State Funding & Reporting for Schools

What is state reporting for schools?

Every school district is required to submit reports to the state several times a year. There are often submission periods that are broken up by the seasons (think Fall, Mid-Year, Summer and Extended Year data submissions). A state reporting submission is no easy feat. Many school districts have at least one or two secretaries or coordinators who are dedicated to ensuring that the information submitted to the state is valid and accurate.

Reports that are due each year detail a spectrum of information that’s collected day in and day out across schools. Reports ask for information including student, staff, special programs, compensatory, expenditure, specific state legislature/reform and more. With the thousands of data points collected in schools, it’s important to understand the format in which the state wants the data to be submitted. This is what makes it challenging to have disparate processes and systems for collecting information across a school district.

When information is separate and disconnected, it often makes cleaning up data for reporting feel impossible and like a never-ending task. Picture a spreadsheet with 300 columns, each asking for a specific data point to be reported in a unique format. Let’s pretend this is our student submission. Now you have 300 data columns along with a row for each individual student record across your district. While it makes for an impressive spreadsheet… it makes identifying and correcting errors exceedingly difficult (hence the common model for dedicated district staff for validation).

There’s typically a submission window identified for each submission. This gives districts some flexibility when it comes to data validation on the back end. You’re usually able to submit ahead of the deadline and get a report of errors that need to be fixed. Then you must dig through the data make sure all information is valid and in the proper format and then you can resubmit. Fixing errors and formatting during the submission window can become a nightmare if data validation protocols haven’t been implemented on the “data entry” side of school processes.

All of the work from data collection and entry to validation and state submission is in an effort to represent your school district accurately to ensure the most funding possible. More funding means more dollars being allocated to ensure the absolute best learning experience for your students.

State reporting, funding, and guidance varies by state

Each state has a state-level department of education and a retirement system that collect everything from student information to HR and finance data in order to comply with state and federal laws/regulations.

Since states are responsible for a major amount of school funding, the applicable DOE will define and collect all the necessary information to help determine funding for each school district.

Staffing & Personnel Reporting

your state requires you to report on staffing and personnel for a variety of submissions. This information is collected at the district level and used to inform state reports for staff IDs, courses, retirement, finance and more. While there are hundreds of data points related to staffing and personnel, here are some of the most commonly collected fields:

• Classified, instructional and administrative
• Years of experience and years in district
• Dates of employment
• Certification data for employees & positions
• Effective dating & data as it relates to pay steps, stipends, grades and cycles
• Encumbered compensation amounts for personnel & positions
• Benefits by tenure
• Flexible Benefit Allowance (FBA)
• Mid-Year/End-of-Year certified & support

Texas and Georgia have unique requirements and guidance

Texas and Georgia have developed their own requirements for school reporting.

Texas’s Reporting Requirements

• PEIMS (Public Education Information Management System) collects data for TEA (Texas Education Agency) from school districts.On the current list of scheduled reports due this year, there are 77 individual reports that are required for Texas public schools to submit. The reports range from fiscal reports to training reimbursement to class roster, and each submission asks for a unique template of data points.You can download the District Reporting Schedule for the current year here.Access everything you need to know about PEIMS and subscribe to updates here.
• TRS (Teacher Retirement System of Texas) collects data and manages retirement information for 1.6 million public education employees and retirees. They coordinate pension benefits in the billions of dollars each year to hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries.This entity offers guidance on balancing ledgers as it relates to payroll and retirement, credit/shortage, reconciliation and more. Much like any other reporting agency, TRS requires specific formatting on submissions. Here’s a guide on report formatting from the Teacher Retirement System of Texas.
• TSDS (Texas Student Data System) is a data collection initiative for the TEAThis state-wide data modernization effort for Texas schools empowers LEAs to upload data from a compatible local system and then that data can be utilized for current and future collections. We all know how stressful submission time can be and this initiative seems to be a step in the direction of streamlining and simplifying the demands placed on school districts each year.

Georgia’s Reporting Requirements

• GaDOE (Georgia Department of Education) collects data from Georgia school districts (including students and staff) in order to stay in compliance with federal and state laws/regulations.The GaDOE reports on student, finance, personnel, budgeting, growth, instructional improvement, discipline, special programs, and more. Each school district is responsible for collecting and reporting information to the state via routine submissions throughout the year.
• TRS (Teacher Retirement System of Georgia) collects data and manages the funding of retirement benefits and disability to education related workers in the state of Georgia.While some look to TRS as a means for financial planning for themselves, it’s important to note that the retirement benefits for TRS members include retirement income for life and can be passed to a beneficiary. This entity manages billions of dollars each year for hundreds of thousands of members and follows all Georgia laws and legislature.
• GOSA (The governor’s Office of Student Achievement) offers school districts a common place to access discipline dashboards, school grades reports, school report card, High School graduate outcomes dashboard, and an interactive education data map.

What kind of information is submitted to the state for reporting?

Think about an average day in the life of the staff at your school district. Everyone from the business office to the classroom is required to track and manage tons of data each day. Let’s take a day in the life of a teacher for example.

Teachers have to take attendance, manage grade books, track discipline incidents and so much more. Whether they’re collecting this information in several spreadsheets, across teacher tools, or in a comprehensive student information system, there are hundreds of data fields for each student’s record. Attendance, grades, discipline, special programs, course information, performance, etc. are all a part of the student record. Each of these data points corresponds to a column in a state reporting spreadsheet and a row for each individual student.

The information collected for students and staff does not take a straight and narrow path to each state report. Each report asks for a unique set of information in a specific order that’s then represented in the reporting template. It’s because of the proprietary requirements for each state that makes it so important to work with technology that is configurable to your unique state. Corporate/generic software is built to be customized, and there’s a big difference between customizing and configuring.

