Special Education Directors,

All school districts and charter schools are required to annually administer the State Performance Plan Indicator 8 Parent Involvement Survey to parents of students with an Individualized Education Program (IEP). The survey will open on February 2 via ADEConnect ESS Data Surveys.

New: The survey application has merged the individual student login codes and parent letters. This feature will make it easier for users to disseminate parent instructions.

If you do not already have access to the survey application or need to add additional users who should have the right to use this information and administer the survey, contact your entity ADEConnect administrator and ask to be assigned the ESS Data Surveys: User role. If additional assistance is needed to be assigned the User Role, use the Help Desk ticketing system via ADEConnect.

Please email the Parent Survey inbox with questions.

DATA MANAGEMENT ALERT    

ESS October 1 Data Collection (ODC) – SPED73 and SPED07 Reports Accurate - Phase II Due Date 1/25 

Thank you for your patience while Exceptional Student Services (ESS) worked with ADE-IT on troubleshooting issues with the reports and functionality for October 1 child count processing. 

The issues are now resolved, and the October 1 reports are now accurate. For SPED students, the AzEDS Portal SPED73 report and the ESS October 1 Data Collection application SPED07 report both provide accurate feedback for students reported in AzEDS served over October 1. 

The October 1 process will close on January 25, 2023, at 5pm. Please ensure your SPED07 count reconciles with the Verification Count submitted in November. If your counts reconcile, continue to monitor your reports through the deadline and no further action is needed.  

Please refer to the updated Important Dates document on the ODC timeline for a complete outline of the due date requirements for this data collection. If you have any questions or concerns, please email ESS Data Management at [email protected].  

DATA MANAGEMENT ALERT   

ESS October 1 Data Collection (ODC) – Phase II Due Date Extended

Exceptional Student Services (ESS) is working with ADE-IT on troubleshooting issues with the reports and functionality for October 1 child count processing.

Since public education agencies (PEAs) cannot utilize reports between systems in reconciling their October 1 counts, the October 1 process will now be closing on January 25, 2023 at 5pm.

ESS expects the reports to function accurately soon, and we will notify the field when this happens. At this time, the SPED07 report has been paused until we can work through the issue with IT. PEAs should still continue working on clearing up any outstanding integrity error  to ensure the most accurate information is submitted to the department.

Thank you for your patience and understanding. Please refer to the updated Important Dates document on the ODC timeline for a complete outline of the due date requirements for this data collection. If you have any questions or concerns, please email ESS Data Management at [email protected].

DATA MANAGEMENT ALERT   

ESS October 1 Data Collection – SPED73 and SPED07 Report Inaccuracies

Exceptional Student Services (ESS) Data Management has identified an issue with some students either showing “N” for Oct 1 Eligible on the SPED73 report or missing from the SPED07 report. Our IT team is currently working to resolve this issue.  Please continue to monitor your INTEG15 report to ensure student integrity errors are corrected so they may populate your reports once the resolution is in place. 

The January 18 Phase II deadline remains in effect at this time.

An alert will be sent when this issue has been resolved. Thank you for your patience.

Please refer to the Important Dates document on the ODC timeline for a complete outline of due date requirements for this data collection, and contact [email protected] with any questions.

Special Education Directors,

Writing better goals and effectively monitoring student progress towards those goals are foundational skills for Related Service Providers. Positive student outcomes can only be achieved when school-based therapists can do both consistently. Good data on good goals leads to effective interventions and allows therapists to write better progress reports in less time. And we know that “time spent on paperwork” is a leading cause of therapist burnout. For these reasons, we are very excited about the next presentation in our series of Related Service Provider Seminars, Creating Goals that Are Easy to Monitor and a Stress-Free Companion Monitoring Tool, with Carlo Vialu, PT, MBA, and Peggy Morris, OTD, OTR/L, BCP. This workshop is designed for Occupational Therapists, Physical Therapists, and Speech-Language Pathologists and will convey ASHA, APTA, and AOTA CEUs. Please share with your staff.

Creating Goals That Are Easy to Monitor and A Stress-Free Companion Monitoring Tool

Presented by ADE/ESS/Special Projects

Hosted by Littleton Elementary School District

Date: Wednesday, January 25, 2023

Time: 8:00 a.m.−3:30 p.m.

Fee: $120 (lunch on your own)

Where: Littleton Elementary School District

Address: 1600 S. 107th Ave, Avondale, AZ 85323

About Carlo Vialu

Carlo served as Director of Physical Therapy for the NYC Department of Education, overseeing a program with over 700 PTs working in more than 1,500 schools. He is the project manager of research on normative data for five mobility tests for school-aged children and co-founder of SeekFreaks.

About Peggy Morris

Peggy is an OT with 30+ years of pediatric experience in early intervention, private practice, and outpatient therapy, but most of her experience and passion are in school-based practice. She coordinates the post-professional MS and OTD programs and school-based certificate programs at Tufts University. She is Board Certified in Pediatrics through the AOTA and is a regular SeekFreaks contributor.

Workshop Description:

Are you ready for an easy way to write goals and monitor progress? Peggy and Carlo will walk you through setting goals that are easy to monitor and creating a monitoring tool that can help you decide whether your student is on track, if it is time to change the intervention, or if it is time to work on more challenging goals.

