District Spotlight

More Functions From Forms How one district transformed a special ed database into a total information management system.

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In its search for software to better manage its special education program, the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County (NC) School District started a technology revolution. Five years ago the district purchased database software designed to track, hold, and manage information about its special needs students. It wasn’t long, however, before Sam Dempsey, director of exceptional-children’s programs for the district, began to see what else the software could do.

Dempsey was no stranger to the challenges of information management in a special education program when he arrived in Winston-Salem in 2000. He had spent nearly 25 years in the field and had worked with a handful of products and vendors. None were a perfect fit. “My experience was that most software vendors, in talking to a potential customer, say, ‘You need to change your process to match what the software will do,’” he explains. “In special education we can’t do that because our process is driven by state and federal law. Special education is so loaded down with regulations that it’s a very complex system. We needed a vendor that was able to design software that truly reflected the process in special education.”

 

Snapshot

Known today as Encore, the software written by the Towson, Maryland–based 4GL School Solutions has evolved from a database into a total information management system, a transformation led by Dempsey himself. First, electronic (“live”) Individual Education Plan (IEP) forms were developed. Then the 300-plus rules that need to be monitored were embedded into the program to be checked automatically. Soon after, 4GL added navigation that guides users through the IEP process and drop-down lists of standard goals and objectives.

Once the IEP process was fully implemented, all of the program’s forms became part of the software. “We realized it’s not just the IEP,” Dempsey says. “There are referral forms, evaluation forms, forms for changing services, forms for preschool, forms for transition out of high school—we have a half-inch-thick book of forms and now all of those forms are part of the software.”

In its current version, the system is completely Web based, which means teachers can work more easily from home. Of the district’s nearly 1,000 special education employees, half are teachers, who generally take work home. Easily 30 percent of those teachers use 4GL. “Just allowing folks to work from home made a huge difference,” Dempsey says.

Keeping all of its students’ records in an electronic file also frees up space—80 four-drawer filing cabinets’ worth, to be precise. “Most [software] vendors didn’t understand how important it is to keep the record for a child,” Dempsey says. “The state or federal government might make changes in law that affect forms every year, and a child could be in special education for 12 years. We have to have the real form from that IEP meeting five years ago. We have to have the old versions and the new versions. Because we make the changes electronically, you can never pick up the wrong form.”

Other benefits include an increase in accuracy and a decrease in time and effort dedicated to paperwork. “It was not uncommon to take more than two hours to prepare a draft IEP for a meeting,” Dempsey says. “Now we have teachers who can do it in 15 minutes. That’s a significant savings in time that can be redirected into instruction services.”

This reallocation of time can be seen in the IEP meetings as well as in schools across the district. “It changes the nature of the IEP meeting,” Dempsey says. “Before, a significant amount of time was spent shuffling papers. Now we spend less time worrying about the process and more time talking about the child.”

Even if teachers run into trouble while using the program, the district is able to come to their aid immediately because of the software’s shadowing capability. “We can get online and watch every keystroke they make, but we don’t have the time or the inclination to do that,” Dempsey says. “But what happens is when a teacher is having a problem, [the shadowing feature] changes the help-desk process.”

On a larger scale, the system helps school administrators get a better understanding of the special education program and how well it is working in their individual schools. “Principals have had problems for years,” Dempsey says. “Most do not have special education backgrounds, and the only way they can know what is going on is to get up from behind their desk, walk down the hall and into the special ed classroom, dig through the filing cabinet, and look through the forms. They had no way of really knowing what was going on.”

Principals now receive weekly reports that alert them to overdue meetings, annual reviews that were missed, and other things that are noncompliant. “This means [the principal] gets to see it and deal with it at the school level,” Dempsey says. “We’ve set up a way to put information in the principals’ hands that they really need. They’ve never had access to that before. Our principals love it.”

Other reports help the program uncover issues in staffing and resources. Because the data show not only how many children are in a program but also their specific needs, the district is able to create true equity across all of its schools. Dempsey discovered inequities at both ends of the spectrum—too many students with too few resources and vice versa—and everything in between. In the first year alone, Winston-Salem/Forsyth saved $800,000 through informed caseload management and personnel assignment. “That wasn’t taking anything away,” he explains. “We were able to direct that back into appropriate instructional services for children—materials, supplies, additional related services. You can’t spend money effectively if you don’t assign personnel equitably, and you can’t assign personnel equitably unless you see the real data on caseloads.”

These benefits foster a less stressful work environment for teachers, and it shows. Winston-Salem/Forsyth County’s turnover rate has decreased 20 percent, and interest in working for the district is on the rise. “I get comments like, ‘I heard you have a special education management system that really works,’ and ‘I’m tired of working with all the paper,’” Dempsey notes.

The district also provides information and opportunity for formal and informal staff development activities. “Because we have to provide ongoing support, we have help sessions every week,” Dempsey says. “We have certified special education teachers running those sessions for other teachers, and that makes it easier for people to come in and ask questions about teaching.”

Dempsey is planning even more enhancements. First on the list is electronic signature capability. “If we can get electronic signature, it will be possible to have completely electronic files. We’re talking about that now.” Also in the works is a module for limited-English-proficient students.

But the greatest advancement could prove to be a drill-down feature that has the potential to change the way key research is conducted. Because the software tracks information down to the individual, it can provide a detailed look at which teaching methods are working and which are not. “What if you had the capability to look at the whole population?” Dempsey asks. Doing so has the potential to dramatically change how instructional decisions are made in special education.”

Jennifer Monroe is a freelance writer based in New Hampshire.

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