The Nuts and Bolts of SEIS

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July 2019

Riverside County SELPA

Adapted from SEIS and SELPA training documents

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Presented by

Corey Stacy, Data Specialist

corey@rcselpa.org

Today’s Training Will Go Over…

• Basics of the SEIS system.
• How to monitor your caseload and navigate your way through SEIS.
• The Future, Current, and Historical IEPs and the Student Record.
• Important Parts of the Future IEP.
• Amendments and Attachments
• Important Changes to Data Fields

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Basic System Structure

IEP Lifecycle�Terms to know: Student Record, Future IEP, Current IEP, Historical IEPs�

Forms for the

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Future IEP

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are automatically created and contain all of this information from the Student Record. Changes on the Future IEP will update the Student Record.

Each Teacher is notified of the new student on their caseload.

IEP “Team” holds the IEP meeting using the

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Future IEP

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forms.

Special Ed Teacher, LSH, OT, Resource Teacher;

all who are assigned

Service Providers for the student enter their own

info & goals for the student onto the

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Future IEP

Case Manager Affirm/Attests the IEP, creating the

Current IEP

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which is read-only.

An editable copy is also saved as the new

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Future IEP

If there is an existing

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Current IEP

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It is placed into the

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Historical IEP folder

Future IEP

Current IEP

History IEP

Future/Current/History Demystified

Future IEP

The Future IEP is a whiteboard. It is a workspace. The members of the IEP team can write on it and erase from it to make it look like an accurate representation of the IEP meeting held.

Current IEP

If we want to preserve what is on the whiteboard, we take a picture of it. Taking a picture is Affirming and Attesting. The current IEP is the photograph of the Future IEP. It is a frozen moment in time that cannot be changed. Until the Future IEP is changed by someone, the Current IEP and Future IEP will look the same.

History IEP

When it is time to hold a new IEP, we go into the Future IEP, make the whiteboard look like the new IEP and take a new picture. The new picture becomes the Current IEP. The old Current IEP gets put into the photo album of Historical IEPs.

Affirming/Attesting

The Forgot Password utility will send an email to your email address on your SEIS user account. The email will include a link to reset your password.

Homepage���

• Local News Items posted by SELPA�
• Receipts and follow up info on requests you have sent to the LEA/SELPA

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• “Electronic sticky notes” of students added and/or removed from your caseload

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• Current and Pending student counts

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• IEP status

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• Meeting Alerts

Upper Menu Bar

Students Menu

• Access IEPs and Student Records
• Add Student Request
• Student Change Form

Your User Account Profile

• Change Password

Icons

• Print Queue
• ALL IEP forms are sent to the Print Queue and can be printed anytime within 72 hours
• Message Center
• Recycle Bin

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Your Caseload and Managing Your Caseload Easily

Homepage Notices���

The Students graphic on the Home Page is a quick way to look at the students on your caseload. You can click on the section of the circle, the color block below, or the name to get to either your Eligible or Pending students on your caseload.

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Unaffirmed IEPs/Amendments/Unsigned IEPs will track IEPs that have had meetings, but have not yet been Affirmed and Attested, Amendments that are still open, and IEPs that are marked as not signed.

Meeting Alerts will alert you to upcoming IEPs, Triennials, Upcoming Initial Evaluations, and 30 Day Interim Placements. These pull from the Next Annual and Next Eval date fields on the Future IEP and the Initial Dates at the bottom of the Eligibility page. If these notices are incorrect, dates will need to be corrected in the IEP.

Let’s Look at Your Caseload�In SEIS the term “Caseload” just means you have access to the student in the system.

These links will give access to various student lists.

You will probably use the Student IEPs list most frequently as it is the most direct access to the IEP side of SEIS.

However, you can also get to the students on your caseload by going to Caseload, Eligible Students, Pending Students, and IEP Dates.

Each of these will pull up your caseload list and allow you further access to IEPs, but each has different information listed for you to view immediately.

IEP List Page�

Consistent with the other list pages the IEP list page has a collapsible filter and navigation column on the right side.