Stress-free monitoring begins with a well-written goal. While making a goal SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound) is a great start, how many times have we written a SMART goal that contained too many conditions to be easy to measure? So, in the morning, you will learn the three common problems with SMART goals and the four strategies to make your SMART goal easy to monitor. You will practice utilizing Apply EBP’s simple worksheet for goal creation with the guidance of your instructors. You will then go through the three steps to create an accompanying data-collection system. You will gain four tips for making this system user-friendly for different team members and help make informed decisions. You will learn and practice using this data-collection system in making objective decisions about whether your student is on track or if it is time to change the intervention or goal.

Finally, you will learn two additional strategies to elevate your goals further: the Goal Attainment Scale (GAS) for more complex cases and the five steps for creating collaborative interprofessional goals.

Bring sample goals you need to improve and case vignettes that you find challenging. There will be multiple opportunities to practice goal creation, monitoring, decision-making, and interactive Q&A discussions with the instructors. Leave the day with concrete strategies and the confidence to create goals and monitor them meaningfully!

Register for “Creating Goals that are Easy to Monitor and A Stress-Free Companion Monitoring Tool”

If you have questions regarding this training, please email Margaret Egan or email Mitch Galbraith

DATA MANAGEMENT ALERT       

Special Education Data Updates Webinar Wednesday, January 11th 

   The Exceptional Student Services Data Management team will be hosting the next Special Education Data Updates live webinar on Wednesday, January 11th from 2pm – 3pm. This session will cover a variety of data topics that will include (subject to change):

• Reminders 

• October 1 Data Collection Phase II
• October 1 Data Collection Phase III
• Important Dates Document
• Discipline in AzEDS

• Trending topics 

• October 1 Data Collection Phase II
• Homebound/ Home-based/ Homeschooled
• Preschool LRE
• Review of AzEDS SPED Portal Reports
• Review Acronyms Document

• Topics Not in Scope

• Vouchers Data Management

• Top 3 Integrity Errors 

• Q&A    

Registration is required to attend: Register for Special Education Data Updates webinar.

For questions, please contact ESS Data Management via email at [email protected]. 

Special Education Directors,

Please see the following memo regarding preschool outcomes data in AzEDS for fiscal year 2024. In order to streamline the preschool outcome data collection process, the data collection and processing for these submissions will move into one single student accountability system (AzEDS) moving forward. The ESS Early Childhood Special Education and Operations teams will provide targeted technical assistance for this data collection process in March 2023.

If you have any additional technical questions, please email ESS Operations.

Special Education Directors,

Please see the following memo regarding the reporting of discipline data. This communication includes a reminder of discipline data submission elements and a new requirement to submit information for children reassigned to an alternative education program as an alternative to suspension or expulsion or placed into an alternative to a suspension program beginning in fiscal year 2024. This additional reporting requirement was developed in response to feedback provided to Arizona from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) and is designed to ensure that all eligible children with disabilities are served appropriately and equitably.

If you have any questions regarding this requirement, please email ESS Operations.

Special Education Directors,

The ADE/ESS Assistive Technology (AT) team is excited to announce the next 2022–23 national presenter, Mike Marotta, ATP. Mike’s workshop is designed for special educators and related service providers.

“Explore and Identify Google Tools That Can Be Incorporated Into Educational Experiences”

Date: Wednesday, January 18, 2023

Time: 8:00 a.m.−3:30 p.m.

Fee: $21 (breakfast and lunch included)

Where: Sunnyside Unified School District

Address: 2238 East Ginter Road, Tucson, AZ 85706

About Mike Marotta

Mike Marotta, ATP, is the owner of Inclusive Technology Solutions, LLC. Mike has been in the field of Assistive Technology for almost 30 years. His experience revolves around a vast array of accommodations for persons with disabilities and their family/support members. Mike is the Director of the Richard West Assistive Technology Advocacy Center @ Disability Rights New Jersey, is the Founder @EdcampAccessNJ @EdcampAccessInt Co-mod #atchat Wed 8PM ET @BookCreatorApp Ambassador, and is a Raspberry Pi Certified Educator
Mike believes that networking and information-sharing are essential for the successful evaluation, consideration, implementation, and application of technology to support individuals of all abilities.

Workshop Description:

From Chrome apps and extensions to Google tools, Google can support all learners in your classroom. This full-day, in-person workshop will focus on exploring Google tools and identifying ways to incorporate these powerful tools into educational experiences. We will explore the feature match process to ensure a clear rationale for using built-in Chrome OS accessibility features, G Suite tools, and third-party Chrome apps and extensions. You will explore tools to assist students in the areas of reading, writing, and math, as well as with executive functioning skills that include time management, organization, task completion, and focus, to effectively meet the needs of every learner in all environments (classroom, transition, community). 

Register for “Explore and Identify Google Tools That Can Be Incorporated Into Educational Experiences”

If you have questions regarding this training, please email our AT inbox.

DATA MANAGEMENT ALERT

Discipline Data Submissions

Please review the following memo which outlines upcoming changes to discipline data submissions in FY24.

Memorandum of Discipline Data Submissions.

Beginning in the next fiscal year, ESS will require Public Education Agencies (PEAs) to report any instance in which a PEA removes a child with a disability from his/her educational placement for disciplinary purposes into AzEDS via their Student Information System.

NOTE: SPED discipline incidents will still be collected in the ESS Discipline Data Collection application for FY23.  Any discipline data submitted to AzEDS for FY23 will be used for testing purposes only and will not be used for ESS data collections.

For any questions related to special education discipline data submissions, please contact ESS Data Management.