Appendix A

Correspondence with Contacts at State Departments of Education for State of Preschool Data 

Collection

Contents

Confirming Contact Information ...............................................................................................................2

Sending Preview to Contacts ...................................................................................................................3

Survey Login Information .......................................................................................................................... 4

Sending Contact(s) Completed Surveys ................................................................................................ 6

Survey Reminder........................................................................................................................................7

Survey Follow-Up Questions....................................................................................................................8

Verification Table Instructions ..................................................................................................................9

Invitation to Conference Call on Findings.............................................................................................10

Post Call Sign-Up Information................................................................................................................11
2

Confirming Contact Information

Sent in June

Dear «Contact_First_Name»,

Thank you for all of your hard work on the 2012 State of Preschool Yearbook— we know it can 

be a time-consuming project, and we appreciate the time and effort you put in to ensuring we

received the necessary data in a timely manner. It’s time now to start thinking about the State 

of Preschool Yearbook for the 2012-2013 school year. This year, the collection and report are 

being supported by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics.

As we prepare to send out next year's survey in July, we would like to confirm your contact 

information for receiving the Yearbook online survey. Please let us know if the contact 

information listed below is still accurate or has changed by providing any new contact 

information. If any field is blank, please provide that information so we can complete our 

records.

Contact Information:

Name: «Primary_Contact»

Title: «Title»

Agency: «Agency»

Address: «Address_1»

«Address_2»

«Address_3»

Phone: «Phone»

Fax: «Fax»

Email: «Email»

If there is anyone who should be added to our list so he or she receives a link to the survey, 

please provide us with that information. If you are no longer the person who will be completing 

our survey on state-funded pre-K, please let us know who will be filling out the questionnaire. 

Additionally, we will be hosting a conference call for individuals who will be working on the 

Yearbook survey for the first time on June 28 at 3:00 PM (EDT). If you or anyone in your office 

would like to participate, please indicate that in your response and we will send you the call-in 

information.

Thank you for your help and we look forward to working with you again.

- The Yearbook Team (Megan, Jen, and Jim)
3

Sending Preview to Contacts

Sent Early July

Hello <contact>,

It’s that time of year again – the National Institute for Early Education Research has begun work 

on the 2013 State of Preschool Yearbook. This year, the collection and report are being 

supported by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics 

(NCES). For those of you who have not worked on this online survey before, welcome! For 

those of you who have worked with us in the past, thanks once again for all of your time and 

effort into providing us with this valuable information.

Similar to past years, we will be using a web-based survey to collect state prekindergarten data. 

The attached document contains all of the questions that will be in the web-based survey, 

although some questions only apply to certain respondents. We'll send your state's individual 

login for your voluntary survey in a few weeks, and you can share it with whomever is working 

on the survey in your state. Respondents may log in and out of the survey as often as they wish, 

so all information does not need to be entered in one sitting or by one individual. Answers 

reported in a previous session will be saved during subsequent logins. Each 

prekindergarten initiative will receive a passcode to log into the survey. Please note that states 

with multiple initiatives will receive a different passcode for each initiative, and will be asked to 

complete the entire survey for each separate preschool initiative using the appropriate login

information.

As in last year’s survey, some previous years’ answers will be presented for your convenience, 

but you will be asked to re-enter this data for this year. Additionally, attached to this email is a 

table of the final answers reported for your program last year--these reflect what was published 

in Appendix A of the Yearbook online. We hope that these responses will be helpful as you 

collect data for this year's survey in ensuring we are reporting your program's policies accurately 

from year to year. Some questions and answer choices will appear slightly differently on the 

online survey when you receive it, though, so please be sure to read all questions carefully.

More detailed instructions, your login information, and the link to the web survey will be included 

in a forthcoming email coming from survey@nieer.org later this month. The survey is designed 

to be user-friendly, but project staff will be available to answer any technical or content-related 

questions if needed.

I encourage you to review the questions attached and begin gathering information requested for 

the survey. If you have any questions about the survey now, or after you receive your login in 

the next few weeks, please don’t hesitate to contact me at (848) 932-3137

(mcarolan@nieer.org), Jen Fitzgerald at (848 )932-3138 (jfitzgerald@nieer.org), or Jim Squires 

at (802) 425-2608. Questions can also be directed to Chris Chapman at (202) 502-7414 

(chris.chapman@ed.gov).

Thank you again.

Best,

The Yearbook Team
4

Survey Login Information

Sent Late July/Early August

The National Institute for Early Education Research has begun work on the 2013 State of

Preschool Yearbook. This year, the collection and report are being supported by the U.S. 

Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Similar to last year, 

the 2013 survey, which focuses on the 2012-2013 program year, is an interactive web survey.

The questions in the web survey are all included in the document that was sent to you in a 

previous email.

This year’s survey uses a new software program, so instructions have changed from last year 

though questions have largely remained the same. Please be sure to read instructions carefully 

before each question, as well as the directions on the first page of the survey near the Table of 

Contents.

Whenever possible, the survey will provide “Prior Year Data” in blue alongside this year’s 

question. If the state program’s policy is the same this year as it was last year, please use the 

Prior Year Data as a guide in selecting your answer. For long “additional details” questions, you 

can copy and paste the prior year answer if it is still accurate. When Prior Year Data is not 

provided, it is because a question or answer choice has changed slightly from the previous year; 

please pay special attention to these questions.

Below you will find the link to the web-based survey and the login information for this state pre-K 

initiative. Please note that states with multiple initiatives will receive separate emails containing 

a different passcode for each pre-K initiative.

Web survey link:

http://www.surveycrafter.com/scripts/sccgi04.pl?E_version=4&E_file=..\..\studies\2012\customer

s\nieer\YB2012_13.htm

Program:

User ID:

Passcode: 

The passcode can be shared among staff of your state pre-K administrative agency. Each staff 

member can log in using the program's passcode and their own name and email address.