Hide Filter Options to expand the page, or scroll to the right to see the IEP icons.

Icons to the left fulfill the following functions:

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CASEMIS Error Check

Affirm/Attest

Go to the Student Record

Eligible Student

Pending Eligibility Student

IEP List Page�With Filter Icons Hidden��

Options on this page are available based on:

• Your Case Manager status for each student
• Student Eligibility Status
• Historical IEP, (if any)
• Affirmed Progress Reports (if any)
• Student age for doing DRDP
• Student DRDP history (if any)

Icons:

Opens items that can be editable; Future IEP, Progress Report, DRDP

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Opens Affirmed/Historical Items

Opens Current IEP

Need to Add a Student?

Use the Add Student Form to request the student be added to your caseload from your SEIS admin. Entering Comments is VERY useful! There are several different reasons why a student may need to be added to your caseload. An explanation makes this process easier.

Adding a Student for an Initial Referral

At what point should you put in an Add Student Request for a student undergoing an Initial Evaluation?

1. As soon as the student is referred for SpEd assessment?
2. As soon as you obtain parent consent for Initial assessment?
3. As soon as possible, even if the referral hasn’t occurred yet so you can create the Assessment Plan in SEIS?
4. Any time before the Initial IEP is held?
5. Any time is fine so long as the student is in SEIS for CASEMIS reporting?

Each district may have different procedures to follow regarding when to request that students be added into SEIS, but the point we have to have them entered in is #2.

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Need to Remove/Change a Student?

Use the Student Change Form to request a student be removed from your caseload or any other appropriate changes that need to be made to students on your caseload.

Some options may be different depending on the Eligibility Status of the Student in question. Again, Comments are helpful!

Where Do Your Requests Go?

• When a you make a request to add/exit/change eligibility etc. via the Add Student or Student Change forms a record of the request is saved on your homepage.
• You SEIS Admin will see your request on their homepage and they can process this request.
• Once they have processed the request you will be able to see it on your homepage notifications.
• If a request is not being done in a timely matter check in with your local SEIS system manager.

New Additions and Removed Students�“Electronic Sticky Notes”

• These are just notifications, by deleting the notifications you will not affect your caseload.
• Keep these numbers at a zero to see quickly if you had a student removed or added to your caseload.

User Types and Responsibilities

IEPs

Current IEP�Forms are Read-only PDF�Can have additions to document Addendums or Corrections.

• Reflects the most recently completed IEP meeting.

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• Will be the same as the Future IEP when it is first Affirmed and Attested.
• However, as the Future IEP is updated with changes in the school year, school of attendance, or changes via Amendments held, the Current IEP will never change.
• It will remain a frozen moment in time reflecting what occurred on the date of the IEP meeting.

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Navigating in SEIS�

Let’s take a look at SEIS and find out different ways to navigate in the system.

Starting Your IEP

Get to the Future IEP by click on Student IEPs under Students in the Upper Navigation Bar.

Current IEP

Future IEP

Historical IEP/s

Editing the Future IEP

• Click the Pencil icon to open the data entry screen for each page.
• Click the Printer to send a pdf of the page to the Print Que.
• Use the selection boxes to select multiple form to be printed

Editing the Future IEP

• There are two basic sections to the IEP form page.
• The data entry section, on the left side.
• The Student info and navigation section to the right.
• CASEMIS fields will be labeled in color.
• This will be blue during most of the year, but turn red during CASEMIS seasons.

IEP Dates

• Only the IEP Date and the Last Eval are reported to CASEMIS
• They want the date of the LAST full IEP meeting and the last Evaluation (Triennial)
• The IEP Date field should NOT be entered until the meeting actually happens.
• Entering future dates that may change will lead to invalid data and CASEMIS errors.
• Until you are holding the meeting you should not record that meeting date in SEIS.
• The other highlighted date field Original SPED Entry Date
• The very first time the student received Special Ed, even if they had returned to Gen Ed several times.
• This date is treated like a birthday. Do not change it, do not update it.

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Understanding Dates….

