Introduction
Utah Law
Guidance
Scenarios
Resources

An SSID, or State Student IDentifier, provides a unique identifier for every Utah student, following a student through their academic career in Utah. It's used to identify each student in all USBE systems, which tracks the student's progress and enrollment. More specifically, grades, attendance, special education, vital statistics, and it can even track financial reimbursements. When using SSID's, we have noticed some recurring challenges with duplicate entries, incorrect retrievals, merges, and in training. A small mistake with an SSID can cause huge problems for a student, or an administration. We encourage you to familiarize yourself with this section. Please reach out to the SSID helpline with questions.

Challenges

Duplicates
- Some of the causes for duplicate entries could be due to misspelled names, transposed birthdates, incorrect separation on names, assumptions, or creating a new one to test. Duplicates create multiple SSIDs for one student, impair student data integrity, have negative ramifications for the student's future, and incorrect reporting. There's even a negative impact on funding when examining drop-out rates, dual enrollment counts, and special education funding.
Incorrect Retrievals
- Some of the causes for incorrect retrievals are due to assumptions, changing primary attributes to match, and hurried retrievals. Incorrect retrievals can result in dual enrollment, impair student data integrity, have negative ramifications for the student's future, and incorrect reporting. There's even a negative impact on funding when examining drop-out rates, dual enrollment counts, and special education funding.
Merges
- A merge is caused when an SSID is created when one already exists. This can be due to misspelled names, transposed birthdates, incorrect separation on names, assumptions, changing primary attributes to match, or creating a new one to test. Incorrect merges can result in dual enrollment, impair student data integrity, have negative ramifications for the student's future, and incorrect reporting. There's even a negative impact on funding when examining drop-out rates, dual enrollment counts, and special education funding.

Remember

When enrolling a student:
- Contact the previously attended school, when the student does not match exactly
  - Previous School information is found in the Student History in the SSID application
- Do not retrieve a student that is not a perfect match without verifying with the previous school(s)
- Only retrieve the student when the correct student is positively identified
Do not ignore match verification requests
Only create a new SSID number when its verified:
- That the student is new to the State of Utah
- Has not been enrolled in another State of Utah School and does not have another SSID

Ramifications

School assessment reports are inaccurate and state reports are inaccurate
Student assessment reports are inaccurate
Student transcripts are inaccurate and reported inaccurately to higher education institutions
Loss of scholarships
IEP information assigned to the wrong student in state databases
Behavior incidents assigned to the wrong student in state databases
Student critical information is assigned to the wrong student in state databases
Loss of school funding

SSID Help Line

(801) 538-7800
apphelpdesk@schools.utah.gov

R277-419-13. Student Identification and Tracking.
(1)(a) Pursuant to Section 53E-4-308, an LEA shall:

(i) use the SSID system maintained by the Superintendent to assign every student enrolled in a program under the direction of the Board or in a program or a school that is supported by public school funding a unique student identifier; and

(ii) display the SSID on student transcripts exchanged with LEAs and Utah public institutions of higher education.

(b) The unique student identifier:

(i) shall be assigned to a student upon enrollment into a public school program or a public school-funded program;

(ii) may not be the student's social security number or contain any personally identifiable information about the student.

(2)(a) An LEA shall require all students to provide their legal first, middle, and last names at the time of registration to ensure that the correct SSID follows students who transfer among LEAs.

(b) A school shall transcribe the names from the student's birth certificate or other reliable proof of the student's identity and age, consistent with Section 53G-6-603;

(c) The direct transcription of student names from birth certificates or other reliable proof of student identity and age shall be the student's legal name for purposes of maintaining school records; and

(d) An LEA may modify the order of student names, provide for nicknames, or allow for different surnames, consistent with court documents or parent preferences, so long as legal names are maintained on student records and used in transmitting student information to the Superintendent.

(3) The Superintendent and LEAs shall track students and maintain data using students' legal names.

(4) If there is a compelling need to protect a student by using an alias, an LEA should exercise discretion in recording the name of the student.

(5) An LEA is responsible to verify the accuracy and validity of enrollment verification data, prior to enrolling students in the LEA, and provide students and their parents with notification of enrollment in a public school.

(6) An LEA shall ensure enrollment verification data is collected, transmitted, and stored consistent with sound data policies, established by the LEA as required in Rule R277-487.

REMEMBER TO “REFRESH SSID”
- As you are enrolling a new student into Aspire.
- When you update the student’s name or birthdate.
- As a double check, you can always check “Data Quality” when you’re done making edits to see if any records are missing their SSID.
VERIFY THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE
NAMES
- ALWAYS double check the names to make sure they are spelled EXACTLY the same in Aspire, on the b/c, and on the SSID system. It is usually easier to take the extra 5 seconds to double check each record than to pull the record out later when there is an issue.
- Do not update Aspire to match what is on the “Refresh SSID”. If you do not have the birth certificate for the student yet, you can follow-up with that student’s information later. It may be easier if you are correctly marking “birth certificate received” in Aspire.
- Verify names are entered as assigned on the b/c.
  - Does the b/c identify which names is the first / middle / last?
  - If not, do you know the rules for assigning the names to the correct order?
PUNCTUATION
- Make sure punctuation is exactly as listed on the b/c.
  - Apostrophe ( ‘ )(common with Polynesian names) (or ‘ vs ` )
  - Dash or Hyphen ( - ) (not typically common with Hispanic or other names)
  - No spacing before and/or after the hyphen such as “_ -_”
  - Watch for double spaces between names as well. The computerized process is very specific. Something as simple as a double space between names could cause the record to not match.
  - Do not include a “ . ” even if the b/c includes a “ . “
SUFFIX
- Any suffixes need to be entered exactly as entered on the b/c.
  - should not have a period after it.
  - Suffixes such as III should be a capital letter “i” rather than a number.
BIRTHDATE
- Double check to make sure the birthdate is not “today’s date”
- Birthdates should match their grade level, with very few exceptions.
NEW SSID’S
- If you do not find an SSID for the student when you click “Refresh SSID”.
  - We will ask you to check if the student came from Homeschool, Out of State, or Private School.
MAKING LEGAL UPDATES
- If a student has a legal change to their birth certificate or with court documents, make the change.
- After making the change, we also notify other districts the student may have attended to make sure their local SIS records are updated as well.

OTHER NOTES:

Non-Matching Grade Levels
- Watch for students whose grade level does not match between Aspire & Lottery.
- Also watch for students whose grade level does not match between their birthdate and their grade level. Non-matching grade level and birthdate is more common among students with birthdates in the summer – these students are commonly not sent to kinder when their birthdate is so close to the deadline.
- If unsure, you can look a student record up on the Data Gateway to see which grade level they attended last.

PUT THE CONTENT FOR THE FOURTH TAB HERE

https://schools.utah.gov/file/ecc03ffd-ae87-419d-8db6-5c05ac68e1e7

SSIDUserManual.pdf