Knowledge Base¶
The goal of this website is to assemble data collection and reporting guidance from AOE, and answer common questions or concerns.
Please use this site as the first place you look to for answers. We will often reference this site as a resource when answering your questions.
If you see something missing, please reach out to the SLDS support group(AOE.SLDSSupportGroup@vermont.gov) and we'll address it as soon as possible.
How to use this site¶
Use the search bar above to search this site for information.
Our hope that this self service solution will help you discover helpful information about data reporting requirements and governance.
Data Overview 101¶
Below is a short overview of the collections and reporting products that AOE performs, with links to more resources about them.
Collections¶
Statewide Longitudinal Data System¶
The SLDS is intended to enhance the ability of Vermont to efficiently and accurately manage, analyze, and use education data. The SLDS should help all Vermont education stakeholders to make data-informed decisions to improve student learning and outcomes; as well as to facilitate research to increase student achievement and close achievement gaps.
Child Count¶
The Vermont Agency of Education uses the Child Count Collection and the Exiting Collection to report data for children with disabilities aged 3 through 21 to the U.S. Department of Education in accordance with Section 618 of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Other uses of Child Count data include public reporting, special education funding calculations, and Annual Performance Reports.
Early Childhood Assessment¶
Early childhood assessments consist of TSgold gold assessment done in the fall and spring of each PreK Year. Also, in the fall of the kindergarten year teachers complete the Ready for Kindergarten Survey.
EL Primary Home Language Survey¶
Information is collected on English Learners through this tool for many state and federal reporting requirements.
Reporting Products:¶
ESSA Annual Snapshot¶
The Annual Snapshot is an online tool where you can find quantitative data about Vermont schools. You can see how your school, Supervisory Union/District or the state is doing, based on measures Vermont has decided are important. The Annual Snapshot exists to support schools, not rank them. The goal of the Annual Snapshot is to encourage communities to work together to improve educational outcomes for all students.
ACT 166 PreK Evaluation Report¶
As part of the ongoing monitoring effort for the Universal Prekindergarten program a legislative report is prepared which highlights key outcomes and equity issues for students. In addition many of the elements reporting out here also are reflected in Vermont’s profile for the National institute of Early Education Research (NIEER) yearbook report PreK Yearbook.
Vermont Education Dashboard¶
During each fiscal year, the Agency of Education collects data from Vermont's supervisory unions and school districts about students, staff, enrollment and assessments. The data collected help inform us, schools, educators and taxpayers about the functionality and success of Vermont's education system.
Special Education Reports¶
This page on the Vermont Agency of Education website holds state and local Annual Performance Reports, public reporting of Child Count data by district, and fiscal reports on special education spending.
EDFacts Reports¶
The main way that states are required to report data to the US Department of Education is through EdFacts files. The federal EDFacts Initiative collects, analyzes, and promotes the use of high-quality pre-kindergarten through grade 12 data nationwide.
CSPR¶
This is the state’s application for federal funds populated largely by EdFacts files.
Ready For Kindergarten Report¶
Since 2000, Vermont has gathered information on the readiness of students entering kindergarten by surveying kindergarten teachers about their students’ knowledge and skills within the first six to ten weeks of school.
ACRONYMS¶
| Abbreviation | Defintion |
|---|---|
| A4L | The Access 4 Learning Community |
| ADM | Average Daily Membership |
| AOE | Vermont Agency of Education |
| CIRS | Combined Incident Reporting Software |
| EDW | Education Data Warehouse |
| ELL | English Language Learner(s) |
| HMH | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |
| LDRM | Local Data Reporting Manager |
| POS | Place of Service |
| SECT | Student Educator Course Transcript collection |
| SIF | Schools Interoperability Framework |
| SIS | (Local) Student Information System |
| SLDS | Statewide Longitudinal Data System |
| SU/SD | Supervisory Union/Supervisory District |
| VR | Vertical Reporting |
GLOSSARY¶
- Access 4 Learning (A4L) Community: Previously known as the SIF Association, the Access 4 Learning Community is a non-profit collaboration composed of schools, districts, local authorities, states, US and International Ministries of Education, software vendors and consultants who collectively address all aspects of learning information management and access to support learning. This community is responsible for managing and expanding the “SIF” specifications.
- Average Daily Membership (ADM): Average Daily Membership (ADM) is a count of resident and state-placed students who receive an elementary or secondary education at public expense; data are listed by town according to a student’s residence. Resident students are counted during the period from the 11th to the 30th day of the current school year, while state-placed students are counted for the school year prior to the current census period. Data are used in calculating equalized pupils which are used to determine the homestead tax rates.
- Codeset: A list of allowable values that may be submitted in a data element.
- Composite Primary Keys: A combination of two or more elements in a submission that, taken together, uniquely identify a single row or record. This determines the ‘granularity’ of the data. (Note: All submissions use composite primary keys versus a single primary key.)
- Data Collection: A collection of one or more predefined groupings of submissions to the state via a vertical reporting mechanism.
- Data Element: A specific field in which data is collected.
- Granularity: The level of detail of a set of detail. Granularity for a submission is defined by the composite primary keys of a submission.
- Local Data Reporting Manager: For the purpose of this document, local data reporting manager refers to the person(s) responsible for managing the data in the local student information system. This person should be an expert on the data within the system. This includes understanding how the data elements are defined, primary key usage and knowledge of codesets and reporting requirements.
- Official Data Collection: A data collection that is implemented with more stringent business rules (than unofficial collections) because the data will be used for required state or federal reporting.