Federal Civil-Rights Data Collection Sets 2025-26 Reporting for Schools

The U.S. Department of Education has received approval for a renewed nationwide Civil Rights Data Collection covering the 2025-26 school year. The department published the school- and district-level forms on July 22, 2026, and says the submission period is expected to begin sometime in December 2026.

The collection is mandatory for covered local educational agencies and schools that receive federal financial assistance from the Education Department. The department says that includes every public school district, as well as charter schools, juvenile-justice facilities, alternative schools and schools serving only students with disabilities within the covered reporting universe.

What changed

The Office of Management and Budget approved the revised collection on July 20, 2026, under existing federal authorities. The approval is an information-collection decision, not a new civil-rights rule or a new statutory mandate. The collection carries OMB control number 1870-0504.

The Education Department published separate forms for school-level and local educational agency, or LEA, reporting. Officials will use the forms to report information from the 2025-26 school year. The department’s reference to December means the submission period is expected to start sometime that month; it is not a final opening date.

What schools and districts must report

The school form covers enrollment and access to educational programs and services, including course and program participation. It also includes student discipline, referrals to law enforcement, school-related arrests, harassment and bullying, disability-related services, restraint and seclusion, staffing, athletics and school safety.

The detailed forms include measures that can be disaggregated by race and ethnicity, sex, English-learner status and disability. That structure allows researchers, policymakers and civil-rights officials to compare access and treatment across groups and schools.

The reporting instructions also distinguish between reported events and final findings. For example, the harassment and bullying section counts allegations whether or not the school or district ultimately considers them founded. A reported allegation, referral or incident therefore should not be read as a substantiated violation.

How much work is involved

The 2025-26 school form estimates an average of 15.4 hours for each school survey response, while the LEA form estimates six hours for each LEA response. Those are separate reporting requirements and should not be treated as a single district-wide figure.

OMB estimates 17,717 responses and 1,762,790 hours of total annual reporting burden for the approved collection. It also estimates $90,748,430 in respondent cost burden. That figure is a federal estimate for the collection, not a bill that each district will receive.

Why the data matter to families

The Education Department has conducted the CRDC since 1968 to collect information on education and civil-rights issues in public schools. The department says the data support civil-rights enforcement, policymaking and research.

For parents, the eventual public data may offer a way to compare schools and districts on discipline, educational access, disability services, safety and student participation. The school form says reported information will be made available to the public in a privacy-protected format.

Those comparisons will come later. Approval of the collection does not provide new 2025-26 results, and the department has not announced a publication date for the completed data.

Limits of the collection

CRDC data are reported administrative information. A disparity can identify a pattern for review, but it does not by itself establish discrimination, prove a legal violation or explain why the difference occurred.

Likewise, an allegation, referral or reported incident is not necessarily a substantiated finding. The collection is designed to assemble comparable national information that can guide additional questions, oversight, research or civil-rights investigations.

Districts and schools should begin reviewing their records, definitions and data systems before the expected December submission period. The next developments to watch are implementation guidance, the formal opening of the reporting window, district preparation, data-quality questions and the eventual release of national and school-level results.

Sources

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