; academic researchers; practitioners at the federal, state, and local levels; and special interest groups, who are concerned with crime in schools, make informed decisions about policies and programs. The SCS is the only data collection on school-related victimization that is representative of the national youth population of students ages 12 to 18.

To study the relationships between victimization at school and the school environment, and to monitor changes in student experiences with victimization, accurate information regarding its incidence must be collected. The SCS includes questions related to students' experiences with, and perceptions of, crime and safety at school. The questions focus on preventive measures used by schools; students' participation in after school activities; students’ perceptions of safety and belonging in schools; students' perception of school rules and enforcement of these rules; the presence of weapons, illegal and prescription drugs including opioids, alcohol, and gangs in school; student bullying; hate-related incidents; and attitudinal questions relating to the fear of victimization at school. The 2022 supplement will continue to provide critical information about the overall environment of safety in schools to understand the context in which school-related victimizations occur on a national level.

NCVS data on school crime have shown that school crimes are under-reported to the police and those victims between the ages of 12 to 18 are not as likely as older victims to report victimizations to the police. In addition, police-based statistics are not organized in a manner to properly identify crimes that occurred at school or during school hours. Therefore, police statistics on school crime are not adequate to address the issue of the nature and prevalence of school victimization.

The U.S. Census Bureau has administered and collected the SCS as part of the NCVS administration 13 times since 1989 and administered the supplement biennially between 1999 and 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic impacted students’ ability to attend school in person, and therefore, NCES and BJS decided to delay the SCS data collection.

We are requesting a two-year clearance from OMB that will cover the 2022 SCS data collection. The SCS will be conducted from January 1, 2022 through June 30, 2022. During this 6-month period, the supplement will be administered to all NCVS respondents ages 12 to 18, following the completion of the NCVS screener and the NCVS crime incident report (if applicable NCVS crimes were reported).

2. Needs and Uses

Title 1 of the ESRA mandates that NCES collect, report, analyze, and disseminate statistical data regarding education in the United States. These data include the nature of criminal incidents at school and other indices of school safety. Specifically, information is required on the incidence, frequency, seriousness, and nature of violence affecting students, school personnel, and other individuals participating in school activities. Furthermore, other indices of school safety are to be detailed, including information regarding the relationship between victims and perpetrators and demographic characteristics of the victims. To study the relationship between victimization at school and the school environment, and to monitor changes in student experiences with victimization, accurate information regarding its characteristics and incidence must be collected. These data yield numerous types of information that are used generally and by several specific groups interested in school crime such as school administrators, resource officers and educators.

General Uses. Funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) NCES and Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE), and designed with the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), the SCS collects the data to address the reporting authorizations of both NCES and BJS. Since its first collection in 1989, the SCS has been NCES's primary data source on student victimization. In addition to collecting characteristics related to various types of student victimization at school, the SCS also asks students about perceptions of school safety; alcohol and drug availability; fighting, bullying, and hate-related behaviors; fear and avoidance behaviors; gun and weapon carrying; and gangs at school.

To meet its obligation to Congress under the ESRA, NCES works with its diverse customer groups and relies on their feedback to determine how to meet their information demands for timely, comprehensive, and useful information that maintains high statistical standards. Exhibit 1 displays the types of estimates that can be produced from the 2022 SCS.

Exhibit 1: Types of estimates that can be drawn from the 2022 SCS

Estimates1	Relevant questions
Percentages of students ages 12 to 18 who reported presence of selected security measures at school	Q10
Percentage of students ages 12 to 18 who reported being bullied at school during the school year by type of bullying and by selected student and school characteristics	Q22
Number and percentage of students ages 12 to 18 who reported being bullied at school, by the frequency of bullying and whether an adult was notified, and selected student characteristics	Q22, 23, 30
Percentage of students ages 12 to 18 who reported bullying problems at school and the effect it had on them, by selected student and school characteristics	Q22, 31
Percentage of students ages 12 to 18 who reported being targets of hate-related bullying, hearing hate-related words and seeing hate-related graffiti at school during the school year, by selected student and school characteristics	Q33, 34, 35
Percentage of students ages 12 to 18 who reported being afraid of attack or harm during the school year, by location and urbanicity	Q36, 37
Percentage of students ages 12 to 18 who reported that gangs were present at school during the school year	Q42
Percentage of students ages 12 to 18 who reported being bullied at school, by student reports of negative school conditions such as the presence of gangs and availability of drugs and alcohol at school	Q19, 20, 22, 42
Percentage of students ages 12 to 18 who reported being bullied at school, by presence of indicators of school attachment, performance, and future orientation	Q9, 14, 15, 22, 43, 44, 45
Percentage of students ages 12 to 18 who reported being bullied at school, by student reports of personal fear, avoidance behaviors, fighting, and weapon carrying at school, and type of bullying	Q21, 22, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41

