Summary
Washington SNAP-Ed evaluation established a data sharing agreement with the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) to collect State Student ID Numbers (SSIDs) for students who participate in school SNAP-Ed programs. The SNAP-Ed evaluation team will link survey data collected in class with SSIDs to look for patterns and trends in how students respond to SNAP-Ed education. For example, do higher-income students respond differently to classes compared to lower-income students? Are boys more physically active than girls? We can use data from SSIDs to answer these questions, which will help us identify opportunities to improve SNAP-Ed and ensure that our programs are effective for all students.
How will this work?
SNAP-Ed educators will ask school or district administrators for the names and SSIDs of the students they teach in SNAP-Ed classes. The SNAP-Ed educator will then replace student names with corresponding SSID on SNAP-Ed surveys. Once ID Numbers have been assigned to surveys, SNAP-Ed Educators will destroy the list with names and ID numbers. Next, the SNAPEd evaluation team will match demographic data to survey data. The demographic data will only be available to the SNAP-Ed evaluation team, who are trained in data protection procedures. By law, no data will be reported back in a way that would make the participants identifiable.
How will State Student IDs address equity in SNAP-Ed?
The SNAP-Ed evaluation team will pool data from the entire state, and look for patterns or trends in the way students from different backgrounds and in different circumstances respond to direct education. There are many questions that can only be answered with this data:
- Is there a difference in outcomes between SNAP-eligible and non-SNAP-eligible students?
- How do different groups respond to SNAP-Ed curricula?
- Do students continue to improve or maintain health behaviors if they receive SNAP-Ed each year?
State Student ID Numbers will help Washington SNAP-Ed identify how to make programs effective for all students who participate and will provide the information necessary to look for larger trends, and make changes that can positively impact the students of Washington State.