Updated 5/2/2013

Common Support Questions 2

See also Common Support Questions set 1 and set 3.

These are questions that the ESCs have been asking in response to the large number of duplicates that have recently been created.

(1) Can the ESCs get a list of the students that are duplicates by district? Will TEA be contacting the districts with duplicate issues?

Once the records have been retired, our intent is to send the list to at least the 36 districts that have ten or more duplicates. 

(2)  Have there been any updates to the documentation for handling UID?

We have revised and added to a generic user guide in order to tailor it to Texas. It’s under internal review now, and we hope to release it to you by the end of next week. 

(3) What actions will LEAs have to take after a duplicate is retired?

LEA staff will need to use one of the two options we have documented to re-assign the correct Unique ID to those students who were erroneously assigned a new Unique ID, and to update the Master records where required.  An LEA that receives a list of retired IDs from TEA should use verify the duplicate UIDs have been retired and notify the ESC UID Champions if any outstanding duplicate UIDs still need to be retired.

(4) If the only thing that is different on a submission record is the district number, will this cause a near match?

No, that will not cause a near match. 

(5) Some districts assigned IDs correctly, but other district are assigning those same IDs to their students and have updated the master record erroneously with their student's social security numbers and DOBs, causing PID errors for our districts.

Notify us if there is a shared UID; shared UIDs have to be separated by TEA. If this issue persists, we can ask an ESC Champion to assist with retraining. 

(6) Could we have the system ask, “Are you sure you want to create a new student?”

We think this is a great idea, and we have already talked internally about requesting an enhancement like this to the system.

(7) Is there anything we can do to help clean up or analyze these duplicates?

The main thing you can do is to keep reinforcing to LEA staff to make good match decisions and encourage them to communicate with you whenever they are uncertain or have a problem. Help us by retraining or making a support call when you know or believe a user needs that extra assistance.

Also, advise LEA staff about the situations that cause an ID to be created in error. The most common instance we have seen is when a user clicks Create New ID instead of working a near match. However, the problem can also occur if staff input a student who should be a match yet the match is not detected by the Unique ID system. This occurs when staff update student demographic data (for example last name, or S# to SSN) as they are entering the new student’s information. The student’s information should be entered as it was by the previous district, even if that entry contains errors. After the near match is worked in Unique ID, the demographic data can be corrected.

Many extra thanks for what you have been doing to assist with this situation!

See also Common Support Questions set 1 and set 3.