¹ Some data that refer to student characteristics like sex, race, and household income are covered in the NCVS survey and not in the SCS. School characteristics for the schools of attendance reported by respondents are taken from NCES’s Common Core of Data (CCD) and Private School Universe Survey (PSS).

Use by Federal Stakeholders

NCES and BJS use the SCS data to meet the reporting authorizations of both agencies. NCES is mandated to disseminate statistics on school crime. BJS is authorized to disseminate statistics on the attributes of crime, which includes the location that the crime occurred and the population it affects. Together they issue a joint annual report, Report on Indicators of School Crime and Safety. The latest report is available at https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/report-indicators-school-crime-and-safety-2020. Eight of the 22 indicators in this report include SCS data:

• Prevalence of Victimization at School

• Students’ Reports of Gangs at School

• Students’ Reports of Being Called Hate-Related Words and Seeing Hate-Related Graffiti

• Bullying at School and Cyber-Bullying Anywhere

• Students Carrying Weapons on School Property and Anywhere and Students’ Access to Firearms

• Students’ Perceptions of Personal Safety at School and Away from School

• Students’ Reports of Avoiding School Activities or Specific Places in School

• Students’ Reports of Safety and Security Measures Observed at School

In addition, one of the indicators, “Incidence of Victimization at School and Away from School,” is the primary mechanism for releasing annual estimates from the NCVS for violence and theft against students ages 12 to 18.

NCES also uses the SCS data to produce other publications, such as The Condition of Education, a congressionally mandated annual report that summarizes developments and trends in education using the latest available data. Some of the other federal stakeholders and the ways in which they use SCS data are as follows:

Congress uses these data to evaluate the prevalence and extent of school crime to help support federal, state, and local agencies in reducing student victimization, develop new or improved initiatives or laws aimed at ensuring the safety of America's students, and monitor the effectiveness of school policies and programs.

Within the Department of Education, the OESE and the Office of Safe and Healthy Students (OSHS) use the data to communicate and understand the current trends in school crime and to allocate resources to assist states and local agencies to meet the needs of school officials, administrators, teachers, and parents to assess conditions within their own schools/jurisdictions relative to those at the national level, as well as determine needs and budgetary requirements.

Use by Non-Federal Stakeholders

Non-federal users include state and local officials who, in conjunction with researchers and planners, need to analyze the current trends in victimization and school safety. For example –

State and local governments use the data to assess conditions within their own jurisdictions relative to those at the national level and to determine needs and budgetary requirements for local school districts.

Researchers and practitioners often reanalyze the data to estimate the prevalence and impact of student victimization, and correlate school crime to design prevention programs. A few examples of secondary data analysis include –

• Baek, H., Andreescu, V., & Rolfe, S.M. (2019). Bullying and fear of victimization: do supportive adults in school make a difference in adolescents’ perceptions of safety? Journal of School Violence, 18(1): 92-106.

• Farina, K.A. (2019). Promoting a culture of bullying: understanding the role of school crime and school sector. Journal of School Choice, 13(1): 94-120.

• Fisher, B.W., Gardella, J.H., & Tanner-Smith, E.E. (2019). Social control in schools: the relationship between school security measures and informal social control mechanisms. Journal of School Violence, 18(3): 347-361.

• Bills, K.L. (2020). The direct relationship between bullying rates and extracurricular activities among adolescents and teenagers with disabilities. Journal of Evidence-Based Social Work, 17(2): 191-202.

The media disseminates findings from the survey to inform the public about all the issues related to school crime and safety.

In addition to principal-, district-, or state-level data sources, students' reports of victimization and perceptions of crime, violence, and school climate are important factors in providing a comprehensive picture of school crime and safety. Currently, the SCS is the only recurring national data source that provides nationally representative student-level data detailing victimization and other school characteristics related to crime and disorder.

