1. ESE Data Collection Training: School Safety and Discipline Report

2. Submitting SSDR via SIF
Contents 01
Introduction to SSDR 02
What’s new this year? 03
CONTENTS
Submitting SSDR via SIF 04
SSDR Application 05
SSDR Summary Reports

3. 01 Introduction to SSDR
Introduction to SSDR 01

4. What is SSDR?
SSDR = School Safety and Discipline Report
This report is annual and cumulative for each school year
SSDR is a collection that centers around student offenses and disciplines
Certification deadline for SSDR is in late July every year
This year deadline is July 20, 2018

5. Background The Federal Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA)
The Federal Gun-Free Schools Act
The Federal Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA)
(Section of the Improving America's Schools Act) includes re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). It requires each state to provide annual reports to the Secretary of Education concerning implementation of the Act’s requirements.
requires each state to report annually to the Secretary of Education the number of children with disabilities disciplined for drug, weapon or other offenses.
M.G.L. c. 71, §37H and 603 CMR 53.14
effective July 1, 2014, requires school districts, charter schools, and virtual schools to collect, periodically review, and annually report student discipline data to ESE.

6. What is reportable in SSDR?
All incidents involving drug, violent, or crime-related offenses on school property and any resulting suspensions or removals imposed on the student offender(s)
AND
Any other incidents involving more minor offenses (violations of the student code of conduct) that result in a suspension or removal for the student offender(s)

7. Reportable Discipline Actions
1 – In-school suspension (more than half the day)
2 – Out-of-school suspension
3 – Expulsion
4 – Removal by an impartial hearing officer to alternative setting*
5 – Removal by school personnel to an alternative setting*
6 – Emergency removal
*only applicable for students with disabilities

8. What is NOT reportable in SSDR?
Any non-drug, non-violent, non-criminal student offenses that do not result in a suspension or removal
Any disciplines that do not involve the removal of the student from the normal education setting such as:
Detention
Saturday school

9. School code where incident took place Type of offense(s) involved
Incident data details
Incident ID and date
School code where incident took place
Type of offense(s) involved
Count of offenders & offender type (student, non-student)
Count of victims & victim type (student, staff, unknown)
Physical Injury Indicator (did incident result in injury?)
Discipline Indicator (did incident result in suspension, removal, expulsion?)

10. Discipline data details
Incident ID and date
SASID/name/DOB of disciplined student
SWD or general education student
Disciplinary Action type
Dates and duration of discipline
Appeal indicator (did student appeal discipline decision to Superintendent?)
Education services (was student academically engaged during the discipline? If yes, how so? If no, why not?)

11. Where does the data end up?
Public Profiles Reports

12. Where to find more information
Documentation on SSDR can be found online

13. 02 What’s new this year?
What’s new this year? 02

14. New offense code set
is the first school year that the MA legacy code set is replaced by the NCES (National Center for Education Statistics) code set
The new offense code set (95 categories)is much more granular and detailed than the prior code set (19 categories)
Where this granularity is most significant is in the offense categories that used to be MA codes 18 and 15
Capturing the offenses with these codes results in more useful and actionable data

15. 18 Offense Code 18 MA legacy code NCES codes
1210 – Forging absence excuse Obscene language/profanity
1220 – Skipping class – Other obscene behavior
1230 – Tardiness – Violation of school rules
1240 – Truancy
1297 – Other attendance policy violation
Disorderly Conduct
2200 – Insubordination
2410 – Displays of affection in violation of school policy
2420 – Obscene written messages
2430 – Drawing obscene pictures
2440 – Obscene electronic communication
2450 – Obscene gestures 18
By reporting and collecting these NCES codes instead of the MA legacy code it now allows you to see at a glance, without looking into incident descriptions, etc. What types of offenses a particular school or district may be suspending for – like attendance related offenses or insubordination for example
Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

16. Discipline End Date
is the first school year that the discipline “Return Date” is redefined to be discipline “End Date”.
It will be used to report the last date of the discipline, instead of the date the student came back to school/class.
Example: For a one day suspension, the discipline start date and discipline end date would be the same date
This is to align the legacy and SIF logic to make sure both systems are treating this date the same way.

17. 03 Submitting SSDR via SIF

18. What is SIF? SIF = School Interoperability Framework
SIF is a standard data structure for exchanging and communicating education data. It packages the data into objects that house like information.
In 2013, MA began the initiative to convert all major state reporting collections (SIMS, SCS, EPIMS and SSDR) to the SIF data structure. This will eventually replace the file upload method of state reporting.
The SIF project is a joint effort between MA ESE and EOE IT, and requires collaboration with SIS vendors. SIS vendors must go through a MA SIF certification process to verify their ability to transmit state reporting data via SIF.

19. SIF allows for a real-time data exchange from school districts to ESE.
Why SIF?
SIF allows for a real-time data exchange from school districts to ESE.
SIF relies on high quality data at the source, so more useful data in the SIS for school and district personnel
Error reports available all the time.
Constant data flow allows ESE to produce data quality reports to help districts address issues proactively ahead of state reporting deadlines.

