FRSS 98: District Survey of Distance Education Courses for Public Elementary and Secondary School Students: 2009-10

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION NATIONAL CENTER FOR EDUCATION STATISTICS WASHINGTON, D.C. 20006–5651 DISTANCE EDUCATION COURSES FOR PUBLIC ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS: 2009–10 FAST RESPONSE SURVEY SYSTEM

FORM APPROVED O.M.B. No.: 1850–0733 EXPIRATION DATE: 06/2012 OMB DRAFT 8/4/2010

This survey is authorized by law (Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002, 20 U.S.C. 9543).  While participation in this survey is voluntary, your cooperation is critical to make the results of this survey comprehensive, accurate, and timely.  Your answers may be used only for statistical purposes and may not be disclosed, or used, in identifiable form for any other purpose unless otherwise compelled by law (Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002, 20 U.S.C. 9573).

DEFINITION OF DISTANCE EDUCATION

Distance education courses are courses offered to elementary and secondary school students regularly enrolled in your district that must meet all of the following criteria:

• be credit-granting; and

• be technology-delivered via audio, video (live or prerecorded), Internet, or other computer-based technology (e.g., via district network); and

• have either (a) the instructor in a different location than the students; and/or (b) the course content developed in, or delivered from, a different location than that of the students.

For the purposes of this survey, do not include information about supplemental course materials, virtual field trips, online homework, technology-assisted courses that are primarily taught by a classroom-based instructor, test preparation courses that are not credit-granting, courses conducted mainly via written correspondence, or staff professional development.

IF ABOVE INFORMATION IS INCORRECT, PLEASE MAKE CORRECTIONS DIRECTLY ON LABEL.

Name of person completing form: Telephone:

Title/position: E-mail:

Best days and times to reach you (in case of questions):

THANK YOU. PLEASE KEEP A COPY OF THIS SURVEY FOR YOUR RECORDS.

PLEASE RETURN COMPLETED FORM TO: IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS, CONTACT:

Mail: Barbara Queen (8599.03.04.03) Barbara Queen at Westat

Westat 800-937-8281, Ext. 4476 or 301-294-4476

1600 Research Boulevard E-mail: barbaraqueen@westat.com
Rockville, Maryland 20850-3195

Fax: 800-254-0984

According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, no persons are required to respond to a collection of information unless it displays a valid OMB control number. The valid OMB control number for this information collection is 1850–0733. The time required to complete this information collection is estimated to average 30 minutes per response, including the time to review instructions, search existing data resources, gather the data needed, and complete and review the information collection. If you have any comments concerning the accuracy of the time estimate or suggestions for improving this form, please write to: U.S. Department of Education, Washington, DC 20202–4651. If you have any comments or concerns regarding the status of your individual submission of this form, write directly to: National Center for Education Statistics, 1990 K Street, NW, Washington, DC 20006.

FRSS Form No. 98 xx/xxxx

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Please report information for all schools administered by your district (e.g., regular schools, charter schools, magnet schools, alternative schools, special education schools, etc.).

2. For all questions except question 19, report information only for students regularly enrolled in your district. Do not report information for students enrolled in schools that are not administered by your district (e.g., students from other districts, private school students, or home-schooled students).

3. Please provide the most complete information available, taking into account any distance education courses taken by students regularly enrolled in your district, regardless of where the courses originated. However, distance education courses that students take independently or that are provided by entities outside the control of the district should not be included unless the district has access to enrollment and monitoring information for those courses.

4. The time frame for this survey is the 12-month 2009–10 school year. This includes distance education courses during the summer of 2009 or the summer of 2010, depending on how records are kept at your district. References to “2009–10” in the survey questions refer to this 12-month school year.

5. The following definition applies to all questions on the survey.

DEFINITION OF DISTANCE EDUCATION

Distance education courses are courses offered to elementary and secondary school students regularly enrolled in your district that must meet all of the following criteria:

• be credit-granting (for elementary schools, “credit-granting” refers to any course that results in a letter grade or a pass/fail designation, and is required of a student to complete a program of study or move to the next grade level); and

• be technology-delivered via audio, video (live or prerecorded), Internet, or other computer-based technology (e.g., via district network); and

• have either (a) the instructor in a different location than the students; and/or (b) the course content developed in, or delivered from, a different location than that of the students.

For the purposes of this survey, exclude:

• supplemental course materials, virtual field trips, online homework, or technology-assisted courses that are primarily taught by a classroom-based instructor.

• test preparation courses that are not credit-granting.

