School Pulse Panel 2024-25
Preliminary Field Activities
Revision of a currently approved collection
No
Regular
12/05/2023
Requested
Previously Approved
36 Months From Approved
07/31/2025
6,339
17,280
2,551
4,752
0
0
The School Pulse Panel (SPP) is a data
collection originally designed to collect repeated voluntary
responses from a nationally representative sample of public schools
to better understand how schools, students, and educators are
responding to the ongoing stressors of the coronavirus pandemic.
The School Pulse Panel is conducted by the National Center for
Education Statistics (NCES), part of the Institute of Education
Sciences (IES), within the United States Department of Education.
Due to the immediate need to collect information from schools
during the pandemic to satisfy the requirement of Executive Order
14000, an emergency clearance was issued to develop and field the
first several monthly collections of the SPP in 2021 and a full
review of the SPP data collection was performed under the
traditional clearance review process in 2022 (OMB# 1850-0969).
SPP’s innovative design and timely dissemination of findings have
been used and cited frequently among Department of Education senior
leadership, the White House Domestic Policy Counsel, the USDA’s
Food and Nutrition Service, the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, Congressional deliberations, and the media. The ongoing
interest by stakeholders has resulted in dedicated funding to
continue the SPP as an ongoing, quick-turnaround data collection
vehicle. For the 2024-25 school year, the survey may ask school
staff about a wide range of topics, including but not limited to
instructional mode offered; enrollment counts of subgroups of
students for various subject interests; strategies to address
learning recovery; safe and healthy school mitigation strategies;
mental health services; use of technology; information on staffing,
nutrition services, absenteeism, usage of federal funds,
facilities, and overall principal experiences. It is planned that
content will be rotated in and out monthly. This package includes
preliminary activities, including a generic special district
application and communication materials for district and school
recruitment, that will be conducted to help with recruitment
efforts for the 2024-25 sample. Roughly 8,000 public elementary,
middle, high, and combined-grade schools will be randomly selected
to participate in a panel. The goal will be national representation
from 1,000 responding schools in order to report out national
estimates. School staff will be asked to provide requested data
monthly during the 2024-25 school year. This approach provides the
ability to collect detailed information on various topics while
also assessing changes over time for items that are repeated from
month to month. Given the high demand for data collection during
this time, the content of the survey will change monthly. This
request is to conduct the SPP 2024-25 preliminary activities,
including contacting and obtaining research approvals from public
school districts with an established research approval process
(“special contact districts”), where applicable, notifying sampled
schools of their selection for the survey and inviting them to
complete short Screener Surveys to establish a point of contact at
their school. Additional materials may be added to this package
after the 60-day public comment period is complete, in time for the
subsequent 30-day public comment period that will begin in December
2023/January 2024. In spring of 2024, a clearance for main study
data collection activities with schools and districts, including
instruments for the first quarter of monthly collections, will be
submitted 60-day and 30-day public comment. Subsequent quarterly
content submissions will be submitted for 30-day public comment.
Because the School Pulse Panel Survey is designed to collect data
on timely questions, materials for SPP are cleared under two OMB
Number sequences. Materials for SPP 2022 were cleared under OMB#
1850-0969, while 23-24 SPP were cleared primarily under OMB#
1850-0975. For 24-25 we return to OMB# 1850-0969.
US Code:
20
USC 9573 Name of Law: Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002
The previously approved burden
was from the data collection phase of a previous cycle of this
project, whereas the current request is solely for special district
recruitment.
On behalf of this Federal agency, I certify that
the collection of information encompassed by this request complies
with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR
1320.8(b)(3).
The following is a summary of the topics, regarding
the proposed collection of information, that the certification
covers:
(i) Why the information is being collected;
(ii) Use of information;
(iii) Burden estimate;
(iv) Nature of response (voluntary, required for a
benefit, or mandatory);
(v) Nature and extent of confidentiality; and
(vi) Need to display currently valid OMB control
number;
If you are unable to certify compliance with any of
these provisions, identify the item by leaving the box unchecked
and explain the reason in the Supporting Statement.
Appendix A SPP 2024-25 Preliminary Activities - Contact Materials.docx
School Pulse Panel 2024-25 Preliminary Field Activities