#1

#4

#7

#6

#3

#2

#5

Services

Services

• Service Providers should be entering and updating their own services.
• Click Add New Service to create a new service grid template.
• Required fields are noted with an *
• NOTE There are 2 fields for Start Date.
• The required Start Date should be used to document the date the services is starting based on the parameters of THIS IEP.
• Initial Start Date is not a required field. It can be used to document when the service was first provided, which could be several years in the past. If you do not know this date off the top of your head – do not complete this field. Leaving this field blank is MUCH better than filling it with bad data!

New Services

• A newly added service will have links to Edit, Delete or copy to ESY.
• There is a checkbox to not have this service print on the IEP. (Note – this is rarely used and only for specific unusual circumstances).
• There is an option to print Blank Grids to be used to write in proposed services to discuss during the IEP meeting. This is a better option than changing a service prior to an IEP meeting.
• There is a Do Not Report checkbox also. If this is checked, this service will not report to CASEMIS when the CASEMIS report is pulled. This is usually only used to avoid duplicate services (discussed later).

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After the Affirm

After the IEP (or Amendment) Is Affirmed you have to document any changes or removals pertaining to services.

After the Affirm you will have Amend, Continue and Discontinue options.

DO NOT select these options ahead of time

These selections indicate to SEIS that you are no longer providing the service under these parameters.

If using Service Track you will no longer be able to document delivery of the service.

Amend Service Link

• To be used specifically when holding an Amendment and when changing something about a service.
• Selecting Amend Service brings up a service pop up window, which is the service as it stands now.
• This first window only allows you to edit the End Date and Comments to show when this version of the service is stopping.
• End Date would be the last date the service will be provided as it appears on the page.
• Once you click the Continue button at the bottom of the page, the next pop up window appears.

• This is for the new version of the service.
• The Start Date will automatically populate based on the Ending Date you entered in the first window.
• You can change any of the data fields on this page EXCEPT the service code itself.
• The Service End Date should NEVER exceed the Annual IEP end date, so this version of the service will not span an entire year.
• If you take the Start Date of the first version and the End Date of the second version, this should span the entire IEP year.

What it looks like on the Screen in SEIS When Completed

• The old iteration of the service is noted as “Amended” and is marked DNR (Do Not Report) and will have a Delete link.
• The Delete link is usually not used until the next Annual IEP is held for the student.
• The new iteration of the service will have Edit and Delete links until the IEP or Amendment is Affirmed/Attested.
• Once the IEP is Affirmed/Attested, the Edit and Delete links will be replaced with Amend, Continue, and Discontinue links.
• The words Amended Service will not print on the IEP document itself, nor will the Do Not Report check box. However, both versions of the service will print out.

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Continue to New IEP

• Used at complete IEP meetings, mainly Annuals/Triennials, for any service that will be continuing, whether there are changes or not.
• Do not click this link before the IEP meeting, wait until the meeting is taking place and placement decisions are made by the IEP team.
• Once the link is clicked you can edit anything in the service box except the service code.
• The new version of the service will replace the old one and have the Edit and Delete links until the IEP is affirmed.
• Once the IEP is Affirmed/Attested the Edit and Delete links will be replaced with the Amend, Continue to New IEP and Discontinue links.

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Discontinue Link

• Nothing is editable, except the End Date and the Comments.
• Use this link at any IEP or Amendment when it is decided that a service will no longer be provided.
• Do NOT delete this service until at least after the next June 30.
• If you do not want the service to print on the IEP check the Do Not Print checkbox.
• If the student is exiting from all services (exiting SpEd), all services would be Discontinued using appropriate dates.

Used to document when a service will no longer be provided

Collapsing the Service Grid/s

Use the Arrow icons to collapse or expand individual service grids.

Used the Expand/Collapse All to affect all service grids.

Moving Service

Use the crosshair icons to move services around in order.

Attaching Documents to the IEP and Entering Comments

Attachments

• Documents can be attached to any IEP in SEIS.
• They can also be attached to the Student Record Notes/Attachments page.
• Documents can be attached in more than one location and should go where they most logically fit.

