Colorado Districts Opt for Software To Help With Special Needs Compliance, Recordkeeping
As new statewide initiatives are enacted, three
Colorado
school districts have purchased a new software platform intended to help
with
compliance and keep up with reporting requirements on special needs
students.
The Boulder Valley, Cherry Creek and Poudre school
districts
all have implemented Excent's
Enrich Web-based special needs software to manage
a number of special student populations ranging from those in special
education
and English language acquisition programs to those in gifted and
talented
programs.
The Enrich software has embedded compliance
validations that
can help teachers make sure they avoid errors as they manage the
progress of
students with disabilities. It also helps with more report-building
features
and data-sharing capabilities than many similar programs, according to
Excent
officials.
The Enrich Individual Education Plan program
is designed to streamline and
organize case management processes like diagnostic assessment results,
transportation scheduling, discipline records and state child-count
reporting.
There is also a built-in, interactive calendar-based dashboard that
helps users
keep track of meetings, deadlines and communication with parents and
providers.
"It was important for us to choose a system that
would be easy
for teachers to use and that would allow us to put all of our student
plans in
one place," said Debbie Van Scoyk, a student plan application specialist
with
Cherry Creek Schools. "We believe that by eliminating all of the silos
of
information across our district, we can help everyone move toward the
same
goal, which is excellence in achievement for all our students."
About the Author
Michael Hart is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and the former executive editor of THE Journal.