CRDC: Washington School Behavior and Climate Data

Washington State's 2020-21 Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) contains school-level data on student discipline, harassment, and law enforcement referrals, disaggregated by student groups. The biennial survey is mandated by the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights and collects enrollment and program information. Data was reported directly from school districts to OCR and is not validated by the state education agency.

Use Cases

• Analyzing disparities in out-of-school suspension rates by StudentGroup
• Mapping referrals to law enforcement by school using SchoolName and County
• Tracking reported harassment incidents based on disability, sex, and race using PercentHarrassedBasedOnDisability and related columns
• Comparing expulsion rates (Expulsion, PercentExpelled) across different DistrictOrganizationId
• Assessing school climate by correlating In School Suspension and School Related Arrest data

Strengths

• Data is disaggregated by race/ethnicity, sex, limited English proficiency, and disability, enabling equity analysis
• Cross-platform presence on Socrata and Data.gov signals importance and accessibility
• The collection is a longstanding federal mandate, conducted biennially since 1968

Limitations

• Key metadata like row count, size, license, and author are consistently missing or 'unknown' across all sources
• The data is not validated by the state education agency (OSPI) and may not mirror their official reports
• Some data is suppressed to protect student privacy, and directory information for some schools is incomplete

Provenance

Source

U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights (OCR)

Collection Method

Mandatory biennial survey reported directly from school districts

Time Range

2020-21 school year

Freshness

Last updated on 2025-05-10 according to two sources

Geography

Washington State, USA