Social Security relies on school officials and teachers to help us correctly pay benefits to students.

Certifying School Attendance

We pay benefits to some students who are between 18 and 19 years old and still in full-time attendance in school. We may ask you to certify that a student is in full-time attendance at your school in order to pay benefits. You can learn the details of this process on our page, For School Officials.

Providing Information About A Child's Disability

We also pay benefits to children who are disabled. In order to determine whether a child is eligible for disability benefits, we may ask you to provide information about his or her academic performance and day-to-day functioning in school.

Sending School Records

If a state Disability Determination Services (DDS) or Social Security needs additional information from a school about a student who has applied for disability benefits, you will receive a letter asking for school records or other information, such as the

• Teacher Questionnaire (Form SSA-5665); and
• Request for Administrative Information (Form SSA-5666).

The information you provide helps the DDS and Social Security determine if the student qualifies for disability benefits.

When you receive a request for school records or other information about a person who has applied for disability, you can choose the method of sending the information that works best for you:

• online to Social Security's secure website; or
• by fax to your state DDS or to Social Security.

The records you send are automatically associated with the applicant's unique disability claim folder.

If you would like to learn more about submitting records online, send an email to electronic-records-express@ssa.gov or call 1-866-691-3061. You may also contact the Professional Relations Office of your state's DDS.

About The Teacher Questionnaire

Social Security uses information from both medical and non-medical sources to decide whether a child qualifies for disability benefits:

• Medical sources include doctors and other health care professionals.
• Non-medical sources include teachers and other people who spend time with the child.

Information from non-medical sources who are familiar with the child is important, because a child's eligibility may be directly related to how well he or she functions at school, at home, or in the community.

When you complete the Teacher Questionnaire (SSA-5665), the information you provide about the way the child functions in school on a day-to-day basis will help us:

• determine the effects of the child's impairment(s) on his or her day-to-day activities;
• compare this child's ability to function with that of other children the same age who have no impairments.

We need this information from you even if the child has been (or was) in your class for only a short time.

Your response is not the only information we will consider when we decide if the child qualifies for disability, but it is very important to us. Your information will help us make our decision.

About The Request For Administrative Information

Social Security uses information from a child's school records, along with all other evidence about the child, to decide whether he or she qualifies for disability benefits.

A state DDS will typically send the Request for Administrative Information to the administrative office in a child's school or to the central administrative office for a school district, depending on where the child's individual academic records are maintained.

The Request for Administrative Information asks questions about the kinds of evaluation, testing, instruction, and special education services the child receives, if any, as well as the kinds of therapy the child may be given. These facts and the information we obtain from copies of evaluations, testing, education plans, and other important school documents, help us form a complete profile of the child and the ways, and extent to which, his or her impairment(s) affects day-to-day functioning.