Student Search Groups

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OCR reporting relies on student search group definitions to identify the students to include for student counts. A search group detail stores the filter that will be used to select the students to process. PowerSchool has predefined the Search Group Used For codes that will be used for the OCR report. You must verify that you have Student Group Definitions defined for the Student Group Used For codes PowerSchool provides. Your Student Group Definitions are identified by a Group Code and Description, and each record is associated with a Group Used For record.

Group Used For Codes for Selecting Students for OCR 

Verify you have a Group Code set up defining filter information for each of these Group Used For codes. The codes that say Snapshot Date will apply to fields in the LEA/District Form and the School Form where eSchoolPlus uses the Entry or Withdrawal Date to Sample Enrollment (OCR District Setup). Codes that say End of Year will apply to fields where the reports filter using OCR District Setup's School Year Start Date and School Year End Date.

Group Used For Codes for Selecting Students by Race/Ethnicity

Verify you have a Group Code set up defining filter rules for each of these Group Used For codes.

Group Used For Codes for Excluding Students Who Should Not Be Reported

Verify you have a Group Code set up defining filter rules for the following Group Used For code.

Make sure you have a Group Code associated with OCR_Exclude. This filters the students you want to exclude from OCR reporting. Even if you do not need to exclude students, you must enter criteria for this group. Otherwise, all students will be excluded. If you are not excluding anyone, enter a row of search criteria that would not ever select any students, like Demographic Student ID = 0.

Defining OCR Student Group Criteria

Select the menu path Administration > Registration Setup > Setup > Student Group Definitions to define the student criteria used for the OCR Civil Rights Data Collection. To view the detail criteria, click on the Group Code hyperlink to open the Student Group Detail page. The available search areas include all the standard student advanced search options. The following example shows the relationship between the Group Codes you define for the Group Used For records predefined by PowerSchool. 

For some states, search group criteria for the OCR report will be pre-loaded by PowerSchool. 

Consider the following when defining your criteria:

• If there are no search groups defined with a Group Used For beginning with OCR_, click the Add () button. This will take you to the Student Group Definition page where you can add a new group and search criteria. Note that the Group Code field will not allow special characters, such as ? % & * | or a space.
• Race/Ethnicity OCR groups do not need to include criteria to omit other races/ethnicities.
• The 504 Plan only OCR group does not need to include criteria to omit students with disabilities.
• OCR groups do not need to include entry/withdrawal dates. This logic is already built in to the OCR Reports processing.
• Filters that include a program-tracked field support an 'is open as of' condition so you can identify students who have an open record on a specified date. For more information, refer to Criteria Using Dates and the "Is Open As Of" Condition.
• OCR report fields filter students using the End-of-Year logic for the 504, IDEA, and LEP search groups. 
• Use the date 1/1/1900 to indicate the school year start date and 12/31/3000 to indicate the school year end date.

Race/Ethnicity Criteria

OCR groups for Race/Ethnicity do not need to include criteria to omit other races/ethnicities. Depending upon the race/ethnicity category search definitions, students may meet criteria for one or more race categories (for example, Hispanic and White). Because race/ethnicity reporting requires unduplicated counts, the OCR Reports process will only allow a student to be identified in one race/ethnic category. A student will be counted for the first race/ethnicity criteria met.

The race/ethnic categories are processed and assigned in the following order:

1. Hispanic
2. Multi
3. American Indian or Alaska Native
4. Asian
5. Black or African American
6. Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander
7. White

OCR/504 Criteria

The OCR groups should be set up with criteria that will tell the OCR Reports how to find students within a particular disaggregation category only. For example, the OCR_504 group criteria should include any students that have a 504 plan. The OCR Reports process will automatically exclude students from this count who are already included in the IDEA count.

OCR groups for 504 Plan only are not required to include criteria to omit other races or students with disabilities.

Criteria Using Dates and the "Is Open As Of" Condition

You may need to define a filter to find students who have an open record for a program (date-tracked field). To simplify searching for open records as of a specific date, the "is open as of" condition can be used. This operator is available for any start date or end date fields and for entry and withdrawal dates. It will return data for records "open" as of that date, meaning that the end date is blank (NULL) or, if an end date exists, it is after the date specified in the criteria.

For End-of-Year processing, two placeholder dates are available in the Filter pane. The conditional Criteria start date less than or equal to 12/31/3000 tells the OCR Reports to swap in your school year end date from OCR District Setup, so it will look at start dates that are on or before the school year end date. The conditional Criteria end date is open as of 1/1/1900 tells the OCR Reports to swap in your school year start date from the OCR District Setup, so it will look at end dates that are open as of the school year start date.

Previewing the Student List

To check that the expected list of students will be selected by your criteria, you can click the Refresh button. The results will not exactly match the list of students used for the counts in the OCR Reports.

The Student Preview pane will always use today's date in place of 01/01/1900 and does not automatically consider entry/withdrawal data. It can, however, be used to verify that you have entered the correct criteria.

The Student Preview pane will display the list of students and a count of the number of students meeting that group's criteria.