• courses conducted mainly via written correspondence.

• staff professional development.

For the purposes of this survey, include any of the following if they meet the distance education criteria above:

• courses that have a teacher or assistant in the room who monitors but gives little or no instruction to the students
  (e.g., course taken entirely on computer in a lab supervised by a teacher who does not provide instruction).

• courses that include occasional face-to-face interactions between the course instructor and the students. For example, a teacher teaching a course at several schools via computer technology may rotate between schools, or the instructor and students may be in the same location for orientation or occasional lab work or tests.

• courses that originate from your district or from other entities (e.g., a state virtual school or a postsecondary institution).

• courses with synchronous (i.e., simultaneous or “real time”) and/or asynchronous (i.e., not simultaneous) instruction.

• courses taken by students in school, at home, or in some other location.

• courses taken by students to continue coursework while temporarily unable to attend school (e.g., while on home or hospital instruction, or on extended travel for personal or family reasons).

• courses taken for credit or grade recovery.

• courses taken for Advanced Placement credit or for college-level or dual credit. Dual credit college-level courses are courses for which students receive both high school and college credits.

Before you answer the questions, please carefully read the definition and instructions.

1. Of the elementary and secondary students regularly enrolled in your district, were any enrolled in distance education courses in 2009–10? (Refer to definition on previous page.)

Yes 1 (Continue with question 2.) No 2 (Stop. Complete respondent section on front and return questionnaire.)

2. For the 12-month 2009–10 school year, report the number of enrollments in distance education courses of students regularly enrolled in your district.

• Only include enrollments in credit-granting courses. Do not include information for supplemental course materials, virtual field trips, online homework, technology-assisted courses, or courses conducted mainly via written correspondence.

• The number of enrollments may include duplicated counts of students; i.e., a student should be counted for each course in which he/she was enrolled.

• Count each enrollment at only one instructional level. Enter “0” if there were no students in your district enrolled in distance education courses at an instructional level in 2009-10.

• The sum of b-e should equal the total in item a.

a. Total number of enrollments in distance education courses

b. Number of enrollments in distance education courses in elementary schools

c. Number of enrollments in distance education courses in middle or junior high schools

d. Number of enrollments in distance education courses in high schools

e. Number of enrollments in distance education courses in combined or ungraded schools

3. Can your district provide the number of students enrolled in distance education courses (i.e., an unduplicated count in which each student is counted only once, regardless of the number of courses in which he/she was enrolled)?

Yes 1 No 2 Don’t know 3

4. In 2009–10, did student academic records kept by the district distinguish distance education courses from other academic courses?

Yes 1

No 2

5. In 2009–10, did your district track the following types of course completions for distance education courses? Report about distance education courses for which the district has access to tracking information. (Circle one on each line.)

	Yes, for all courses	Yes, for some courses	No
a. Course completion with a passing grade (passing grade range)	1	2	3
b. Course completion with a failing grade (or failing grade range)	1	2	3
c. Withdrawal prior to course completion	1	2	3

6. In 2009–10, did your district monitor students’ progress in any distance education courses in the following ways? Report about distance education courses for which the district has access to monitoring information. (Circle one on each line.)

	Yes	No
a. Attendance report	1	2
b. Log-on activity	1	2
c. Time spent online	1	2
d. Completion and submission of assignments	1	2
e. Interim course grades	1	2
f. Final grade report	1	2

7. In 2009–10, did your district have written policies specifying the following when a distance education course was not successfully completed? (Circle one on each line.)

	Yes	No
a. Student cannot enroll in another distance education course	1	2
b. Student must wait a specified time before enrolling in another distance education course	1	2

Questions 8 and 9 are about students enrolled in regular high school programs in your district. Do not include students enrolled in other types of programs, such as alternative education, credit recovery, home or hospital teaching, or other specialized programs.

If your district does not have any high schools, check here and skip to Q10.

8. In 2009–10, were students enrolled in regular high school programs in your district able to take a full course load in an academic term (e.g., semester) using only distance education courses? (Circle one.)

Yes 1 (Continue with question 9.)

No 2 (Skip to question 10.)

8. In 2009–10, were students enrolled in regular high school programs in your district able to fulfill all high school graduation requirements using only distance education courses? (Circle one.)

Yes 1

No 2

10. In Part 1, indicate which of the following entities delivered any of the distance education courses in which students in your district were enrolled in 2009–10. (Indicate “yes”, “no”, or “don’t know’’ for each entity.)

