## NATIONAL CENTER FOR EDUCATION STATISTICS (NCES) 

# SCHOOL ATTENDANCE BO UNDARY SURVEY

(SABS) JULY 2013

– JULY 2016

PART A OMB SUBMISSION

DECEMBER 20121 

## TABLE OF CONTENTS A. JUSTIFICAT ION 1. CIRCUMSTANCES MAKING COLLECTION OF INFORMATION NECESSARY ............................ 2 2. PURPOSES AND USES OF THE SCHOOL ATTENDANCE BOUNDARY SURVEY ....................... 3 3. APPROPRIATE USE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ................................ ................................ 3 4. EFFORTS TO IDENTIFY DUPLICAT ION ................................ ................................ ............................ 4 5. METHODS USED TO MINIMIZE BURDEN ON SMALL ENTITIES ................................ ................. 4 6. FREQUENCY OF DATA COLLECTION ................................ ................................ ............................... 4 7. SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES OF DATA COLLECTION ................................ ................................ .... 4 8. CONSULTANTS OUTSIDE THE AGENCY ................................ ................................ .......................... 4 9. PROVISION OF PAYMENTS OR GIFTS TO RESPONDENTS ................................ ........................... 4 10. ASSURANCE OF CONFIDENT IALITY ................................ ................................ ................................ 4 11. SENSIT IV E QUESTIONS ................................ ................................ ................................ ....................... 4 12. ESTIMATES OF HOUR BURDEN FOR INFORMATION COLLECT ION ................................ ......... 4 13. ESTIMATES OF COSTS ................................ ................................ ................................ ......................... 5 14. COSTS TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ................................ ................................ ....................... 5 15. REASONS FOR CHANGES IN RESPONSE BURDEN AND COSTS ................................ ................. 5 16. TIME SCHEDULE FOR SCHOOL ATTENDANCE BOUNDARY SURVEY ................................ ..... 5 17. APPROVAL TO NOT DISPLAY EXPIRAT ION DATE FOR OMB APPROVAL ............................... 5 18. EXCEPTIONS TO CERTIFICATION FOR PAPER WORK REDUCTION ACT SUBMISSIONS ...... 5 B. COLLECTION OF INFORMATION EMPLOYING STATISTICAL METHODS 1. RESPONDENT UNIVERSE 2. STATISTICAL PROCED URES FOR COLLECT ING INFORMAT ION 3. PROCEDURE S FOR COLLECTION OF INFORMATION 4. METHOD S FOR MAXIMIZING RESPONSE RATES 5. TESTS OF PROCEDURES AND METHODS 6. REVIEWING STATISTICIANS APPENDIX A

– 2013 AND 2015 SCHOOL ATTENDANCE BOUNDARY QUESTIONNAIRE APPENDIX B

– 201 3 AND 201 5 SUPERINDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT LETTER APPENDIX C

– 2013 AND 2015 KEY HOLDER PACKET APPENDIX D

– 2013 AND 2015 NON - RESPONSE CALL SCRIPT APPENDIX E

– 2013 AND 2015 REMINDER LETTER2

A. JUSTIFICATION **1. Circumstances Making Collection**  **of Information Necessary Purpose of this Submission**  The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) , of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), within the U.S. Department of Education , is requesting clearance to expand the initial school service area boundary collection of 350 largest districts obtained from other sources to include boundaries for all public school service areas in the 50 states and the District of Columbia (approximately 1 4,000 school districts and 100, 000 schools ) in 2013 and 2015 . The School Attendance Boundary Survey ( SABS ) , to be collected on a two year cycle, will assign geographic school attendance boundaries for the public elementary and secondary schools included in the Common Core of Data (CCD) universe . **Legislative Authorization** NCES is authorized to collect this information by law under the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002 (20 U.S. Code Section 9543 ). **Prior and Related Studies** In 2008 , Dr. Salvatore Saporito from the College of William and Mary proposed a project to provide spatial data delineating 2009 - 2010 K- 12 th grade school attendance boundaries for 20,000 schools from 600 U . S . school districts. The School Attendance Boundary Information database ( SABINS ) contains K12 th grade attendance boundaries for three states (Delaware, Minnesota , and Oregon), roughly 600 school districts embedded within a sample of regionally diverse Metropolitan Statistical Areas, including over 400 of the largest school districts . Although geography is a fundamental organizing feature of K- 12 th education, until now school attendance boundary data have not been centralized and made publicly available in an eas y- to - use format. SABINS removes these barriers by linking spatial data d elineating school attendance boundaries with tabular data describing the demographic characteristics of populations living within those boundaries. In addition to linking schools with their boundarie s, the SABINS project associated school attendance boundaries with Census geography , thereby enabl ing users to efficientl y estimate the socio - demographic characteristics of people and households within school attendance boundaries. Every school attendance boundary in the SABI