Customizing results in costly coding and is extremely time-consuming with no guarantee of it ever being right for your school district.

When are schools required to submit state reports?

Each state comes with unique requirements for state reporting. These requirements are defined by the state level Department of Education and then collected directly with the DOE or with a government agency that’s dedicated to state reporting for school districts. As far as “when” schools are required to submit state reporting, the answer is several times throughout the year. There’s no one “reporting season,”; submissions happen over the course of the year and ask for varying sets of information.

Often submissions are broken up by seasons, or segments throughout the year. Fall, Mid-Year, Summer and Extended-Year submissions are common designations, your state may call them something different but it’s the same concept across states.

What does state reporting have to do with funding and compliance?

State government is responsible for a significant percentage of funding for school districts. This being the case, it’s up to the state Department of Education to identify the submissions and data that they want reported throughout the year. Since each state has unique governance on what and how information is collected, each state has a proprietary template for each state submission.

State reporting is used to determine funding levels for each school district based on a variety of data. Influencing data points include:

• Attendance
• Demographics
• Socioeconomic factors
• Current and forecasted enrollment
• Student performance
• Income/taxes

The required information (and collection format) changes over the years so it’s important to have your finger on the pulse of what’s going on in your state’s reporting world. If you’re not reporting your district data properly you can not only lose funding, but also be considered “out of compliance” in regulations that have evolved. The implications of falling out of compliance can be more than a reminder or slap on the wrist too.

Especially where spending is involved, a reporting/compliance issue can quickly evolve into a misdemeanor and result in being the headline in the newspaper or even jailtime.

How do I maximize state funding at my district?

Maximizing funding and strong data collection/reporting processes go hand in hand. If you’re stuck in error-prone processes, then you’re more likely to be missing out on money that could be allocated to improving student achievement.

Many school districts have gotten away from spreadsheets and disparate systems and moved toward connected technology that’s purpose built for K-12 schools. When all of your data collection and formatting are configured to match up with your state’s requirements you’re automatically in better shape when submission time rolls around. Clean data in, means clean data out. Make sure that your school’s reporting software includes embedded data validation tools on the front end so that your reports are cleaner and take significantly less time to prep for submission.

Staying in Compliance during Submission Time

All of these reporting requirements – and the chance of errors – are likely making you a bit nervous. How do you ensure you’re in compliance as you navigate the complex waters of state and federal school reporting? Here are a few tips:

How do I stay out of the newspaper?

One of the greatest concerns for school district officials is making sure that they don’t fall victim to fines, audits and bad PR. This is due to the fact that every single dollar that comes into a school district has a string attached to it designating how and when it should be spent.If you received a grant for hardware in your school district, you can’t turn around and spend that money on food services. It just doesn’t work that way. While some funds are flexible and there are ways to be creative with how money is spent, it’s imperative to always track and timestamp all correspondence and approvals for funding and spending.It’s wild how swiftly a poor decision can spiral into the headline on a newspaper. School spending is among the most intensely scrutinized elements of district operations. You want to ensure that you have valid and accurate data that represents how funding is allocated across your district. Supporting your records with contextual notes, images, receipts and all relevant files prepares you for any future audits or even helps you to field informal accusations with substantial proof and records.When you’re prepared with reliable information, there begins to be a stronger sense of transparency across your district and ultimately helps you to build a culture of trust between your administration and district stakeholders (including unions, school boards and the community).

Data accessibility & privacy

School districts collect and report on thousands of data points every year. While technology is amazing and helps us in so many ways, we’re all familiar with the horror stories of personally identifiable information (PII) getting into the wrong hands. However, at the same time it’s becoming a part of every school policy for student and parents to have appropriate levels of accessibility to their student information. For example, students/parents are typically supposed to be able to update their contact information and have permission to change their in-app privacy settings.So, you’re left walking this very fine line between privacy and accessibility. How are districts going to continue to collect massive amounts of sensitive data, supply their staff with the tools they need to be successful and maintain confidence that they’re in compliance with privacy and security laws? Many district technology staff are adding more intensive requirements to contracts that deal with technology vendors.Here’s some information on two of the most common:

SOC2

SOC 2 Type II Certification is a rare designation and that’s what makes it an important requirement to do business for many school districts when it comes to technology. This certification is one of the most comprehensive and independent verification audits available and is regarded as one of the most trustworthy, especially when it comes to cloud technology.Education technology companies collect and store so much sensitive information for K-12 school districts that it’s imperative for technology personnel and administrators to be confident that their vendors’ practices are robust and secure enough to protect student and staff information. SOC 2 Type II Certification helps to narrow the list of potential vendors to only the most trustworthy.

Student Privacy Pledge

While the Student Privacy Pledge (SPP) doesn’t visit technology vendors and perform an intense audit, it does force technology vendors to evaluate and update their public facing privacy policy and terms of use to be stricter with the collection and handling of student data.SPP has dedicated representatives that review every single promise made by an EdTech company. They then recommend updates to policies that align with the pledge and help to achieve compliance with state and federal laws/regulations.While district technology staff and administrators still have a million other considerations when it comes to selecting an EdTech vendor, when the company is a signatory of the Student Privacy Pledge it can offer district staff confidence in the company’s commitment to protecting student data.

Do you have reporting, funding and compliance on the brain?

Consolidating systems and limiting the number of moving parts when it comes to district-wide data is one way that administrators are trying to improve funding and strengthen compliance. When everything you need is collected in a robust system of record, instead of a dozen disparate systems, you can rest assured that your data is collected, stored, maintained and reported exactly the way you need it to be.