Appendix I: District Records Data Request

*Note that this is a sample letter that will be sent in the summer of 2015, 2016 and 2017 regarding data for 

the prior school-year. This sample letter is for the collection of baseline data (2014-2015). We anticipate that 

the contents of the letter will stay the same but that the dates referenced in the letter will change. 

{Date} 

Dear {Director of Research Office}

{Name} School District (which includes {names of study schools}) is a key partner in the Evaluation of 

Multi-Tiered Systems of Support for Behavior (MTSS-B), a congressionally mandated national evaluation 

funded by the U.S. Department of Education. The goal of the evaluation is to implement an MTSS-B 

program with fidelity and determine whether universal supports (Tier I) and a targeted intervention (Tier II) 

with appropriate infrastructure are effective when implemented in a large number of districts and elementary 

schools. 

In choosing to participate in the study and signing the Roles and Responsibilities in the Spring of 2015, your 

district and schools agreed to provide student-level data to the study team. I am contacting you now because 

{Name of District Coordinator in the District} informed us that you may be able to help us obtain the 

necessary student-level data. We greatly appreciate the cooperation you, your district and your schools have 

provided with data collection thus far. 

In the coming days, we hope to consult with you in the collection of the district data to review the i) content 

of our data request, ii) timeline, and iii) options for transmitting the data securely. 

In particular, we are requesting three types of data to be delivered to our team over the next few months:

1) Student characteristics for students enrolled in grades K-5 during the 2014-2015 school year; 

2) Behavioral outcomes for students enrolled in grades K-5 during the 2014-2015 school year; 

3) Academic outcomes for students enrolled in grades K-5 during the 2014-2015 school year; 

4) Special Education Status for students enrolled in grades K-5 during the 2014-2015 school year; 

5) Teacher-level data on teacher background, qualifications and experiences for teachers of grades K5 during the 2014-2015 school years. 

6) School-level versions of all variables for the 2014-2015 school year

This data request concerns the following schools in your district:

{List study schools}

When determining students and teachers to include in the files, please include students who enrolled in the 

school at any point during the 2014-2015 school year and teachers who taught at the school at any point 

during the 2014-2015 school year. Please also include the date of enrollment and/or withdrawal.

The attached document includes a description of the specific variables we are requesting in each of the six

categories. We are asking that you send us the closest equivalent available data to the types mentioned on the 
2

attached list. We are able to work with whatever electronic form is most convenient for your district to 

prepare (e.g., Excel spreadsheet, dbf file, SAS sd2 file). 

In districts that request that DIR hold a cross-walk file so that the analysis team never sees personally 

identifiable information (pii), we will add the following paragraph: 

To keep students’ identities private, we have created a firewall between our data collection subcontractor—

Decisions Information Resources (DIR)—and the analysis team at MDRC. The process is as follows: Your 

district will send the data files to DIR who will replace the district’s unique identifier for each student with 

an associated research identification number (research ID). The research ID is just for this study and is not 

a scrambled identifier containing the same numbers as your district’s identifier. Only a limited number of 

DIR staff will have access to actual student district identification numbers (or student names if unique 

numerical identifiers are not available). In keeping with the Roles and Responsibilities document and prior 

discussions with schools and district, DIR will transmit data files to MDRC using only the research ID (i.e., 

without pii for any of the student data). DIR will transfer these de-identified files to MDRC using a secure 

server with password-protected file transfer protocol as an added measure of security.

In districts that require active parental consent to share student-level data, we will add the following 

paragraph: 

In accordance with your districts’ rules, the study team will be request active informed consent from parents 

regarding our request for district data. The study team will provide you with a database of names of students 

who have consented to this data collection. Upon request, we can also provide you with copies of their 

consent forms for your records. 

We appreciate your cooperation and want to assure you that the confidentiality of the data will be 

safeguarded at all times. We are requesting these data solely for use in accordance with the U.S. Department 

of Education study. The data will not be shared with any outside parties in a form allowing identification of 

individual districts or students. All reports will present data aggregated across the participating districts. All 

staff from MDRC and DIR have been screened by the federal government in order to work with student-level 

data and have signed confidentiality agreements. All data files will be stored on a firewall-protected secure 

server. 

