[Federal Register Volume 88, Number 186 (Wednesday, September 27, 2023)]
[Notices]
[Pages 66433-66434]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2023-20964]


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DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

[Docket No.: Docket Search Results ED-2023-SCC-0170]


Agency Information Collection Activities; Comment Request; School 
Pulse Panel 2024-25 Preliminary Field Activities

AGENCY: National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Department of 
Education (ED).

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) of 1995, 
the Department is proposing a revision of a currently approved 
information collection request (ICR).

DATES: Interested persons are invited to submit comments on or before 
November 27, 2023.

ADDRESSES: To access and review all the documents related to the 
information collection listed in this notice, please use http://www.regulations.gov by searching the Docket ID number Docket Search 
Results ED-2023-SCC-0170. Comments submitted in response to this notice 
should be submitted electronically through the Federal eRulemaking 
Portal at http://www.regulations.gov by selecting the Docket ID number 
or via postal mail, commercial delivery, or hand delivery. If the 
regulations.gov site is not available to the public for any reason, the 
Department will temporarily accept comments at [email protected]. 
Please include the docket ID number and the title of the information 
collection request when requesting documents or submitting comments. 
Please note that comments submitted after the comment period will not 
be accepted. Written requests for information or comments submitted by 
postal mail or delivery should be addressed to the Manager of the 
Strategic Collections and Clearance Governance and Strategy Division, 
U.S. Department of Education, 400 Maryland Ave. SW, LBJ, Room 4C210, 
Washington, DC 20202-8240.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For specific questions related to 
collection activities, please contact Carrie Clarady, (202) 245-6347.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The Department, in accordance with the 
Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA) (44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(2)(A)), 
provides the general public and Federal agencies with an opportunity to 
comment on proposed, revised, and continuing collections of 
information. This helps the Department assess the impact of its 
information collection requirements and minimize the public's reporting 
burden. It also helps the public understand the Department's 
information collection requirements and provide the requested data in 
the desired format. The Department is soliciting comments on the 
proposed information collection request (ICR) that is described below. 
The Department is especially interested in public comment addressing 
the following issues: (1) is this collection necessary to the proper 
functions of the Department; (2) will this information be processed and 
used in a timely manner; (3) is the estimate of burden accurate; (4) 
how might the Department enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of 
the information to be collected; and (5) how might the Department 
minimize the burden of this collection on the respondents, including 
through the use of information technology. Please note that written 
comments received in response to this notice will be considered public 
records.
    Title of Collection: School Pulse Panel 2024-25 Preliminary Field 
Activities.
    OMB Control Number: 1850-0969.
    Type of Review: Revision of a currently approved ICR.
    Respondents/Affected Public: State, Local, and Tribal Governments.
    Total Estimated Number of Annual Responses: 6,339.
    Total Estimated Number of Annual Burden Hours: 2,551.
    Abstract: The School Pulse Panel (SPP) is a data collection 
originally designed to collect repeated voluntary responses from a 
nationally representative sample of public schools to better understand 
how schools, students, and educators are responding to the ongoing 
stressors of the coronavirus pandemic. The School Pulse Panel is 
conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), part 
of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), within the United States 
Department of Education. Due to the immediate need to collect 
information from schools during the pandemic to satisfy the requirement 
of Executive Order 14000, an emergency clearance was issued to develop 
and field the first several monthly collections of the SPP in 2021 and 
a full review of the SPP data collection was performed under the 
traditional clearance review process in 2022 (OMB# 1850-0969). SPP's 
innovative design and timely dissemination of findings have been used 
and cited frequently among Department of Education senior leadership, 
the White House Domestic Policy Counsel, the USDA's Food and Nutrition 
Service, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Congressional 
deliberations, and the media. The ongoing interest by stakeholders has 
resulted in dedicated funding to continue the SPP as an ongoing, quick-
turnaround data collection vehicle.
    For the 2024-25 school year, the survey may ask school staff about 
a wide range of topics, including but not limited to instructional mode 
offered; enrollment counts of subgroups of students for various subject 
interests; strategies to address learning recovery; safe and healthy 
school mitigation strategies; mental health services; use of 
technology; information on staffing, nutrition services, absenteeism, 
usage of federal funds, facilities, and overall principal experiences. 
It is planned that content will be rotated in and out monthly. This 
package includes preliminary activities, including a generic special 
district application and communication materials for district and 
school recruitment, that will be conducted to help with recruitment 
efforts for the 2024-25 sample.
    Roughly 8,000 public elementary, middle, high, and combined-grade 
schools will be randomly selected to participate in a panel. The goal 
will be national representation from 1,000 responding schools in order 
to report out national estimates. School staff will be asked to provide 
requested data monthly during the 2024-25 school year. This approach 
provides the ability to collect detailed information on various topics 
while also assessing changes over time for items that are repeated from 
month to month. Given the high demand for data collection during this 
time, the content of the survey will change monthly.
    This request is to conduct the SPP 2024-25 preliminary activities, 
including contacting and obtaining research approvals from public 
school districts with an established research approval process 
(``special contact

[[Page 66434]]

districts''), where applicable, notifying sampled schools of their 
selection for the survey and inviting them to complete short Screener 
Surveys to establish a point of contact at their school. Additional 
materials may be added to this package after the 60-day public comment 
period is complete, in time for the subsequent 30-day public comment 
period that will begin in December 2023/January 2024. In spring of 
2024, a clearance for main study data collection activities with 
schools and districts, including instruments for the first quarter of 
monthly collections, will be submitted 60-day and 30-day public 
comment. Subsequent quarterly content submissions will be submitted for 
30-day public comment. Because the School Pulse Panel Survey is 
designed to collect data on timely questions, materials for SPP are 
cleared under two OMB Number sequences. Materials for SPP 2022 were 
cleared under OMB# 1850-0969, while 23-24 SPP were cleared primarily 
under OMB# 1850-0975. For 24-25 we return to OMB# 1850-0969.

    Dated: September 21, 2023.
Stephanie Valentine,
PRA Coordinator, Strategic Collections and Clearance Governance and 
Strategy Division, Office of Chief Data Officer, Office of Planning, 
Evaluation and Policy Development.
[FR Doc. 2023-20964 Filed 9-26-23; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4000-01-P