Change Memo

U NITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

National Center for Education Statistics

July 18, 2024

MEMORANDUM

To: Dr. Bev Pratt, OMB

From: Erin Tanenbaum, Rebecca Bielamowicz, and Ryan Iaconelli, NCES

Through: Carrie Clarady, NCES

Re: 2024-25 School Pulse Panel August, September, and October 2024 Questionnaire Items Change Request (OMB# 1850-0969 v.15)

The School Pulse Panel is an ongoing study conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), part of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), within the United States Department of Education, to collect extensive data on current and emerging issues concerning students and staff in U.S. public primary, middle, high, and combined-grade schools. Specifically, the survey will ask school leaders about topics such as staffing, college and career readiness, artificial intelligence, tutoring, summer and after-school programs, facilities, and learning strategies and recovery, among other topics. The SPP has become one of the nation’s main sources of timely and reliable data on issues concerning the education environment, as reported by principals in U.S. public schools.

The SPP monthly data collection went through a 60-day public comment period, followed by a 30-day public comment period (OMB# 1850-0969 v.13) and was formally cleared on July 1, 2024. The purpose of this memo is to request approval for changes to the August, September, and October 2024 SPP questionnaires. The items that were submitted as a part of the 30-day public comment period (v.13, approved July 2024) were undergoing cognitive testing at the time the package was out for public comment.

Changes to the August, September, and October 2024 questionnaires that are being made in response to the cognitive testing are detailed below. Many of the changes were made to improve item clarity and include such actions as modifying response options based on recommendations from the cognitive testing. The costs to the government have not changed as a result of this amendment, nor has the projected respondent burden. Below, for each month, we provide explanations for our changes. Changes to the materials that are part of this submission are described below.

Changes to Appendix C1

All Surveys

Questions about school demographics

• We selected one question about school grade enrollment (Grades) to field at the beginning of the survey. In our 30-day package, we had included three different versions of a grade level question. During the time that the package was out for 30-day, we decided that Grades, which asks about enrollment and provides an option for ungraded, best captured the different types of schools that are in the SPP sample.

• We added two questions on in-person learning offers (Inper and Inper_no) to the beginning of the surveys. Inper was modified from a question that was fielded in May 2024 (Learning24gate). We want to better identify the virtual schools that are in the SPP sample.

Moving “Other, specify” out of grid questions

• Where applicable, on all surveys going forward, SPP plans to allow respondents to write in a response to “other” in a separate follow-up question if they select this option in a grid. On previous SPP surveys where the write-in response to the “other, specify” response option was included inside the grid, there were very high missing rates on that item (>80 percent).

August 2024 Instrument

Staffing

• The SPP team decided to remove “long-term substitutes” from the teaching staff item (HP1 series) because, upon further discussion, we concluded that schools may not always have these individuals on staff in the same way that they may have teachers for other subjects areas on staff (ex., English).

• We pulled apart the “number of vacancies” and “number of vacancies filled” columns from HP1a and HP3a to reduce cognitive burden on respondents.

• We separated “administrative staff,” “custodial staff,” and “nutrition staff” from HP3 and put these positions into their own new, separate question because the question stem for HP3 refers to “fully certified staff.” These three positions may or may not have full certification options in the same way that other positions that we ask about in that question (ex., mental health professional).

Community Collaboration

• Changes were made to CSP2a to clarify that the migrant and refugee support should include recently arrived immigrants (as opposed to children of agricultural workers) and we clarified funding types in CSP2e.

Principal Goals

• A gate was added before PrinGoal_NTPS so that non-principals would not answer this question.

September 2024 Instrument

Summer Programs

• Minor changes were made to the filter to correct previous errors on the item in each section that asks about personnel who worked in the program.

• We added an item (SP_no) that asks schools that did not provide any summer programming why they did not provide any summer programming. Filters on subsequent program-specific questions were modified to adjust for this addition.

After-School Programs

• Minor changes were made to the filter to correct previous errors on the item in each section that asks about personnel who worked in the program.

• Minor changes were made to verb tense to correct previous errors on the item in each section that asks about the groups who run each program.

• We added an item (ASP_no) that asks schools that did not provide any after-school programming why they did not provide any after-school programming. Filters on subsequent program-specific questions were modified to adjust for this addition.

Civics Education

• We dropped Civics1 and adjusted subsequent numbering because the programs asked about in this question were duplicative with some of the programs we ask about in the after-school programs module.

October 2024 Instrument

Staffing

• Long-term substitutes was dropped from the StaffVac1 grid. Appropriate filters to the StaffVac series were added.

Tutoring

• Errors in the school year for some of the questions were corrected.