The School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS), a nationally representative survey of U.S. K-12 public schools, is managed by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) within the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences. SSOCS collects detailed information from public schools on the incidence, frequency, seriousness, and nature of violence affecting students and school personnel. SSOCS also collects information on the programs, practices, and policies that schools have in place to prevent and reduce crime. Data from this collection can be used to examine the relationship between school characteristics and violent crimes in public schools. SSOCS has been conducted eight times, with the survey cycle covering the 2019-20 school year being referred to by the acronym SSOCS:2020. The latest administration of SSOCS was conducted by NCES, and the data collection was administered by the U.S. Census Bureau. Out of a sample of 4,800 public schools, a total of 2,370 submitted completed questionnaires, for a weighted response rate of 54.1 percent. This manual is designed to assist users of the public-use SSOCS:2020 data file and offers information about the SSOCS:2020 administration, including its purpose, sample design, data collection methods, and data processing procedures. The manual also contains a copy of the SSOCS:2020 questionnaire instrument (appendix A), as well as information specific to the SSOCS:2020 public-use data file, including a list of variables and the record layout of the fixed-format ASCII file (appendix B).