Current and Historical IEPs

A read-only copy of every IEP affirmed and attested in SEIS.

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You can easily view here any Comments that have been added to an IEP and see if there are any Amendments or Attachments for that IEP without having to go to each one and open the tabs.

Amendments

Let’s Talk About Amendments…

• The Amendment form should NOT be used –When the purpose of meeting is an Initial, Annual, or Triennial.
• An Amendment form should be used for any other type of IEP meeting!!!!!!!!!!
• The Amendment form is found only in the Current IEP in SEIS
• Additional IEP pages can be added directly to the Amendment without having to leave the document.
• If any page of the IEP changes due to the Amendment meeting, those pages MUST be changed via the Amendment form.

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Finding the Amendments

Completed Amendments are found in the Current IEP, or in any Historical IEP. The Attachments, Amendments, and Comments are all on separate tabs at the top of the forms.

Clicking the Amendment tab allows you to View/Print an Affirmed Amendment.

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• The first thing to check before an Amendment is even created is that the Current IEP is actually the most recent IEP held in SEIS. Many IEPs are not getting Affirmed when they should be, and this causes Amendments to be attached to old IEPs they shouldn’t be attached to.

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• When holding an Amendment in SEIS, it is important that any changes to the IEP document are actually made on the IEP pages that the changes affect.
• You can do this by clicking ‘Yes’ on the ‘Are Additional Forms Needed’ question at the bottom of the Amendment page.
• You then navigate to the page(s) that need to be changed, and do so there.

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• When changing services in an Amendment, use the Amend button on the service.
• Amend means that the service occurred for a period of time one way, then is going to change based on this Amendment.
• Anything in the service can change except the actual service code itself.

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• The one thing you NEVER change in the IEP due to an Amendment is the IEP Meeting Date and the Meeting Type listed on the Eligibility Page.
• The Amendment date and reason for the Amendment (Meeting Type) are both listed on the Amendment form itself.
• Changing those on the IEP Eligibility Page causes serious issues.

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Important Notes Regarding Amendments

Printing in SEIS

Printing in SEIS

To Print in SEIS, you can print a single form, several chosen forms, or an entire IEP document.

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By clicking on the printer icon or the Print button, you are requesting an individual form.

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If you would like several forms printed, click the checkboxes next to the forms you would like.

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For Affirmed and Attested IEPs, forms not included in the IEP during the A/A process are greyed out and do not have a checkbox to select from. (You can still print these forms individually by clicking on the printer icon.) To print an entire IEP, just click on the checkbox at the top and all IEP forms included at A/A will be selected.

Once you click on the printer icon or print button, your Print Options will pop up. RC SELPA does not have forms that will print in Spanish at this time.

Click the Print button and you will receive information in the

bottom right hand corner of your screen. Once you get the “Click to View” notification, you can click directly on it to be taken to the pdf document you requested.

Help Center and Reference Materials

How to Contact SEIS

Use the SEIS ID instead of the Student’s name to comply with FERPA. SEIS ID can be found in the student info section on the student record or future IEP.

Where to Find Help

If you need help on the weekend or after hours with SEIS try these places:

• FAQs
• Videos
• Training Manuals

The Document Library

The Document Library is maintained by both district and SELPA levels. The Document Library is where you can find additional documents that support the IEP such as supplemental IEP forms and parent rights & procedural safeguards.

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This is also where you can find the IEP Manual which will take you step by step through every page of the Riverside County SELPA IEP forms. (IEP Support Documents folder)

Changes to Data Fields and Procedures

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LEAs will be able to transfer their data directly to CALPADS from the Special Education Data System

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SELPAs will no longer be required to upload data to CASEMIS

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One student record was submitted with data on all Special Education meeting types

Separate student records will be submitted for each Special Education meeting type

New Transactional Processing

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• Data will now be transferred to CALPADS, at minimum, monthly, as opposed to twice annually.
• Data will only be certified twice per year, but uploads will happen for updated IEPs.
• The first certification will change from December 1 to the first Wednesday in October.
• SEIS is changing significantly on the back end so it won’t be easy to see. However, it will be IMPERATIVE that IEPs be affirmed and attested within 7 days of completion.
• In 2019/20, Amendments will also be reported to CALPADS The process will be changing from a SELPA-centric reporting process to a LEA-centric one.
• SELPAs will have to issue final approval in order for each LEA to be able to certify their CALPADS submissions, but the initial approval will need to occur at the LEA level.