20. How does SIF work? District Student Information System
Publishing Agent
District Student Information System
Subscribing Agent
ESE SIF Database
Validations
ESE Security Portal Applications
All state reporting related information in the district SIS is transmitted to ESE. The data is packaged in SIF objects.
extract
logic is applied
So how exactly does the SIF process work? The first necessary piece is a MA SIF certified student information system. If you have an SIS that is SIF compatible, you would reach out to your vendor and they install a publishing agent in your SIS. This publishing agent will transmit any and all state reporting related data electronically by talking to the subscribing agent at ESE. The information is packaged in SIF objects. Each object houses a different piece of the data set. These agents acknowledge the messages are from a valid source and in a valid format, and then the data are deposited into a large database at ESE. Anytime new data is added, data is changed, or data is deleted in SIS, these actions are transmitted to ESE by the publishing agent. The messages are often referred to as “change events”.
After the data is deposited on the ESE side into the SIF database, extract logic is then applied to it to determine which records are relevant to the active collection at the time. For example, it’s the beginning of the school year in September and all of your districts student related data that exists in the SIS is transmitted to ESE. The extract logic is then applied to that entire data set to determine which students should be included in the October 1st SIMS snapshot. The extract looks at several things. Firstly, it checks to make sure the records are complete. Any partial records would not be included in the SIMS data set. Secondly, it looks at things like which records have the current school year. It also checks for students who have an entry data after the October 1st report date. Those students wouldn’t be included in an as-of October 1st snapshot. We will focus more on the extract logic and the filters and parameters that the extract applies later in this training.
After the extract is applied to the data and it determines which records are applicable to the current collection, the data is then moved to a staging table where data validations are run against it. These validations run on a cycle (about every minutes) from 6am to 7pm every day, so that any changes or new data are included. These SIF error reports are accessed through the ESE Security Portal.
“Extract logic” refers to the filters and parameters that are applied to the received data to determine which records are relevant to a particular data submission. 20
Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

21. Where to start?
“My district is SIF and my SSDR data should be flowing to ESE automatically, so what do I do now?” Check your SIF error reports regularly to stay on top of data errors throughout the year.

22. SIF Error Reports
Select “SIF Reports”, then collection type then Report 4, which is the primary error report because it’s a comprehensive report for the entire district.
DA Security Role for SIF reports: SIF Adhoc District or SIF Adhoc School

23. SIF Error Reports
Data validations run on an automated cycle 7 days a week from 6am to 7pm
Each validation cycle takes a few minutes, then there is a 5 minute gap before the cycle runs again. Error reports have timestamps in the upper corner.

24. Common SIF Errors – SSDR4970
Error says: “Days Missed must be between days”
What it means: Days Missed cannot be zero if the student served a suspension. It is a common error to enter the discipline dates, but leave Days Missed blank.
Enter the correct number in the Days Missed field for the incident in question. Or go to the incident reporter who entered this incident in your SIS and let them know that one of the mandatory data elements is missing.

25. Common SIF Errors – SSDR4550
Error says: “Offense Code 1 invalid”
What it means: We received an incident record with an ID and a date, but there is no offense code that tells us what type of student offense took place.
Enter the correct code in the offense type field for the incident in question. Or go to the incident reporter who entered this incident in your SIS and let them know that one of the mandatory data elements is missing.

26. Common SIF Errors – SSDR5030
Error says “Type of Offense ID (SOT1) must be one of the offenses listed on the Incident Report (OT1 – OT5)”
What it means: The offense type associated with the discipline record is either blank, or it doesn’t match one of the offense types that is associated with the given incident ID. The offense type on the discipline must match an offense type on the incident.
If you don’t know what offense the student was disciplined for, reach out to the incident reporter who entered this incident in your SIS and let them know that one of the mandatory data elements is missing.

27. Common SIF Errors – SSDR4760
Error says “Physical Fight requires at least 2 offenders”
What it means: A physical fight by nature must have at least two people involved. We received an incident record for a physical fight, but the count of student offenders is 1. Even if only one student was disciplined for the incident, the count of offenders must be at least 2 for this offense type.

28. Common SIF Errors – SSDR5010
Error says “Start Date and Discipline End Date inconsistent with number of days missed.
What it means: In this example, the days missed reported is 3, which is not possible with a date range of only 2 days. The start date of the discipline is 1/24/18 and the end date is 1/25/18. That means the student missed a maximum of 2 days of school.

29. 04 SSDR Application
SSDR Application 04

30. What next?
“I’ve cleared up all of the errors on my SIF error report, what do I do now?”
You can review summary reports anytime, to review the aggregate data and ensure accuracy
After your last day of school, you are able to certify the SSDR data. If you’ve kept up with the errors and already reviewed reports, go to the SSDR application and complete the submission.

31. SSDR application – select organization
DA Security Role for this application:
School Safety and Discipline Report (SSDR)

32. SSDR application – organization summary

33. SSDR application – download data

34. 05 SSDR Summary Reports
SSDR Summary Reports 05

35. Review Summary Reports – SIF application

36. Summary Report – Discipline by Offense Type

37. Summary Report – Incident Count by School

38. Summary Report – Students suspended for more than 10 days
This report shows any SASID who is reported to have more than 10 days missed (cumulative)
It also shows how many incidents and what type(s) of discipline make up the total days missed, as well as how many days missed were reported with education services received.

39. Review all of your summary reports for accuracy
Last steps
Remember to:
Review all of your summary reports for accuracy
Review the summary page in the SSDR application. Each school is listed with an incident count. Any school with a legitimate incident count of 0, check the ‘none’ box on the screen.
Download a copy of the raw data from the SSDR application for your records
Certify the data

40. 06 Q&A 06 Q&A What questions do you have?
What aspect of SSDR reporting do you need help with?

41. Melissa Marino, Data Collection Supervisor
Thank You
THANK YOU
Melissa Marino, Data Collection Supervisor
75 Pleasant Street, Malden, MA 02148