Information Services

Missing Students Report

To:	SIMS Contacts
From:	Paula O´Sullivan, Director of Information Services
Date:	February 10, 2005

In order to report accurate dropout data, the Department needs to follow-up on those students in grades 6-12 that were reported as being enrolled at the end of the 2003-04 school year, and were not reported by any district in the October 1, 2004 data. There are many valid reasons for why the student may not have been reported. However, given the high-stakes nature of the dropout data, we need to collect information on why the students were not reported.

In the past few years, this data was collected via an Excel file through Dropbox Central in the DOE's security portal. This year we have put the information into an on-line application. The application can be accessed through the security portal, with the security role of "MDCS". For each student listed for your district, we ask that you provide a reason (from a dropdown list) for why the student was not reported in the October 1, 2004 data. The options available are:

Transferred to out-of-state school
Transferred to in-state private school
Transferred to in-state public school
Graduated/Certificate of Attainment
Dropout
Permanent Exclusion
Reached Maximum Age (for special education students only)
SASID Issue (you will be asked to provide the new SASID reported for 10/1/04)
Deceased

More specific instructions are available from the first page of the application. If we do not receive data from your district by Thursday March 3, 2005, we may need to assume that all of the students listed are dropouts. Any student reported as a dropout, or assumed to be a dropout due to lack of response, will be included in your district's 2004-05 dropout count, unless the student enrolls in school sometime during the 2004-05 school year. In compliance with the National Center for Education Statistics standards, they will be counted as a dropout for the grade and school in which they failed to enroll.

If you have any questions, please contact your DOE Field Technologist or the Data Collection office at 781-338-DATA (3282).

Thank you.

Last Updated: February 10, 2005