Will participation in the ODS be voluntary?

No. Submitting PEIMS through the Operational Data Store (ODS) will eventually be required of all local education agencies (LEAs). 

Will the ODS be Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) compliant?

Yes. The ODS will allow student-level data to be loaded, stored, and protected in a manner that is consistent with FERPA as well as with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

Who will have access to the ODS?

The ODS is a FERPA-compliant solution. Only local education agency (LEA) educators and administrative staff authorized to support LEAs (ex: Education Service Centers (ESCs)) will be allowed to access the data housed in the ODS. The data will not be shared with external stakeholders or with the Texas Education Agency (TEA). 

Note that the enrollment tracking data that TEA collects is shared with authorized users of all LEAs. For more details, see Core Collection.

Will LEAs have to collect and submit more data for the ODS?

LEAs are only required to use the ODS as part of the path of PEIMS data promotion. However, aside from the minimum loads required for the four annual PEIMS submissions, each LEA can decide how much and how frequently to upload its data based on the needs of its educators.

Is there a charge for using the ODS?

No. The ODS—whose use is mandatory—is available to all LEAs at no cost. 

When will the ODS be available?

TEA is testing the ODS with volunteer LEAs through the 2012 – 2013 school year.  The ODS is available to organizations as they adopt the TSDS applications (like PEIMS or the Early Childhood Data System).