If the SCS data were not collected, data users would have no source of nationally representative student-level data on victimization and school characteristics related to victimization that includes incidents both reported and not reported to police. Stakeholders would not have sufficient data to make comparative assessments that document the changing demands on schools, community mental health agencies, and law enforcement. Additionally, these entities would not have the necessary data to obtain resources for personnel and services to ensure school safety (e.g., security, personnel, and programmatic efforts) and other demands for tax dollars.

Attachment 3 displays selected non-federal publications that report secondary analyses of SCS data.

3. Use of Information Technology

The 2022 SCS will be conducted in a fully automated interviewing environment using computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) methods. In this method, field representatives use a laptop computer to read questions and record answers. Interviews may be conducted by telephone or personal visit. The use of CAPI technologies reduces data collection costs as well as respondent and interviewer burden. Furthermore, automated instruments afford the opportunity to implement inter-data item integrity constraints which minimize the amount of data inconsistency. More consistent data, in turn, reduces the need for extensive post-data collection editing and imputation processes which significantly reduces the time needed to release the data for public consumption. The use of technology results in more accurate data products that are delivered in a timelier fashion giving data users access to information while it is still relevant.

3. Efforts to Identify Duplication

Two contemporary surveys collect information about school-related crime and safety from the students’ perspective. The Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) and Monitoring the Future (MTF) are national collections that target various populations and substantive areas. However, neither of these studies provides a comprehensive picture of school crime from the students’ perspective from both the public and private sectors.

Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) YRBSS includes the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). The YRBS collects information on risky behaviors and offending, but there is minimal overlap of YRBS content with that of the SCS. The YRBS is a school-based survey and interviews students in grades 9 through 12. Most of the questions ask about all experiences, not just those confined to school.

The SCS is a household-based sample and interviews children ages 12 to 18 who have attended school during the current school year (grades 6 through 12). All of the questions are about experiences at school. Areas of overlap include asking if the student carried a weapon on school property, if the student was in a fight on school property, if the student was bullied either at school or online (cyberbullied), and if the student skipped (or did not attend) school because of safety concerns. In 2011, two questions on bullying and cyber-bullying were added to the YRBS. Unlike the SCS, the questions do not go into detail about the type of bullying behavior, number of incidents, or results (notification of adults, avoidance, etc.). Additionally, because this is a self-administered survey, the responses are not directly comparable to the SCS.

Monitoring the Future (MTF). The National Institute on Drug Abuse publishes survey results from MTF. This survey, like the YRBS, is a self-administered form. It is also a school-based survey population. The population surveyed does not completely overlap with the SCS as the survey is not administered to students below grade 8 and uses different forms for grades 8, 10, and 12; it includes college students; and is not restricted by age. More importantly, the sampling procedures are representative of schools, not the general population. MTF does not look at bullying or cyber-bullying, and only overlaps in the areas of drug and alcohol use and availability. Like the YRBS, MTF does not restrict responses to experiences on school property. Thus, the SCS does not duplicate existing data collections.

3. Efforts to Minimize Burden

N/A. The NCVS is a household-based survey and does not impact small business or small entities.

3. Consequences of Less Frequent Collection

Regular data collection is required to produce timely statistics on school crime victimization. The SCS is the only data collection on school victimization that is representative of the national youth population of students ages 12 to 18. Less frequent collection would limit the ability to present timely statistics and assess trends in student victimization. Additionally, less frequent collection would limit the ability to assess students’ experiences with bullying, drug and alcohol availability, and students’ access to weapons over time. Stakeholders, including policymakers, school administrators, researchers, and the media, rely on the timely and frequent collection of these data.

3. Special Circumstances

Collection is consistent with the guidelines in 5 C.F.R. 1320.9.

8. Adherence to 5 CFR 1320.8(d) and Outside Consultations

The research under this clearance is consistent with the guidelines in 5 CFR 1320.6 and 5 CFR 1320.8(d). Comments on this data collection effort were solicited in the Federal Register, Vol. 86, No. 125, page 35347 on July 2, 2021 and Vol. 86, No. 172, page 50558 on September 9, 2021. Public comments are presented in Table 1.

