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Ed-Fi RFC 27(a) - Data Standard 6.0 Preview 1

Ed-Fi RFC 27(a) - Data Standard 6.0 Preview 1

Owned by Stephen Fuqua
Last updated: Jun 25, 2025 by Maria Ragone

Ed-Fi Request for Comment 27: Ed-Fi Data Standard 6.0 (Preview 1)
Product: Ed-Fi-Sponsored Standard
Affects: Ed-Fi Resources API
Obsoletes: --
Obsoleted By: --
Status: WORKING DRAFT

Ed-Fi Alliance
May 16, 2025

Synopsis

This Request for Comments (RFC) includes materials that describe proposed additions and revisions to the Ed-Fi Data Standard. This draft material is intended to support review and comment as well as support early usage; users of this material are advised that this work is still under development.

RFC 27 merges the Educator Preparation Data Model (EPDM, formerly known as “TPDM”) extension into the core Ed-Fi Data Standard. This includes both the core and community versions of EPDM. In addition, it enhances the studentSpecialEducationProgramAssociationsentity with new IEP date fields and renames existing IEP date fields for clarity.

Contents

Overview

The Ed-Fi Alliance has adopted a cadence of releasing breaking changes to the Ed-Fi Data Standard on alternating years. 2025 is such a year and the next release of the Ed-Fi Data Standard - and consequently the Ed-Fi Resources API - will be labeled version 6.0. The goals of this year's changes include:

  1. Merge the Educator Preparation Data Model (EPDM, fka TPDM) into the core Ed-Fi Data Standard, and expand it to include a new use case around apprenticeships.

  2. Enhance the data model to better support student record transfer, particularly for IEP data as a student moves from one school to another.

  3. Improve collection of data in the assessment, intervention, and CTE domains.

  4. Modify elements of the core data model that encounter friction in real-world usage, for example, by splitting large entities that may be modified by multiple parties.

  5. To the extent possible, bring the Data Standard terminology more closely in alignment with the API definition.

Other goals may emerge in coming months, and some of the goals above might not be realized in the final 6.0 release in Q4 of 2025.

This RFC provides the first preview of changes for version 6.0. The remainder of the document will focus only on those changes that have already been made and are ready for community review.

Use Cases

Educator Preparation

Combining data from pre-enrollment (recruitment and application), through enrollment (course work and clinical placement and assessment) out into the classroom (surveys and data sharing with Local Education Agencies), the Educator Preparation Data Model (EPDM) allows an Educator Preparation Provider (EPP) to understand and answer key questions relating to teacher candidate development (are enough of my candidates completing and getting certified) all the way down to individual candidate/student performance.

EPDM has been used by the Texas Education Agency and by several EPP’s within the state of Texas, and other states are evaluating how to improve their educator preparation program with the help of EPDM-based data collection.

EPDM was launched in 2021 as a “sponsored” extension to the Ed-Fi Unifying Data Model (UDM). In spite of being an extension, it has been packaged directly into the releases of the Ed-Fi ODS/API ever since. There is also a “community” extension with more EPDM-related entities, which has not been pre-packaged and widely available like the core EPDM.

Merging the EPDM core and community extensions into the core Ed-Fi Data Standard will ensure that the model has greater visibility and more consistent availability across Ed-Fi deployments. Furthermore, it will reduce technical maintenance burden placed on the Ed-Fi API platform development program, which currently must orchestrate extra steps to include the extension into the packaged releases.

There are minor breaking changes in the properties on EPDM entities. The primary impact on existing EPP usage is at the level of the API: previously, EPDM entities were accessed at the URL path /tpdm/<entity>, and this will now become /ed-fi/<entity>.

IEP Mobility

The Moving with the Mission project has a goal of empowering seamless IEP transitions for all military children. The project is working to establish a cross-standard specification for packaging and moving student IEP information from one school to another. The schema for this specification was drawn from requirements defined at the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) and utilizes data elements defined in the Ed-Fi Data Standard, SIF, and CEDS.

In a careful review of the schema, the Ed-Fi Alliance found one element missing from the Ed-Fi Data Standard: the due date for the next IEP evaluation, which must occur within three years from the prior evaluation. In adding this, the Alliance noticed an opportunity to also add an interim review date, which typically occurs annually.

Data Model

Educator Preparation

The Data Model is mostly unchanged since Data Standard 5.x; the existing documentation continues to represent the entities, attributes, and relationships accurately, with the following exceptions:

  • Removed ProgramGatewayDescriptor from entity PerformanceEvaluation

  • Replaced GenderDescriptor with GenderIdentity (optional string) in the following entities:

    • ApplicantProfile

    • Staff

    • Candidate

    • RecruitmentEventAttendance

  • Renamed EvaluationRatings to `PerformanceEvaluationRatings

    • This entity includes an array called results. The objects in this array formerly included a property called rating, which has been renamed as numericRating. This can be seen in the following JSON snippet:

Before

After

Before

After

"results": [ { "rating": 999.999, "ratingResultTitle": "string", "resultDatatypeTypeDescriptor": "string" } ],
"results": [ { "numericRating": 999.999, "ratingResultTitle": "string", "resultDatatypeTypeDescriptor": "string" } ],

  • Removed all properties previously marked as deprecated:

    • CandidateEducatorPreparationProgramAssociation.MajorSpecialization

    • CandidateEducatorPreparationProgramAssociation.MinorSpecialization

    • CandidateIndicator.Period

    • Candidate.OldEthnicityDescriptor

    • Candidate.CohortYear

    • Candidate.Aid

    • Candidate.ProgramComplete

    • Candidate.DegreeSpecialization

    • Candidate.ApplicationReference

    • EducatorPreparationProgram.EducatorPreparationProgramType

 

Previously, the canonical Ed-Fi descriptor set for EPDM included “tpdm” in their namespace URI values. This is no longer necessary.

For example: uri://tpdm.ed-fi.org/CertificationRouteDescriptor becomes uri://ed-fi.org/CertificationRouteDescriptor

Special Education

Special Education (SpEd) data elements are included in the Alternative and Supplemental Services Domain. This preview release does not appreciably change the domain’s data model, it merely adds two properties and clarifies the purpose of two existing properties on the StudentSpecialEducationProgramAssociationsentity:

  • New Properties

    • iepEvaluationDueDate: The due date for the next special education evaluation.

    • iepReviewDueDate: The due date for the next IEP review.

  • Renamed Properties

    • lastEvaluationDate → iepLastEvaluationDate: The date of the last special education evaluation.

    • iepReviewDate → iepLastReviewDate: The date of the last IEP review.

API Specifications

The following link provides detailed information on new and modified API endpoints: DS 6 Preview 1 Compared to DS 5.2

The attachment below contains the entire Open API (“swagger”) specification file for Data Standard 6.0.0-pre1. You can download this file and open in several different tools (list below). Although there is no live server available for testing these commands, these tools show in detail what the HTTP requests would look like for all resources.

Tools that can read this file include:

Feedback

Please contact @Maria Ragone via e-mail or using Ed-Fi’s Slack subscription to provide feedback on this RFC.