NS database is associated with Census block s . This relationship facilitates the summary of block - level population characteristics to: (1) grade - specific school attendance boundaries; (2) school attendance boundaries that are coincident across grade spans; and (3) schools that provide services to specific areas. Finall y, the SABINS project integrated school attendance boundaries with detailed socio - demographic data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey . American Community Survey data are summarized to block groups

— but block groups do not nest within school attendance boundaries. To overcome the misalignment between these geographies, the SABINS project uses a straightforward spatial allocation technique to estimate detailed population characteristics within school attendance b oundaries. The school boundaries are disseminated freel y, via the National Historical Geographic Information Sy stem (NHGI S). National Academy of Sciences and the U . S . Department of Agriculture have requested SABINS to estimate the number of students elig ible for free or reduced - price school lunches. In 2010, NCES acquired the school service area boundaries for the largest 350 U . S . school district s from the SABIN project b y type of schools (elementary, middle , and high school) and linked with the school l evel of the 2009 - 2010 Common Core of Data (CCD) .3

In 2011, the Census Bureau and NCES agreed to create special tabulations from the 2007 - 2011 American Community

Survey (5 year average estimates) based on the public school boundaries from th e 350 largest sc hool districts. This request for clearance seeks to expand the initial school service area boundary collection from SABIN to collect boundaries for all public school service areas. **2. Purposes and Uses of the**  **School Attendance Boundary Survey**  NCES collects statistics on education in the United States, analyzes and reports their significance, and assists states, local education agencies, and postsecondary institutions in improving their statistical sy stems. NCES collects and provides policy- relevant data on issues as diverse as enrollment trends, access of minorities to postsecondary education, academic achievement of students, comparisons of the U.S. education s ys tem with education sy stems in other countries, and the association between educatio n and economic productivity. In addition, through a project with the Census Bureau and Title I, NCES collects information on School District boundaries. However, m issing from these collection activities are the boundary information for each of the public elementary

/secondary

schools in the 50 States and the District of Columbia. For most schools, this information is available on paper maps or as electronic files. These are the maps or files that NCES proposes to collect as part of this project. O nce col lected, this information will be added to NCES’s online mapping s ys tem , which currently includes boundary data for School Distric ts. As through the current School District files, NCES will disseminate data from sources such as the American Community

Surve y ( e.g. demographics and poverty information) mapped against the school boundaries . Users can display

specific areas by

pointing and clicking on a map or searching for a particular locality . The NCES mapping s ys tem is the only sy stem in the United States to nationally visuall y link school exact geographic locations to their demographic and economic information . By providing the public with a mapping s ys tem that contains detailed boundary information on all public schools across the Nation, it will be come possible for school personnel, researchers, and policy makers to examine relationships between schools in the same district or across the nation. By visually presenting the school catchment areas with corresponding measures of geographic and poverty indi ces, decisions can be made regarding allocation of funds to smaller catchment areas. Awareness of the number of students in areas hit hard b y natural disasters could aid relief efforts , and the Department of Homeland S ecurity will use this information for planning disaster relief programs in case of a national disaster . Th e data will also aid school districts in distributing funds to schools with in its system . **3. Appropriate Use of Information Technology**  The Census Bureau will collect the SABS data under an interagency agreement with NCES. The Census Bureau already collects information on address, street, and street attribute updates, as well as legal and statistical boundary

updates and other associated geographic information using the following methods: h andwritten annotations on Census Bureau - supplied paper maps; e lectronic updates to Census Bureau s upplied digital shape files; partner - supplied digital file; w eb - based update sy stem; B lock Equivalency files; or Shapefile output. The same methodolo gy will be used to collect the SABS data .4

