Districts that share their student rosters with Formative via a bulk-rostering with Clever, Classlink, or OneRoster, can opt-in to sharing student demographic data. While districts can select to share multiple data points with Formative, the five demographic data categories supported in Formative reporting are:
Gender
Race
Birth/Residence data
Economically Disadvantaged (ED)
Special Education (SPED)
Limited English Proficiency (LEP)
When student demographic data is shared, performance on Formative activities by these data points will be displayed for teachers and admins on the individual activity's Insights tab.
Teachers and coaches use this view to look for subgroup trends. The demographic chart lives in the Insights tab and uses the same demographic breakdown data that is shared.
Default Selection: All eligible demographic filters auto-select on load (we exclude birth/residence data, and plan to continue excluding those).
Single Chart: One stacked bar chart shows All Students plus a bar for each selected subgroup.
Color & Segments: Each stacked segment aligns with score thresholds (color + category) and scales to that subgroup’s average percentage.
Ordering: Groups are organized by category (race & ethnicity, gender, LEP, ED, SPED) and alphabetical within each.
Tooltips: Hover to see student counts and percentage breakdowns.
Print View: Prints the chart only (dropdowns are non-printable).
Filtering: Deselecting items removes those bars; reselecting adds them back seamlessly.
Resilience: Subgroups with zero students are hidden, and if no demographics are visible, you’ll see an empty state prompting selection.
The same supported data points will also be available as filtering options on Teacher Tracker reports and Admin (Team) Tracker reports
Sharing Demographic Data with Formative
For demographics to be sent over steps need to be taken both on the client's side and on Formative's side. Follow the instructions below per your selected rostering solution, and then reach out to Formative Support with a request to enable demographics on the Formative side as well.
Once all steps have been completed, the demographic data will appear in Formative within 24 hours.
Clever Sharing for Administrators
Your District must currently be set up with the Formative Rostering app to import demographics into Formative, if you would like to initiate Clever rostering for your district, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager, or Onboarding Specialist.
Log in to your Clever Dashboard: Go to your district's Clever Admin Portal.
Select the Application: Find the Formative Rostering app and click on its name.
Go to Settings: Click the Settings tab on the application's overview page.
Find Field Access: Scroll down to the "Field Access" section and click on Advanced settings.
Customize Fields: Select Customize fields shared with Formative and then Customize fields.
Select Demographic Data:
On the "Edit Student Fields" page, you'll see available fields on the left and shared fields on the right.
Move fields like gender, race, home_language, ell_status, frl_status, and iep_status to the right column to share them.
Save Changes: Click Next through the pages and then Save to apply your selections.
Sync Data: Allow time for the nightly sync or trigger a sync; the data will be available in the application after the next sync cycle.
Reach out to support@formative.com to notify us that you have enabled demographics for import, and request we enable demographics on our side.
Classlink Sharing for Administrators
We require the demographic fields to be in specific naming format when received from Classlink in order to be able to import for SPED, ED, and EL.
Extra demographics can be provided in metadata fields CL.ed, CL.sped, and/or CL.lep on the demographic rows/objects being imported. We also support CL.economicdisadvantagestatus, CL.ideaiepstatus, and CL.englishlearnerstatus.
For Formative, your Classlink admin should:
Enable metadata sharing
Enable basic demographics (race/gender/place of birth/ YoB)
Verify extra demographics are shared (these require the additional files and enabling of metadata)
Reach out to Formative Support with a request to enable demographics on the Formative side
Oneroster Sharing for Administrators
Sharing of demographics can vary by SIS used to integrate with Formative, if you would like to initiate demographic sharing with your OneRoster setup, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager, or Onboarding Specialist.
If your OneRoster is a SFTP setup, extra demographics (EL, SPED, ED) can be provided in SFTP uploads by uploading additional files named lepStatus.csv, edStatus.csv, spedStatus.csv, or extraDemographics.csv. Files should have a heading row indicating which columns are email, sped, lep, or ed. Each row contains the student's email address plus the extra demographics included indicating '1', 'y', 'true', or 'yes' if the student is in the given group.
Make sure you enable the option for demographics in the export/API setup
Reach out to Formative Support with a request to enable demographics on the Formative side
Manual Method
Demographics can also be set manually and viewed manually from the individual student management profile