Success Stories
D.C. Everest Area School District (Wisconsin)
Addressing the Problem
When Trudy DeSimons became Director of Pupil Services and Special Education in the D.C. Everest Area School District in 2003, she discovered the processes in place were extremely laborious and time consuming for everyone involved.
At that time, according to Trudy, “Every page of every IEP was a separate PDF form that my secretary had to construct box-by-box. Teachers had to open every page individually to print out a 17-20 page IEP. The special education record-keeping and tracking system was quite inadequate and inefficient.”
Trudy began to look into different systems, with the goal of increasing efficiency. The special education teachers and district technical staff assisted in the review.
Moving to an Online Solution
“When we looked at EXCENT® Tera,” said Trudy, “what we liked immediately was the Word format, which seemed very easy to use, and GET’s ability to develop our state forms for use in the system. Other more database-oriented products didn’t offer that kind of format. The biggest plus was the web-based electronic record keeping and anytime/anywhere access for our staff.”
The decision was made to implement the EXCENT Tera special education data management solution starting in September 2004.
Getting Up and Running
In August 2004, before school started, GET conducted a two-day “train-the trainer” workshop for a volunteer group of special education teachers and therapists from each school, who then went on to develop additional training sessions for their colleagues.
“Most of our staff were thrilled with the system,” said Trudy. “Everyone at D.C. Everest used it from the beginning. Our ‘sink-or-swim’ approach worked out really well. Everyone had to get on board, eliminating any potential problems from using two systems simultaneously.”
The first few months were hectic, according to Trudy, but with immediate help from GET when questions arose and after-school sessions conducted by Trudy when needed, “everything was running smoothly by January.”
Improving Efficiency and Saving Time
Trudy and the district special education staff immediately noted that they were saving countless hours with EXCENT Tera, thanks to its built-in goals and objectives, its compatibility with their district student database, and its ability to easily satisfy state reporting requirements. They found the built-in reports convenient and easy to use, and any additional reports that were needed could be customized quickly for a small fee.
According to Trudy, “Now we can quickly aggregate and disaggregate data, which was formerly a very laborious process. If another district makes a request for information on a transfer student, we just pull up the student’s records and respond immediately. We are able to directly import and export student files to our neighboring district, which also uses EXCENT Tera. Another major benefit is that we can easily review case loads and make decisions about case management issues.”
Helping Teachers Work Together
The D.C. Everest Area School District covers 162 square miles, and many teachers live far away from their schools. “Because they can collaborate online from home, distance is no longer a factor,” said Trudy. EXCENT Tera has made it much easier for teachers to manage students’ transition from one school to another. “For example, when a student moves up from one of our elementary schools to the middle school,” said Trudy, “he or she is added to the middle school teachers’ student list. Special education teachers in both schools can work together to create the student’s IEP for the next grade, and the therapists can also easily weigh in and add their recommendations.”
When the state conducted a routine audit of the district and requested some changes in how teachers were writing IEP goals, EXCENT Tera allowed teachers to work together to address the issue. According to Trudy, “EXCENT Tera provided our teachers with individualized professional development as they helped each other out—a kind of context-based learning that was really effective.”
Improving Services to Students
The benefits to students have been enormous, according to Trudy. “Because our teachers can collaborate so easily, our IEPs are much higher-quality than in the past.
“Our teachers were drowning in paperwork before. Required paperwork in the IEP process is still excessive, but the burden has been greatly eased, freeing up valuable time for teachers to focus on individual student needs and programming, which has really improved around the district. We feel that we can now focus on our core task, which is to educate and support our special needs students.”
Moving into Direct Billing for Medicaid School-Based Services
In the fall of 2007, the district decided to purchase the EXCENT Medicaid add-on module and is now using the software to bill the state directly for all Medicaideligible services provided to students with special needs, such as therapy, nurse visits, and transportation.
“The new EXCENT module is saving us time and money,” said Trudy, “since we are increasing our rate of Medicaid reimbursement and receiving our reimbursements in a more timely manner.” With information shared seamlessly between the EXCENT modules, the district saves time and makes fewer errors in billing. The system also ensures that no Medicaid-eligible services are overlooked.
Looking to the Future
The EXCENT solution has more features and benefits still to be explored, according to Trudy. “We plan to look into EXCENT’s customization capability much more and take our use of the system to the next level. Our teachers are exploring, or in some cases accidentally discovering, untapped features and sharing them with each other. They know they can take EXCENT much further than they have today.”