Table 1. Public comments on the 2022 School Crime Supplement

Comment from:	Comment:	Implementation of public comment and BJS response:
Barbara Olden	Question 1e is double-barreled: Did you receive [online schooling or virtual learning/homeschooling instead of being enrolled in a public or private school/online schooling or virtual learning or homeschooling instead of being enrolled in a public or private school] because of the Coronavirus pandemic?	Comment will not be implemented. Question was cognitively tested and determined to be understood by the sample population of persons ages 12 to 18. CAPI programming will fill in applicable portion of question for each respondent.
Barbara Olden	Question 38c is advanced for this age group: Besides the times you are in the school building, on school property, on a school bus, or going to or from school, how often are you afraid that someone will attack or harm you?	Comment will not be implemented. Question was cognitively tested and determined to be understood by the sample population of persons ages 12 to 18.
Barbara Olden	Reading ease of the SCS. A Flesch Kincaid readability score was generated for question 1e and indicated the reading level was higher than the sample population: Did you receive [online schooling or virtual learning/homeschooling instead of being enrolled in a public or private school/online schooling or virtual learning or homeschooling instead of being enrolled in a public or private school] because of the Coronavirus pandemic?	Comment will not be implemented. Question was cognitively tested and determined to be understood by the sample population of persons ages 12 to 18. CAPI programming will fill in applicable portion of question for each respondent.
Briana Frenzel	There are no variables capturing charter status compared to other public schools (e.g. public, private or charter school), but the legalities surrounding their structure, finances, and accreditations are very different. These all have a lot of impact on the way communities are able to respond to needs identified in these supplements.	Charter schools are classified as public schools because they are identified on the Department of Education’s (ED) Common Core of Data (CCD) database.
Briana Frenzel	There is not a lot of distinction in terms of gender identity or struggles experienced as a result, nor group it in with sexual orientation as it had been in the past.	Data users can link core NCVS data which includes sexual orientation and gender identity status for persons ages 16 or older and examine school-related victimization for these persons.
Briana Frenzel	In the recent years there are a lot of schools returning toward trades/apprenticeships, both in activities (e.g., FFA, 4-H, FCCLA, ROTC, etc.) and in encouraging apprenticeship programs following graduation. The various activities and clubs avoid agricultural or trades focus. The variables asking about post-graduation plans include 4-year university or college/technical for future plans, and more students are completing high school and an associate’s concurrently than in the past.	Comment will not be implemented at this time. This is a revision to consider for future administrations as additional questions on this topic need to be developed and cognitively tested.
Lillian Brooks	My comment is that I do address the Crime Victim Survey in my class and its accuracy.  I can't attest to the accuracy on self-reporting but I can tell you that the data on school crime would be of use to us in linking it to bullying and drop-out prevention.  Programs can be developed that address these issues as students often avoid school or are truant when their experience at school is negatively impacted by criminal threats by other students.  If this data goes beyond telling us that school crime has increased or decreased, it will be more useful to schools and researchers in devising plans to address why the crime is occurring. Unfortunately, I have not seen adequate information on this issue.  You will have to find a way for students to report their experiences as they are not always truthful or forthcoming on surveys.	The 2022 SCS does ask questions about bullying. The instrument does not include items about dropping out of school but does include about skipping classes in-person or virtually, which could be a proxy measure for truancy. SCS data provide valuable information for persons interested in the topic.

The U.S. Census Bureau, BJS, and NCES coordinated to develop the questionnaire and procedures used to collect this supplemental information. Those persons consulted from the Census Bureau included Meagan Meuchel, Edward Madrid, Megan Ruhnke, Christopher Seamands, Katherine Mark, Mandi Martinez, and Jessica Holzberg. Principal consultants from BJS were Dr. Rachel Morgan and Alexandra Thompson. Principal persons from NCES were Rachel Hansen, Michelle McNamara, Dr. Deanne Swan, and Andrew Zukerberg.

9. Paying Respondents

Payment or gifts to respondents is not provided in return for participation in the survey.

10. Assurance of Confidentiality

All NCVS information about individuals or households is confidential by law – Title 34, U.S.C., Sections 10231 and 10134 and Title 13, U.S.C., Section 9. Only Census Bureau employees sworn to preserve this confidentiality may see the survey responses. Even BJS, as the sponsor of the NCVS, is not authorized to see or handle the data in its raw form. All unique and identifying information is scrambled or suppressed before it is provided to BJS and NCES to analyze. Data are maintained in secure environments and in restricted access locations within the Census Bureau. All data provided to NCES and BJS must meet the confidentiality requirements set forth by the Disclosure Review Board at the Census Bureau.

