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HOME ACCESS NEEDS ASSESSMENT PLAYBOOK

Identify Students who Lack Home Internet

Home Access Needs Assessment Playbook

Step-by-Step Guide for School Districts

Inaccurate responses, inefficient collection processes, and incomplete datasets are common pitfalls for school districts when surveying families about home technology access. Identifying unconnected students is the first step in closing the homework gap. Below you’ll find free tools, templates, and best practices to help you get started.

step 1

What Data to Collect

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Define

Define the data fields you will collect that support your district’s strategic objective to connect every student. With the right plan and fields in place, your school district will be able to identify each student that does not have access to sufficient internet access or a dedicated learning device at home.  

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Confirm

Check with your State Education Agency to confirm any data reporting requirements and processes.

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Review

Review our question bank, which is aligned with data elements that have been formally approved by the Common Education Data Standards initiative as of May 2021. This set of data elements were identified in collaboration with State Education Agencies, school districts, the Council of Chief State School Officers, and other industry experts (see Blueprint for State Education Leaders).

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Identify

Determine a common set of data fields and corresponding response choices that your district will collect for every student to assess home access.  

step 2

How to Collect Data

step 2

How to Collect Data

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Plan

Create a plan for collecting home access data that maximizes participation rates with your families and the accuracy of the information collected. Response rates tend to be higher when the data is collected through an existing, required process (e.g., student registration) and when outreach is targeted and direct (e.g., a calling campaign). 

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Consult

Consult with key district stakeholders such as your Superintendent and Communications, Family Engagement, and Data / Systems representatives to get program buy-in and sign-off.

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Resource

Use our question bank to adjust your school district’s registration/enrollment process. If that’s not an option, consider sending a targeted survey campaign.

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Assemble

Assemble your outreach team and the resources you’ll need to manage a data collection effort. Conduct a training session and create a schedule for your outreach team.

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Draft

Draft materials to support both one-to-many communications that will notify families of the data collection effort (e.g., social media posts), and one-to-one communications to support targeted outreach (e.g., call scripts). 

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Organize

Set up a data entry and outreach tracking tool to organize responses for each student and track your campaign’s progress. 

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Launch

Launch your outreach campaign to contact families and assess their home access needs.

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Where to Store Data

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Ideally, home digital access data that has been collected is stored in a common repository that is secure, easy to update, can produce customizable reports, and is readily accessible to school district leaders.

Work with your SIS administrator to add fields that are aligned with your established set of data fields and response choices. Many state leaders have taken action to encourage SIS vendors to add home access fields to their core products.

Reach out directly to your State Education Agency for the status in your state.

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Our tools and resources can help you efficiently analyze barriers to connectivity and devices and design plans to address them.