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The Big Changes

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• Meeting Types are CRITICAL now
• Correctly documenting the reason for THIS meeting.
• Triennials are automatically also Annuals.
• We never hold Initial/Annual/Triennials.
• Do NOT add or change this Meeting Type until you are in the meeting.

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• The Future IEP can only be used for Initials, Annuals, and Triennials. All other meetings HAVE to be held as Amendments, including Interim Placements.

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• We cannot adjust certain information in the Future IEP in advance of an IEP meeting. This includes:
• Meeting Dates
• Meeting Type
• Services

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Some Important Things Have Changed in SEIS

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• Rules for Meeting Types
• Do Not Change the Meeting Type on the Eligibility Page of the IEP when holding an Amendment.
• Initials are never Initials/Annuals, Initial/Triennials, or Initial/Annual/Triennials.
• Triennials are ALWAYS Annual/Triennials.
• Triennials are NEVER held as Amendments.
• Some common problem areas
• If the student has been exited from SpEd in the past, and is being reassessed to see if they qualify again, this is an Initial IEP.
• Initials are held for students who are regular ed students to see if they qualify for SpEd.
• This meeting is NEVER and Initial and… meeting.
• If the student is on an IFSP (Infant) and is being assessed to see if he/she qualifies for IEP services, this is an Initial IEP.
• The student has been served on an IFSP, this is the first IEP the student will ever have so it must be the Initial.
• If the student is receiving Speech services and being assessed for academic services now, this is NOT an Initial IEP!
• The student is NOT a regular ed student since he/she is already on an IEP.
• This Meeting Type would be either an Annual/Triennial if the team agrees that EVERYONE should assess, or an Annual/Additional Assessments if only the psych and academics will be assessed.

Further Clarification on Meeting Types

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• Affirming IEPs
• When we affirm and attest an IEP it means:
• The IEP meeting was held.
• The IEP meeting was completed and FAPE was offered.
• The information in the Future IEP is an accurate representation of what occurred during the actual IEP meeting.
• It does not mean the parent has signed the IEP or agreed to it.
• If the parent disagrees, and more discussion is needed, an Amendment will be held.
• Initial IEPs the parent/guardian disagrees with should not be affirmed.
• This is because the meetings we hold to work the issues out with an Initial are not Amendments, they are a continuation of the Initial IEP.
• IEPs need to be affirmed and attested within 7 days of completion. This will be VERY important beginning in 2019/20!!
• The rules regarding when to affirm may change next school year, depending on the way that data pulls into CALPADS.
• It is VERY important that notification of DNQs and Exits of students gets sent to the D.O.
• Use the Student Change Notices built into SEIS to get info to the people who need it quickly.
• Timely management of your caseload is critical!
• Remember, we are uploading data to CALPADS at minimum 1x/month.
• We have to know what changes have occurred with our students before we can upload them.

Other Important Changes

Thank You!

Please spend some time getting to know SEIS and check out the user support materials in the Help Center . Many questions you will have about SEIS can be answered here.

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If you need some assistance with SEIS, there are multiple avenues for that help.

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Begin with your district SEIS Trainer of Trainers (TOTs). If they need assistance with answering your question, they will turn to SEIS and/or the SELPA for answers – depending on the nature of the question/problem.

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If you have questions about the IEP fields or forms, procedures, or compliance, refer to the IEP Manual most easily found in the Document Library of SEIS.

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If there is a problem with SEIS not operating correctly, please contact the SEIS Help Desk to report that issue. The sooner it is reported, the faster it will get fixed.