Race vs. Ethnicity Fields in Core

Ashley Foltiny
Ashley Foltiny
Ninth Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Participant
in Blackbaud K–12 Education Solutions™ General Discussions

Hi all,

Curious to see how other schools are tracking race/ethnicity in core. We have historically used the ethnicity field because that is what was available. Now that there is a separate and additional field for race, I'm wondering what other schools are doing. Are you using both? Any technical reason to use one over the other? Thanks!

Comments

  • Chris Felinski
    Chris Felinski
    Eighth Anniversary Kudos 2 Name Dropper Participant

    @Ashley Foltiny - we use the ethnicity field. The technical reason is for synching purposes between Core and Raisers Edge via ConnectRE. ConnectRE maps the ethnicity field that is in Core to the race field that is in Raiser's Edge. The race field in Core does not go over to Raisers Edge with the ConnectRE sync.

  • Kate Warner
    Kate Warner
    Ninth Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Participant

    @Ashley Foltiny One advantage of the Race field is that it allows you to choose multiple races/ethnicities rather than just “multiracial.” It also breaks out Hispanic as a “yes/no” option rather than as its own race, which is more in line with most surveys we're asked to complete through various organizations. Having said that, at this time we're still using both fields.

  • Rick Geyer
    Rick Geyer
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 2 Name Dropper Participant

    @Ashley Foltiny We just use ethnicity. We have to report on demographic data every year to several different agencies. Most of those places we have to report to require the numbers to match (i.e. - If you have 500 students, then your ethnicity breakdown should also equal 500 once entered). Since this is a case, it makes more sense for us to use “multiracial” in the drop down instead of allowing users to select multiple race check boxes.

  • Jason Whitaker
    Jason Whitaker
    Fifth Anniversary Name Dropper Participant Facilitator 1

    @Ashley Foltiny We use both, mainly because we wanted to follow the NAIS data definitions for those fields to be able to report on them. However, we also use Connect RE to sync Core data to Raiser's Edge, and currently it maps Ethnicity from Core to Race in RE so we lose what we may have had for race in RE. I'm curious to know if this is on the development radar for Connect RE! @Bryna Gleich maybe?

  • Bryna Gleich
    Bryna Gleich Blackbaud Employee
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 3 Name Dropper Participant

    @Jason Whitaker:
    I'm curious to know if this is on the development radar for Connect RE! @Bryna Gleich maybe?

    Unfortunately I don't know the answer to that. That's a question for Product Management. Keep watch for a product roadmap webinar session. Sorry, I don't have details ont hat part of the roadmap at this time.

Categories