Web Based Monitoring System

The Compliance Monitoring system was developed to ensure compliance with state and federal special education laws and regulations and to improve the overall quality of education to special education students. The Compliance Monitoring system, however, can be used to monitor any process that requires adherence to a set of standards, a review process and corrective action planning.

The system assists public school districts, charter schools, special education private schools and the state in their efforts to monitor program compliance. The system supports a self-assessment process where the district compiles information on their student record reviews, interviews, special education documents, policies and procedures. This data is submitted electronically through the system for state evaluation. All follow-up activities including desk review, onsite visits, finding reports, Corrective Action Plans (CAPs), and progress reports are tracked within the system.

Features of the Compliance Monitoring system include:

• Student Record Selection

• Focus Area Questions for Student Records

• Documentation Requirements and Guiding Questions

• Documentation Upload

• Student Information System Reports and Complaint Resolution Reports

• Findings Report

• CAP Templates

• Progress Report Templates

• Document Library

• Online Help

• E-mail Notifications

• Administrative tools to maintain tables of standards, guiding questions and other details

• Flexibility and scalability

Benefits of the system include:

• Faster compliance with State and Federal regulations

• A uniform and guided self-assessment process

• Faster and targeted onsite reviews aimed to focus on potential areas of deficiency

• Quicker identification and correction of areas of non compliance issues

• Tracking and reporting of compliance milestones

• Increased efficiency of staff

• Higher level of accountability and reporting

• Ability to adjust to changes in State and Federal laws that affect Special Education

Student Record Reviews

A representative sample of students across all program types and levels is selected for the record reviews. Student records are selected to target specific focus areas such as transition and student discipline.

A Student Record Selection chart is used to manage the student selection and to track progress of the student record reviews.

A comprehensive (user definable) set of Focus Area Questions are designed to elicit compliance within the focus areas. The questions map back to the standard set of criteria that is published each year by the Department. Districts respond to the Focus Area Questions by individual student record or at the summary level. When appropriate, Districts can enter a comment or explanation for their response.

Documentation Requirements Review

Districts perform a self-assessment of program documentation requirements. To assist in the process, the documentation requirements are listed under the criterion to which they are linked. Guiding questions are provided to help determine the adequacy of the documentation.

When the self assessment is complete, the District electronically submits the assessment to the State for their evaluation. The system automatically notifies (via e-mail) the responsible state staff that the District’ self-assessment is ready for review.

Desk Review

State staff will review the self-assessment materials submitted by the District, along with historical compliance review findings, complaint investigation outcomes and student information system data, and make a recommendation concerning the number of days, activities, and staff that will be required for the onsite visit. The desk review includes both the student record review data and documentation review data. Any documents that were uploaded during the self-assessment process are available for viewing. Based on an evaluation of the self-assessment, the reviewer will determine the specific activities that will be performed during the onsite review. The system features the ability to forward desk review recommendations to multiple organization levels.

The Compliance Monitoring system displays the self-assessment findings that were submitted by the District organized by Criterion number. The system features a Desk Review Summary that shows the status of the desk review, as well as the proposed Onsite Activities.

Onsite Reviews

Based on the evaluation during the desk review, a targeted onsite review is scheduled with each District. An Action Plan for onsite review can be printed from the system. Customized Interview Guides that include the questions for the selected interviewees are also generated by the system.

Based on all the information gathered through the reviews, the system automatically publishes a formal Findings Report that identifies the compliance rating for each criterion. This report becomes the basis for the Districts to prepare their Corrective Action Plans to meet compliance for non-compliant criterion. Progress reporting is also managed within the system.

E-mail Notifications

The system features an event driven e-mail system that is used to automatically generate e-mail messages based on certain events throughout the compliance process. For example, when the District submits the self-assessment the system will automatically generate an e-mail message to the State staff person responsible for that District. E-mail notifications also manage the workflow of the review cycles for Finding Reports and CAPs between State staff, supervisors and the directors. Districts are also notified when CAPs and progress reports are due.