In a letter signed by the director of the Census Bureau, sent to all participants in the survey, respondents are informed of these laws (Title 13, U.S.C., Section 9 and Title 34, U.S.C., Sections 10231 and 10134) and assured that it requires the Census Bureau to keep all information provided by the respondent confidential. All NCVS data are also protected from cybersecurity risks through screening of the systems that transmit the data per the Federal Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2015. The letter also informs respondents that this is a voluntary survey. Furthermore, in addition to the legal authority and voluntary nature of the survey, the letter informs respondents of the public reporting burden for this collection of information, the principal purposes for collecting the information, and the various uses for the data after it is collected which satisfies the requirements of the Privacy Act of 1974.

11. Justification for Sensitive Questions

Sensitive questions include those related to victimization, bullying victimization, drug availability at school, gang presence at school, and students’ access to weapons since these are of great interest for school administrators and personnel responsible for maintaining school safety. These have been included in past SCS administrations. In the recent cognitive testing, all interviewers were provided with training on cognitive interview protocol and administration. During this testing, interviewers did not report any respondents showing visible signs of shame or embarrassment.

Additional questions about whether bullying is related to personal characteristics such as sexual orientation or religious beliefs are carefully constructed to ask about perceptions of victims, rather than about actual personal characteristics. This information is necessary to meet ED’s commitment to provide information on school victimization among protected and vulnerable student groups. SCS interviewers receive training and guidance on how to ask sensitive questions. See Attachment 4 for specific rationale for all questions.

12. Estimate of Respondent Burden

This burden estimate assumes that the total NCVS sample from January through June 2022 will be administered the survey. This is approximately 127,000 households yielding approximately 13,992 persons age 12 to 18 in NCVS interviewed households.

Response rates and interview times for the 2022 SCS administration are based on actual times from the 2019 administration. Based on the 2019 SCS, we expect that about 50.1%, or 7,010 of the 13,992 NCVS persons age 12 to 18, are expected to complete an SCS interview. Of the 7,010 SCS respondents, 86.6%, or 6,071, are expected to complete the long SCS interview (entire SCS questionnaire), which takes an estimated 17 minutes (0.28 hours) to complete. The remaining 13.4%, or 939, SCS respondents are expected to complete the short interview (i.e., will be screened out for not being in school), which takes an estimated 2 minutes (0.03 hours) to complete. The total respondent burden is approximately 1,728 hours. See Table 2 for calculation and item 15 below for explanation of the change in burden.

Table 2. 2022 SCS estimated burden hours

	Number of SCS Persons (A)	Time per interview (hours) (B)	Burden hours (A x B)
Total Expected SCS Persons	13,992
Expected SCS Interviews	7,010
Expected SCS Short Interviews	939	.03	28
Expected SCS Long Interviews	6,071	.28	1,700
Expected SCS Noninterviews	6,982
2022 SCS Burden Hours Estimate			1,728
2019 SCS Burden Hour Estimate on File*			2,046
Change in Respondent Burden Hours from 2019 to 2022			-318

*Obtained from https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewICR?ref_nbr=201812-1121-003.

13. Estimate of Respondent’s Cost Burden

There are no costs to respondents other than that of their time to respond.

14. Costs to Federal Government

The total estimated cost to the Federal Government for the 2022 SCS is $1,459,482. The ED’s NCES and OESE bear all costs of the data collection for the supplement incurred by the U.S. Census Bureau. Table 3 details estimated costs for BJS, NCES, and the U.S. Census Bureau for the 2022 SCS. The U.S. Census Bureau will act as the data collection agent for the 2022 SCS. The Census Bureau will develop, test, and finalize the 2022 SCS survey instrument, develop all data collection support and training materials, train interviewers and support staff, and collect, process, and disseminate the 2022 SCS data.

Table 3. Estimated BJS, NCES, and Census costs for the 2022 SCS

BJS and NCES estimated costs
GS11 – Statistician, BJS (15%)	$12,368
GS14 – Statistician, BJS (15%)	$20,830
GS15 – Supervisory Statistician, BJS (10%)	$16,335
GS13 – Statistician, NCES (45%)	$52,882
Subtotal: Salaries	$102,415
Fringe benefits (28% of salaries)	$28,676
Subtotal: Salary and fringe	$131,091
Other administrative costs of salary and fringe (15%)	$19,664
Subtotal: Project management costs	$150,754
NCES support contractors	$238,042
Total BJS and NCES estimated costs	$388,796
Census estimated costs
CBSM (questionnaire cognitive testing/expert review)	$115,783
DSMD (sample design and estimation)	$74,528
ADSD (instrument development)	$79,201
DSD (data processing)	$165,475
FLD (data collection)	$284,538
ADDP (survey operations and project management)	$351,161
Total Census estimated costs	$1,070,686
Total 2022 SCS estimated cost	$1,459,482

15. Reasons for Changes in Burden

The decrease in the respondent burden from 2,046 hours to 1,728 hours is attributed to a decrease in expected persons and interviews. We expect a slight decrease in the response rates and minimal difference in the interview times between the 2019 SCS and 2022 SCS.

