Added January 28, 2009; Last updated May 2025
Pursuant to Colorado Revised Statute §23-1-121(4)(c), the Colorado Department of Higher Education (CDHE) shall work cooperatively with each institution of higher education that offers an educator preparation program to obtain any data requested by the department. The Department of Higher Education uses this data to support the Colorado Department of Education (CDE) in preparing a report to the House and Senate Education Committees on enrollment in and review of educator preparation programs in Colorado and to link Colorado educators to the preparation program from which they graduated as part of the Educator Identifier System (C.R.S. §22-68.5).The Ed Prep file in SURDS will be linked to HR data from the Colorado Department of Education (CDE) to report on recent graduates’ district placement, mobility and retention, and educator performance evaluation ratings among other metrics. This information will be available to educator preparation programs to inform curriculum and ongoing program improvement. Data for each institution, as well as a state-level analysis is available to the public in a CDE online dashboard Located at.
GENERAL
A row in the file is a STUDENT x TERM x ENDORSEMENT PROGRAM. Include all STUDENTS x TERMS IN THE ACADEMIC YEAR in which the student is accepted into and enrolled in courses in an endorsement program. This includes teacher, principal, administrator and special education endorsement area programs, as well as any endorsement listed in the Field Definitions. If students are enrolled in more than one endorsement program, then they need to be shown as one record for each endorsement.
Only report students in terms in which they were enrolled in such endorsement programs, even if they were enrolled in other programs at your institution. For example, if Jane Doe is in fall SURDS enrollment as a history major but was not accepted into and enrolled in classes in an endorsement program in fall, and then in spring is in SURDS enrollment as a history major and also had been accepted into and enrolled in classes in an endorsement program, then report Jane Doe's spring enrollment in the Educator Preparation File, but not her fall enrollment.
For public institutions of higher education only, data reported about a student in the Educator Preparation File should match similar data reported on SURDS enrollment to the extent possible. All student x term combinations in the Educator Preparation File for an institution should also be in a SURDS enrollment file for the institution for the academic year. August Educator Preparation Files should cover the academic year ending with the immediately prior spring term.
ENDORSEMENT PROGRAMS BY INSTITUTION
Each program’s designated contacts will receive a complete list of the endorsement programs offered at their institution for which enrollment should be reported in the Teacher Ed File. That information can also be found at CDE’s Program Finder, which is a program listing database that is maintained by educator preparation program staff. Additionally, you can locate degree programs and CIP codes on the CDHE website at https://highered.colorado.gov/Data/Degrees.aspx .
The submission windows for the 2025 collections are as follows:
Please login to SURDS and submit your file. Once you have submitted a file with no remaining errors, please finalize it by “signing off” on the file.
Completers are identified as those who have completed a licensure/endorsement program and are eligible to receive institutional recommendation for licensure. Please see the field definition (23 62) to ensure both conditions have been met before a record for a candidate is marked with a “1” which would indicate yes, both apply.
Should you encounter any technical problems accessing the website or submitting your file, please contact Chris Ammons (chris.ammons@dhe.state.co.us).