We are eager to work with you to expedite this request. We realize that the demographic data may be ready 

before the student-level achievement data and special education counts. We can arrange a timeline that fits 

with your district staffing and data arrangement. We can provide compensation for staff time involved in 

preparing the data we request.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me by phone or email. I or a member 

of our team will be in touch within the next week to set up a phone appointment with you and/or any other 

key colleagues to discuss this request in more detail. In the meantime, if you have questions, contact Barbara 

Condliffe, Research Associate: Barbara.condliffe@mdrc.org

Thank you for your cooperation with this request. 

Sincerely,

Fred Doolittle 

Project Director 
3

MDRC

16 East 34th Street

New York, NY 

Phone: 212-340-8638 | E-Mail: fred.doolittle@mdrc.org
MDRC Student Level Data Request

MTSS-B Study 

MDRC Student-Level Data Request Summer and Fall 2015

We would like to receive the closest equivalent available measures to those listed below. We recognize 

that actual available data may vary from this request. Please include any definitions of variables and data 

codebooks that will help us interpret the values for the requested variables.

Data type Level of data 

file

Dates for which we 

need data

Where to send the 

data (password will be 

provided)

1) Student Characteristics Student 2014-2015 school 

year

FTP folder for MDRC

2) Behavioral Outcomes Student 2014-2015 school 

year

FTP folder for MDRC

3) Academic Outcomes Student 2014-2015 school 

year 

FTP folder for MDRC

4) Special Education Status Student 2014-2015 school 

year

FTP folder for MDRC

5) Teacher characteristics Teacher 2014-2015 school 

year

FTP folder for MDRC

6) School-level and grade-level (by 

school) versions of all variables 

School and 

grade-level

2014-2015 school 

year 

FTP folder for MDRC 

1. Student-level characteristics for students enrolled in grades K-5 during the 2014-2015 school year; 

a. State or District ID

b. Gender 

c. Date of Birth (actual, or month and year)

d. Race/ethnicity codes 

e. Poverty codes (Free/reduced-price lunch eligibility codes, Title I status or any other poverty 

measure) 

f. Special education status codes (e.g. has an IEP in 2014-15- Yes/No)

g. English Learner status codes

h. Grade level as of spring 2015

i. NCES school ID for the school student was attending in spring 2015 (The National Center for 

Education Statistics code is listed at the end of this document)

j. School name for the school student was attending in spring 2015

Student Identifiers: This should be the actual unique State or District ID assigned to the student, 

which distinguishes this student from any other student in the state or district. This should not be a 

number created just for this data request. The actual State or District ID is necessary to merge the 

demographic and test data provided by the district with other student-level data collected by the study 

team.

*Please include definitions of the following codes: Race/Ethnicity, Poverty status, English learner. Please 

indicate the effective date of this data. 

2. Behavioral outcomes for students enrolled in grades K-5 during the 2014-2015 school year
a. Expulsions in 2014-2015 school-year 

b. Suspensions in 2014-2015 school year

c. Attendance in 2014-2015 school year

3. Academic outcomes (except where otherwise noted, these data are only being requested for students 

in grades K-5 during the 2014-2015 school year) 

a. Student ID (Please use the same State or District ID provided with demographic data)

b. Reading test date

c. Type of reading test/name of test

d. Total scaled score for the reading test 

e. Proficiency category for the reading test

f. Math test date

g. Type of math test/name of test

h. Total scaled score for the math test 

i. Proficiency category for the math test

j. Retention/promotion decision at the end of 2014-2015 school-year [Grades K-5]

**Please include a description of the standardized reading test given to 3rd grade students. 

4. Special education status (Students in Grades K-5) 

a. Identified for IEP

b. Referred for assessment

c. Date of identification 

d. Category of disability 

e. If has IES, inclusion status

f. If not IES, 504 plan status

5. Teacher characteristics for teachers of students in grades K-5 during the 2014-2015 school year 

a. Credential

b. Years of experience in district

c. Years of experience in school 

6. School0Level Variables: For all variables listed above, please provide us with school-level and gradelevel (by school) versions of these variables for all students and teachers in grades K-5.