United States Government Publishing Office publisher pbl distributor dst United States Government Accountability Office Health, Education, and Human Services Division author aut Government Organization text government publication eng GAOREPORTS Legislative Agency Publications gao legislative 2010-08-12 U.S. Government Printing Office 1997-08-21 monographic deposited born digital 50 p. GA 1.13:HEHS-97-161 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-HEHS-97-161 P0b002ee1803728bc f:he97161 DGPO 2010-08-12 2011-03-24 GAOREPORTS-HEHS-97-161 machine generated eng fdlp REPORT GAOREPORTS-HEHS-97-161 HEHS-97-161 School management and organization Public schools Students Data integrity Attendance records School districts Data collection Management information systems District of Columbia DC Public Schools Student Information System Letter Report HEHS Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO examined the enrollment count process that the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) used in school year 1996-97, focusing on: (1) whether the process appeared sufficient to produce an accurate count; (2) enrollment count processes used by some other urban school systems; and (3) the role of the Department of Education's Inspector General in preparing DCPS' official enrollment count for school year 1996-97.<p/>GAO noted that: (1) even though DCPS changed parts of its enrollment count process in school year 1996-97 to address criticisms, the process remains flawed; (2) some of these changes increased complexity and work effort but did little to improve the count's credibility; (3) errors remained in the Student Information System (SIS), but DCPS had only limited mechanisms for correcting these errors; (4) problems also persisted in the critical area of residency verification; (5) in school year 1996-97, schools did not always verify student residency as required by DCPS' own procedures; (6) proofs of residency, when actually obtained, often fell short of DCPS' standards; (7) Central Office staff did not consistently track failures to verify residency; (8) school staff and parents rarely suffered sanctions for failure to comply with the residency verification requirements; (9) the pupil accounting system failed to adequately track students; (10) SIS allowed more than one school to count a single student when the student transferred from one school to another; (11) schools did not always follow attendance rules, and SIS lacked the capability to track implementation of the rules; (12) some attendance rules, if implemented, could have allowed counting of nonattending students; (13) other school districts report that they use several approaches to control errors and to increase the accuracy of their enrollment counts; (14) these include using centralized enrollment and pupil accounting centers and a variety of automated student information system edits and procedures designed to prevent or disallow pupil accounting errors before they occur; (15) the recently enacted District of Columbia School Reform Act of 1995 requires the enrollment count process to produce enrollment numbers for nonresidents and students with special needs; (16) DCPS (acting on behalf of the District of Columbia Board of Education) and the District of Columbia Financial Responsibility and Management Assistance Authority are not in compliance with requirements of this new law; (17) the Department of Education helped DCPS develop its request for proposals for the independent audit of the enrollment count for school year 1996-97, but it had no role in preparing DCPS' official enrollment count for school year 1996-97; and (18) the Authority subsequently decided, however, that auditing the count for school year 1996-97 would be counterproductive. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-HEHS-97-161/html/GAOREPORTS-HEHS-97-161.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-HEHS-97-161/pdf/GAOREPORTS-HEHS-97-161.pdf GAO/HEHS-97-161 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-HEHS-97-161 Letter Report GAO/HEHS-97-161; District of Columbia Public Schools: Student Enrollment Count Remains Vulnerable to Errors; School management and organization Public schools Students Data integrity Attendance records School districts Data collection Management information systems District of Columbia DC Public Schools Student Information System Public Law 104-134