The number of persons in the household who are 12 to 18 years old that will be eligible for the supplement is decreasing by about 13% from 16,133 respondents in 2019 to about 13,992 respondents in 2022 because of the decrease in expected interviewed households and eligible persons as survey response rates decrease over time.

16. Project Schedule and Publication Plans

2022 SCS

The schedule for the 2022 SCS is as follows. The dates are estimates and are subject to change:

• November 2021: Complete the development and testing (by the Census Bureau) of the CAPI instrument, ensuring that it functions as designed and that all survey skip patterns have been properly programmed. The testing will be done in consultation with BJS and NCES.

• December 2021: The Census Bureau completes the development of all training materials and distributes to the field representatives.

• January 2022–June 2022: Interviews for the 2022 SCS are conducted by the Census Bureau field representatives.

• During the interview period, the Census Bureau provides BJS and NCES with monthly reports on response rates, contact ‘hit rates,’ and the number of interviews conducted in a language other than English.

• February 2022–October 2022: Data monitoring and processing takes place on an ongoing basis.

• November 2022: Computer processing and weighting of the data are completed.

• December 2022: The Census Bureau prepares and delivers a 2022 SCS public-use file and accompanying file documentation to BJS and NCES.

BJS and NCES will be responsible for the statistical analysis and publication of the data from the 2022 SCS. Contingent on the processing and delivery of the final data file, recurring reports from the 2022 collection will be released approximately 6-8 months after the data are approved for release. These will include the Web Tables Report on student reports of bullying, and the Statistics in Brief report on student reports of criminal victimization, both published by NCES. In addition, NCES will release the Condition of Education and NCES and BJS will jointly release the Report on Indicators of School Crime and Safety, which both include SCS data.

The SCS data are archived at the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of Michigan (http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/). Researchers can download public-use files (PUF) of the SCS data and codebooks to conduct their own analyses. These microdata are made available as a PUF after it has been approved by the Census Bureau’s Disclosure Review Board. The ICPSR study includes a codebook, setup program in SAS language, text file of the raw data, as well as the datafile in SPSS, SAS, and STATA data formats. As an example, the 2019 SCS data release documentation and datasets can be found at https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/NACJD/studies/37816.

To further enhance the utility of the data, in addition to the PUFs housed at ICPSR, the geographically identified SCS files will now be available in the Census Bureau secure federal statistical research data centers (FSRDC). The FSRDC files can be accessed by researchers who submit a proposal approved by BJS and NCES for the research they plan to conduct using the data and agree to all confidentiality and protected use constraints. Data are typically available through ICPSR and the FSRDCs by the fall of the year following collection.

Recently released from the 2019 SCS

ICPSR released the 2019 SCS data file and documentation on their website on June 8, 2021. The following publications have been released using data from the 2019 SCS:

Report on the Condition of Education, 2021 (NCES 2021144)

https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2021144

Report on Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2020 (NCES 2021092)

https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2021092

Eight of the 22 indicators in the report are based on SCS data. These include –

• Prevalence of Victimization at School

• Students’ Reports of Gangs at School

• Students’ Reports of Hate-Related Words and Seeing Hate-Related Graffiti

• Bullying at School and Electronic Bullying

• Students Carrying Weapons on School Property and Anywhere and Students’ Access to Firearms

• Students’ Perceptions of Personal Safety at School and Away from School

• Students’ Reports of Avoiding School Activities or Classes or Specific Places in School

• Students’ Reports of Safety and Security Measures Observed at School

17. Display of Expiration Date

The OMB approval number and expiration date will be displayed on the SCS introduction screen within the CAPI instrument. The final SCS CAPI instrument for fielding in January 2022 must be finalized and put into the Census Bureau production system in November 2021.

18. Exceptions to the Certificate Statement

N/A. There are no exceptions to the Certification for Paperwork Reduction Act Submissions. Collection is consistent with the guidelines in 5 CFR 1320.9.

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