In Part 2, rank up to 5 entities in the order in which they most frequently delivered distance education courses, with “1” indicating the entity that delivered the most courses, “2” indicating the next largest number of courses, etc.

Entities	1. Circle one on each line			2. Rank up to 5 entities
	Yes	No	Don’t know
a. Postsecondary institution in U.S.	1	2	3
b. Independent vendor in U.S.	1	2	3
c. Online charter school administered by your district	1	2	3
d. Other schools administered by your district	1	2	3
e. Your district (i.e., delivered centrally from the district)	1	2	3
f. Another local school district, or schools in another district, in your state	1	2	3
g. Education service agencies within your state (e.g., Board of Cooperative Educational Services - BOCES, Intermediate Units), not including the state education agency or local school districts	1	2	3
h. State virtual school in your state (i.e., state-centralized K–12 courses available through Internet- or web-based methods)	1	2	3
i. State virtual school in another state	1	2	3
j. Districts or schools in other states (other than state virtual schools)	1	2	3
k. Non-U.S.-based public or private entity (e.g., school, university, private vendor)	1	2	3
l. Other (specify)	1	2	3

11. In 2009–10, to what extent were the distance education courses developed by your district or by other entities (e.g., other local school district, state virtual school in your state, postsecondary institution, independent vendor, etc.)? Report only for distance education courses taken by students regularly enrolled in your district in 2009–10. (Circle one number that best indicates where distance education courses were developed.)

All courses developed by your district		Courses developed about equally by your district and other entities		All courses developed by other entities
1	2	3	4	5

12. In 2009–10, what types of distance education courses did students regularly enrolled in your district take? (Circle one on each line.)

	Yes	No
a. Advanced Placement (AP)	1	2
b. Dual Enrollment (College-level courses for which students receive both high school and college credits)	1	2
c. Credit Recovery.	1	2
d. Career and Technical Education (e.g., business courses)	1	2
e. Other types of academic courses.	1	2

13. How important were the following reasons for having distance education courses in your district in 2009–10?
(Circle one on each line.)

	Not important	Somewhat important	Very important	Don’t know
a. Providing courses not otherwise available at the school	1	2	3	4
b. Offering Advanced Placement or college-level courses	1	2	3	4
c. Reducing scheduling conflicts for students	1	2	3	4
d. Providing opportunities for students to recover course credits from classes they missed or failed	1	2	3	4
e. Providing opportunities for students to accelerate credit accumulation for early graduation	1	2	3	4
f. Providing opportunities for students who are homebound or have special needs to take courses.	1	2	3	4
g. Addressing school space limitations	1	2	3	4
h. Generating more district revenues	1	2	3	4
i. Other (specify)	1	2	3	4

14. In 2009–10, to what extent were the following technologies used for the instructional delivery of distance education courses taken by students regularly enrolled in your district? (Circle one on each line.)

Technology	Not at all	Small extent	Moderate extent	Large extent
a. Internet courses using synchronous (i.e., simultaneous or “real time”) instruction	1	2	3	4
b. Internet courses using asynchronous (i.e., not simultaneous) instruction	1	2	3	4
c. Computer-based technologies other than Internet (e.g., district network or CD-ROM).	1	2	3	4
d. Two-way interactive video (i.e., two-way video with two-way audio)	1	2	3	4
e. One-way prerecorded video (including prerecorded videos provided to students, and television broadcast and cable transmission using prerecorded videos)	1	2	3	4
f. Other (specify)	1	2	3	4

15. In 2009–10, which one of the technologies listed in question 14 was used as a primary mode of instructional delivery for the greatest number of distance education courses taken by students regularly enrolled in your district? (Circle the letter corresponding to the technology listed in question 14.) (Circle only one.)

a b c d e f

16. In 2009–10, were any of the distance education courses taken by students regularly enrolled in your district delivered over the Internet (i.e., question 14a OR 14b is answered small, moderate, or large extent)? (Circle one)

Yes 1 (Continue with question 17.)

No 2 (Skip to question 18.)

17. In 2009–10, where did students access distance education courses that were delivered over the Internet? (Circle one on each line.)

	Yes	No
a. At school	1	2
b. At home	1	2
c. At some other location (specify)	1	2

18. Does your district plan to expand the number of distance education courses offered in the next three years?

Yes 1

No 2

19. In 2009–10, did your district (or schools administered by your district) deliver any distance education courses to students who were not regularly enrolled in your district (e.g., your district delivered to students from other districts, private school students, or home-schooled students)?

Yes 1 No 2 Don’t know 3