However, please ensure that only one person is entering data or logged in to the survey at any 

one time, otherwise responses may not be saved.

We ask that you please complete your survey and submit your answers no later than August 

19. After you submit your responses, we will be in touch to confirm that we have correctly 

interpreted the data from your state. You will also receive a copy of the survey with your 

answers filled in. Unfortunately, we are unable to provide you with a copy of the survey with 

your answers until the entire survey has been submitted.

If you have any questions about the web survey now, please don’t hesitate to contact me 

at (848) 932-3137 (mcarolan@nieer.org), Jen Fitzgerald at (848 )932-

3138 (jfitzgerald@nieer.org), or Jim Squires at (802) 425-2608. Questions can also be directed 

to Chris Chapman at (202) 502-7414 (chris.chapman@ed.gov).
5

We look forward to working with you as we embark upon our annual State of Preschool

Yearbook. We greatly appreciate your help.
6

Sending Contact(s) Completed Surveys

Sent 1-2 days after survey is submitted

Hi <contacts>,

Thank you for completing the 2013 State of Preschool Yearbook Survey. Attached you will find 

a copy of the survey submitted for your program with your completed responses. The answers 

you submitted appear in red bold italicized text. Please note that when "NV" appears--for "No 

Value"--it means that an answer was not entered for this particular question. This is different 

from "NA"--Not Applicable. While your login for the online survey may still be active even though 

you have submitted your survey, please refrain from making any additional changes online.

You will be contacted soon by a Yearbook team member to follow-up on program changes from 

the previous year.

Thanks once again for your work on completing this survey!

Best,

The Yearbook Team
7

Survey Reminder

Sent in August, one week after sending login information

Hello all,

This is a quick reminder that the State of Preschool Yearbook Survey 2013 is due one week 

from today, on Monday August 19. You should have received a link to the online survey as well 

as your program's individual ID and login code last week; if you did not receive this email (sent 

from this survey@nieer.org address), please contact me immediately.

If you have not yet started on your program's survey, we encourage you to do so soon. If you 

foresee delays in submitting all or parts of your program's survey, please let us know as soon as 

you can.

Thanks once again for all of your work on this project!

Best,

Megan Carolan
8

Survey Follow-Up Questions

Sent approx. 1-2 weeks after survey received

Thank you very much for your help in providing answers for the State of Preschool 

Yearbook. I've reviewed your responses and have some follow-up questions for the program. A 

PDF of your survey is attached, which you should have also received in an earlier email. Please 

note that items for this year’s survey do not always correspond to the numbers used the 

preceding year because many question were eliminated and had their order changed. As in past 

years, feel free to indicate your responses in a different color or bold so they stand out.
9

Verification Table Instructions

Sent December, after follow-up questions have been answered

Hi <contact>,

Thanks again for your help in providing data for the State of Preschool Yearbook. Once again 

this year we are sending state administrators a copy of the data they submitted through our preK survey and in response to any follow-up questions afterward. We would like to confirm that 

we have accurately interpreted your answers, which are summarized in the attached table. 

Each entry in the table begins with the corresponding question number from our survey as a 

reference point. When additional details for a specific question were provided, they can be 

found in the line below marked with FN (for “footnote”) and the question number. Sometimes, 

details on several relevant questions will be merged into a single footnote; however, this 

footnote will be repeated multiple times in the verification table. A second attached file contains 

a narrative that describes your program. We have highlighted questions where we are still 

missing data. This data must be provided or otherwise will be left out of the report. 

Please review both files and send any corrections or changes that are needed. Please use track 

changes, highlighting, different color text, or some other way to clearly indicate any change. If 

you do have corrections, please send them by e-mail or call me at (848) 932-4350. If all the 

information in the attached files is correct, please send a quick note to that effect and we will 

consider the data from your state to be finalized.

We request that you send all corrections and changes to us by <DATE (two weeks after 

ending questions>. After that date we will treat the attached state data and narrative as final 

except in cases where we have received your corrections.

As always, we greatly appreciate your help with our work. We look forward to working with you 

on this last step of our annual process before going to press.
10

Invitation to Conference Call on Findings

Sent March

The State of Preschool 2013 report will be released on April 30. The National Center for 

Education Statistics (NCES) provided essential support for this year’s report and will release the 

findings. The National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) will be closely involved 

with the release and with related events that will follow it.

On Wednesday, April 10 at 2:00 p.m. EDT, we will hold a brief phone conference call to 

discuss the findings of the Yearbook and answer your questions. As you know, 

the Yearbook evaluates each state program in three areas: access – percentage of the state’s 

children who are able to participate; resources – the amount of money each state spends per 

child; and quality – the number of quality standard benchmarks each state meets.

If you sign up to participate in the call, we will send you specific findings about your state in 

advance of the call. To sign up for the April 10 briefing call at 2:00 p.m. EDT, please RSVP to 

Jen Fitzgerald at 848-932-3138 or yearbook@nieer.org. Signing up for the call constitutes your 

agreement to honor the embargo of the report and not share any of the information in it with 

others until April 30, without exception.

We look forward to talking to you on the call.

Thank you.
11

Post Call Sign-Up Information

Thank you for your interest in The State of Preschool 2013. I’ve attached your state’s profile, a 

national press release, state-specific press release, and talking points. The call-in information 

for the conference is below. Please confirm receipt of this e-mail and let me know if you have 

any questions.

Call-in information

Date: April 10

Time: 2pm EDT

Phone number: 800-868-1123

Participant code: 19716539

Please remember you are agreeing to honor the embargo of the report and not share any of the 

information in it with others until April 30th.