November 3, 2003

TO:                  Chief School Administrators/Charter School Lead Persons

FROM:            Susan B. Martz, Director

                        Office of Program Support Services

SUBJECT:      Updates to the Violence, Vandalism, and Substance Abuse Reporting Form, 2003-2004

The fourth year of collecting violence and vandalism data via the Internet has been completed successfully by every New Jersey school district/charter school.  I want to thank you, your Web User Administrator (WUA), and your staff for maintaining your district’s Electronic Violence and Vandalism Reporting System (EVVRS) account, entering your data, and checking and confirming the total figures for your district. 

Attached for use during the upcoming school year is a set of new and revised materials that should be distributed to each school in your district and especially to those individuals who are responsible for reporting incidents of violence and vandalism and entering incidents through the EVVRS:

· Violence, Vandalism and Substance Abuse Incident Report Form 2003-2004 (including the Offender and Victim Information pages);

· Incident Detail:  EVVRS Incident Definitions;

· EVVRS Incident Scenarios; and

· Suspension Form used to record the removal or suspension of students with disabilities for reasons other than violence, vandalism, or substance abuse.

To collect all appropriate data needed to implement the Unsafe School Choice Option (USCO) Policy required under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), a number of changes have been made to the forms, definitions and technical assistance documents. We have added kidnapping, terroristic threat, and harassment/intimidation/bullying to the Incident Report Form. The Victim Information page has three new data fields related to the USCO policy. When a student is the victim of a violent criminal offense under the provisions of the USCO policy (these offenses are marked with an asterisk (*) in the Incident Detail document), the incident should be reported in the correct category and data for the three new fields on the Victim Information page should be entered.

All EVVRS-reported incidents must be recorded on the attached Incident Report Form, including, where applicable, the Offender and Victim Information pages.  To be reported on the EVVRS, an incident must have taken place on school grounds, at a school-sponsored event or on a school bus. Not all incidents of student misconduct are reported on the EVVRS.  As the New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE) has always emphasized, serious incidents are reported on the EVVRS; less serious incidents may, like all incidents, be recorded as part of the district’s own disciplinary system.  During the NJDOE monitoring, these forms must be made available to the monitors who will use them to verify the incidents reported on the EVVRS Incident Listing Report.

The new forms, Incident Detail and scenarios, are posted on the EVVRS homepage (http://homeroom.state.nj.us/index.htm).  Please discard any blank 2002-2003 forms.  In response to the USCO policy, there are substantial changes in the EVVRS; the revised system was deployed for 2003-2004 data entry on October 30. The EVVRS User Manual will be updated shortly, and your EVVRS account users will be notified when it becomes available.  Also, the USCO Policy (distributed to districts on July 3, 2003) is posted on the NJDOE website at www.nj.gov/njded/grants/nclb/policy/unsafe.htm

Additionally, scenarios (attached) have been developed for the first time to illustrate the application of the definitions to difficult-to-classify incidents. Each scenario is followed by a list of factors to consider when deciding whether or not to report the incident on the EVVRS and under which categories the incident should be reported. Please have school staff review these scenarios to help guide their reporting decisions. 

With regard to the public hearing required under N.J.S.A. 18A:17-46 conducted in October, districts and charter schools must have available a copy of both the Annual District Report and the Incident Listing for public review.  The Annual Report must be submitted to the department as part of the written transcript.  

Finally, I want to stress the importance of timely entry and review of data reported on violence and vandalism incidents, and suspensions for other reasons.  Enter data as soon as all information about the incident, offender(s) and victim(s) is known.  You and your administrative staff can obtain reports of the incidents you have recorded with your EVVRS user account.  This year all data must be reported no later than July 27, 2004.  Web User Administrators (usually a district’s business administrator) may establish accounts for either the school or district and for those administrative and support staff that need access to the system.  Although there is no limit to the number of EVVRS accounts a school or district may have, your Web User Administrator should regularly delete the accounts of any staff members who no longer use the system. 

If you have any questions regarding the EVVRS, please call Theresa Taylor, data assistant, Office of Program Support Services, at 609-292-1288.  Thank you for your continued efforts to report accurate data so that we may assess the needs of our schools.

S:\Violence & Vandalism\EVVRS\Fall_03\CSA_FORMS_0304kimfinal.doc

Attachments

c:          William L. Librera

            Dwight Pfennig

            Gloria Hancock

            Senior Staff

County Superintendents

            District Special Education Coordinator