The Vermont Agency of Education (AOE), through funding from a 4.9 million dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Education, is in the final stages of developing and implementing a Statewide Longitudinal Data System (SLDS) to support the work of the AOE and Vermont school districts. A significant portion of the federal award supports the creation of a system to automate education data submissions to the state from Supervisory Unions/Supervisory Districts (SU/SD), known as Vertical Reporting. The SLDS is intended to enhance the ability of Vermont to efficiently and accurately manage, analyze, and use education data. The SLDS should help all Vermont education stakeholders to make data-informed decisions to improve student learning and outcomes; as well as to facilitate research to increase student achievement and close achievement gaps. The SLDS also supports state and federal reporting requirements. Since the project started in the fall of 2014, AOE has been working closely with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) on developing various components of the system. The purpose of this memo is to alert stakeholders that AOE, in collaboration with HMH and Student Information System (SIS) vendors, will be deploying the SLDS at the SU/SD level through a tiered approach over the next eight to 12 months. Information is included on which data collection methods will be impacted; SU/SD training that will occur; and funds available to assist with local SIS costs.