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These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.

This study was designed to examine how districts that experienced an incident of school employee sexual misconduct in 2014 defined, interpreted, and implemented key elements of Title IX before, during, and after an incident. The study used a qualitative case study design with a purposeful sample of five districts recruited from a database of 459 districts who experienced a case of school employee sexual misconduct in 2014. The study was conducted between January 2016 and September 2017.

Data collected included: 1) various district documents, 2) 41 interviews with primary actors (school employees and county officials directly involved in responding to the incident), 3) 10 focus groups with 51 secondary actors (school employees who were not directly involved with the incident but who might have been indirectly affected by it), and 4) offender, victim and district characteristics. Documents reviewed included written policies and protocols, training materials and handbooks for staff and students, case documents, and other guiding documents as applicable. In interviews and focus groups, participants were asked to discuss their knowledge of district policies and procedures, to describe the dissemination of and any changes to these policies and procedures, and to provide recommendations for improvement. To protect the confidentiality all district and participant identifying information is confidential and has been removed from any reporting.

Through the Holistic Measures of Student Success (HMSS) project, funded by the Educational Credit Management Corporation (ECMC) Foundation as part of their Basic Needs Initiative cohort, the researchers unpacked and explored how student success has traditionally been defined and measured within the community college sector and what new metrics and data collection processes can be developed to more holistically reflect the community college student experience. Therefore, this project aimed to (1) establish a shared understanding of current institutional practices in defining student success, and (2) measure the sector's openness to new approaches, especially those focused on students' basic needs.

To shed light on the challenges and opportunities associated with the collection and prioritization of a broader set of student success metrics, especially those focused on a more holistic set of student experiences and challenges like food and housing security, the research team surveyed community college provosts across the United States in fall 2020. The survey examined national provost perspectives on college priorities and influencing factors, traditional data collection practices, emerging data collection processes on student basic needs, and the role of data disaggregation for advancing equity.

The Social Capital and Children's Development data were collected in a study of the causal effects of social capital on levels and inequalities of children's social and cognitive development during the early elementary years. The study included 52 schools in Phoenix and San Antonio, including 3,084 first graders and their families, and over 200 teachers, with half the schools randomly selected for the intervention and half serving as controls. Children from low-income Latino families were a special focus of the study. The experimental design of this study allowed for testing of the causal role of social capital. Social capital here refers to trust and shared expectations embedded in social networks of parents, teachers, and children. For young children, social capital operates primarily through their relationships with their parents, enhancing development through mechanisms of social support and social control.

The research design was experimental: social capital was manipulated through a well-tested randomized intervention, Families and Schools Together (FAST), that enhanced social capital among parents, teachers, and children through an intensive after-school program and a 2-year follow-up program. FAST is intended to reduce parental isolation, enhance family engagement with schools, and strengthen family functioning; that is, to increase social capital between families and schools, among families, and within families to improve children's education and life-long outcomes. Key aspects of child development were assessed, including (a) social skills and problem behavior from standardized behavioral ratings by parents and teachers, and (b) grade retention, attendance rates, and third-grade reading and mathematics scores from school records. Social capital was measured with repeated surveys of teachers and parents that address the extent of social networks, parent involvement, trust, and shared expectations among parents, between parents and schools, and between parents and children. Demographic variables of this study include native language, years in the United States, date of birth/age, race/ethnicity, gender, and household composition.

The purpose of this project was to better understand how to improve children's transitions from Head Start programs to elementary schools. Central to this project was a systems approach that recognizes that effective transitions require intentional engagement from both the sending programs (Head Start) and the receiving programs (elementary schools). This approach also recognized that transition strategies and practices must be implemented at multiple levels - among classroom teachers in Head Start and kindergarten, families, elementary school principals and Head Start directors, Head Start grantees and school districts, and state and federal agencies. Specifically, the project aimed to explore the definition of "successful transitions" by addressing the following research questions:

1. What strategies and practices are Head Start programs implementing to support children as they transition from Head Start to kindergarten? What is the content, quality, and quantity of these strategies and practices? How are they experienced by children, families, teachers, and other direct service providers?
2. What characterizes relationships/partnerships among Head Start programs, elementary schools, and other community partners that support children's successful transitions from Head Start to kindergarten? What are the specific facilitators of, and barriers to, successful transitions?
3. What are the key perceived short- and long-term outcomes of transition strategies and practices for children, families, Head Start teachers, and kindergarten teachers? What are the key contextual factors and mechanisms that result in these key perceived outcomes?

This project included several key tasks, including a review of the knowledge base, the development of a theory of change, a scan of existing measures and data sources to determine alignment with the theory of change, the development of new measures based on gaps identified in the measures scan, and the implementation of a comparative multi-case study.