All students must fill out the student data verification sheet that went home today.
Yes, this should look identical to the sheet you just received. However, it is important you fill it out again. This is because the FEDERAL government, NOT the State of Florida, NOT the St. Lucie County School Board has redefined race. Hispanic and Latino will NO LONGER be considered race options by the federal government for the purpose of identifying student race. Hispanic and Latino are now listed as ethnicities. The federal government requires all students to be identified by race.
Please pay attention to the entire top half of the sheet that addresses this information.
Please read the email Mr. Luckey, our data specialist sent regarding this data sheet along with a website where you can go to find more information. Please return the forms to your child’s teacher or the front office as soon as possible. Thank you.
MR LUCKEY’S EMAIL:
Today in your boxes are “Student Verification Sheets.” Yes, I understand student just recently brought the forms back. However, according to the District office the parent must choose a race. Please inform students to have parents complete top portion of “Student Verification” sheet as well as Verify the information, sign and return.
In October of 2007 the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) published the final changes to the United State’s Department of Education data collection and reporting guidelines for race and ethnicity data. Hispanic or Latino is no longer a “race”, but is only ethnicity. If you need to, please explain that St. Lucie County did not come up with these codes or requirements and neither did the State of Florida. This is a Federal requirement. Because Hispanic or Latino is no longer a race code, the family will need to make a decision as to what available race code they want recorded.
If any families would like to read these requirements for themselves, please give them the following web link:
http://www.ed.gov/legislation/FedRegister/other/2007-4/101907c.pdf
Thank you for your cooperation and high level of professionalism in this matter,
Troy D Luckey
Data Specialist
Southern Oaks Middle School