**4. Efforts to Identify Duplication**  The information collected through SABS do es not duplicate information reques ted or collected b y any other federal agency . Further, there is no similar current information available on a consistent national basis that could be used or modified for these purposes. **5. Minimize Burden**  NCES had devised several measures to minimize the response burden for school districts participating in the S chool Attendance B oundary S urvey . P articipant s are offered software options which simplify the task of reviewing geographic data. NCES will also accept paper maps and respondent supplied digital files. **6. Frequency of Data Collection**  SABS will be a biennial survey that will begin in September 201 3 . Nationwide, schools and school boundaries change frequently and collecting data less often would make the information too obsolete to be useful for research and planning. **7. Special Circumstances of Data Collection**  There are no circumstances that will require special data collection efforts. **8. Consultants outside the Agency**  In addition to internal NCES review , the following individuals from the U.S. Census Bureau reviewed data collection methods and content: Jill O’Brien , Ass istant Division Chief for Special Statistics, Governments Division Johnny Monaco, Chief, Education & Library Statistics Branch, Governments Division Laura Hardesty, Survey

Statistician, Governments Division Jamie Hug, Survey

Statistician, Governments Divis ion Public comments were received in response to the 60 - day public comment period published on December 20, 2012 , in Federal Register Vol. 77 No. 245 , pp. 75419 - 75420 . Responses to these comments are included in a separate document in this submission. **9. Provision of payments or Gifts to Respondents**  N o pay ments or gifts will be offered to survey respondents. **10. Assurance of Confidentiality**  Data collected through the School Attendance Boundary Survey are public domain data in the ir respective districts and states . As such, the data collection does not provide a unique disclosure risk and therefore does not provide or include a pledge of confidentiality . **11. Sensitive Questions**  None of the questions asked during the School Attendance Boundary Survey are of a sensitive nature . **12. Estimates of Hour Burden for Information Collection** 5

The total burden for SABS information collection is estimated to be 1 hour for each of the 16,000 school districts. Assuming an expected response rate of 85 percent , this translates into 13,600 estimated total burden hours for each of the collection years ( 2013 and 2015 ) : Respondent type Universe (n) Estimated response rate Estimated

number of respondents Number of

instruments per respondent Total

number of responses Estimated

hours per instrument Total

burden hours School District Administrator 16,000 0.85 13,600 1 13,600 1 13,600 The standard NCES procedure for estimating cost for district administrators is to multiply the estimated total survey

reporting hours by

the average salary

and associated computer costs of $23.10 per hour. The respondent burden cost is estimated to be $ 314,160 in each of the collection years (2013 and 2015) . **13. Estimates of Cos**  **ts** SABS respondents will not incur any costs other than their time to respond . **14. Annualized Cost to the Federal Government**  The cost to the Federal Government for the SABS 201 3 survey is $ 1,500,000 for the work of the Census Bureau. Estimates were base d on the number of institutions and the data processing requirements , including (a) costs of all aspects of data col lection, data cleaning, and editing ; and (b) administrative overhead and mailing costs. NCES also contract ed Sanametrix to produce the online data collection instrument for S ABS , at an estimated cost of $ 500,000 , including the web survey instrument and preparation of various project repo rts and technical documentation . Altogether, the total cost of SABS to the federal gove rnment is $ 2,000,000 for each of the SABS data collection years ( 201 3 and 201 5 ) . **15. Reasons for Changes in Response Burden and Costs**  This is a new collection for the federal government. As such, it represents an overall burden increase for federal data collections. **16. Time Schedule for**  **School Attendance Boundaries Survey**  Example schedule for the 2013 data collection: Introduction l etter sent to superintendent of school district July 201 3 Keyholder packet sent August 2013 Registration and software release September 1, 2013 Data collection September 1, 2013 to August 30, 2014 Non - response follow - up January 7, 2013 to August 29, 2014 Edit review September 1, 2013 to August 30, 2014 Final file to NCES December 2014 Final f ile sent to Census to link with American Community Survey data October 2014 Final f ile released by

NCES December 2014 **17. Approval to not Display Expiration Date for OMB Approval**  No approval is sought to not display the expiration date of OMB approval. **18. Exceptions to Certification for Paperwork Reduction Act Submissions**  There are no exceptions to the topics in Item 19 of Form OMB 83 - 1.