Next Steps to 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…

• Setting Ourselves Up for Success
• What is a Pending Student?
• Interims
• Timelines
• Checking Dates – All Over the Place
• Using Delay Reasons
• What is DINC and why is it so important?

• All About Services
• Services and Minutes
• How to Write Services
• Service Changes

• Finishing Up Your IEP
• Team Summary and Offering FAPE
• ESY & RSIA Forms
• Draft IEPs, Numbering Pages, Ensuring Consistency

• Amendments and Making Notes in SEIS

• Changes to Data Fields and Procedures for 2019/20

Setting Ourselves Up for Success…

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What is a Pending Student?

Interims

Timelines

Checking Dates – All Over the Place

Using Delay Reasons

What is DINC and why is it so important?

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What Teachers Do in SEIS

All Teachers

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• Manage their own input on the IEP and progress on the goals they create.
• Enter their own part of the IEP information into SEIS in a timely manner so the Case Manager can do the Affirm/Attest within the recommended time line.
• Document progress on their goals in a timely manner so the Case Manager can Affirm the Progress Report within recommended time line.
• Work as a member of the IEP Team so that information is entered, updated, and kept accurate.

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Case Managers

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• Communicate with the IEP Team so they are aware of timelines for the IEP.
• Affirm/Attest IEPs and Progress Reports.
• Ensure all relevant and required documents are properly attached to the IEP and/or student record.

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Communicate via the built-in utility (Add Student Form & Student Change Form) with their SEIS admin when they need to:

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• Have a student added to or removed from their caseload, or that of an IEP Team member.
• Change a student’s eligibility (usually after an Initial Assessment).
• Change service provider assignments or Case Managers.
• Notify the district of address changes mentioned at the IEP meeting.
• Other misc. things that come up.

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What is a Pending Student?

A Pending Student in SEIS may be:

• A student referred for SpEd assessment, but we have not received parent consent.
• A student referred for SpEd assessment, for whom we have received parent consent, but the Initial IEP has not been held (plan type 300).
• A student who has had an Initial IEP, is eligible, but has not started receiving services yet (plan type 300).
• A student who has transferred into your district with an existing IEP – an Interim Placement student (only in pending for a short time).

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A Pending Student in SEIS may NOT be:

• A student we don’t know what to do with.
• A student who has had an Initial IEP and will not be receiving services for whatever reason.

Interim Placements

An Interim Placement student is a student who moves into your district from another district with an already existing eligible IEP.

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• A student who was already with your district is NOT an interim placement student.
• For students moving in from OUTSIDE Riverside County SELPA, an Interim Placement IEP meeting is required within the first 30 days of starting in your district.
• This meeting is NO LONGER held in the FUTURE IEP. It will ONLY be held as an Amendment.
• If the student is moving from within the SELPA, a meeting may be held, but isn’t required.
• However, if the incoming IEP needs any adjustment, a meeting needs to be held to do that.

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Timelines

Special Education has LOTS of timelines that need to be monitored and adhered to.

• A response is required (AP or PWN) within 15 days to a written request for Initial assessment.
• Initial IEPs held within 60 days of receiving parent consent for assessment.
• For Infants and Toddlers in Early Start programs on IFSPs, Initial IEPs will be held by the 3^rd birthday.
• Annual IEPs held within 365 days of the last one.
• Assessment plans completed and IEPs held to discuss the results of assessment within 60 days of receiving parent consent.
• Triennial IEPs held within 1095 days of the last evaluation.
• An IEP meeting must be held within 30 days if requested by parent/guardian of a student on an IEP.

The First Step in Talking About Timelines is Understanding 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….

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How To Calculate Dates in SEIS….

With Calculate Next Dates and Calculate Last Date Buttons

You can enter dates yourself, or click the calculate buttons to have SEIS do it for you.

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By using the Calculate Next Dates and Calculate Last Date buttons (and applying a little bit of critical evaluation before you Affirm and Attest), you can avoid having IEPs in SEIS with incorrect dates.

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This means the prompts SEIS uses to let you know when IEPs will be coming due will always work correctly to help keep you compliant and on track!

**Note**SEIS will automatically set the Next dates minus 1 day from the 1 year or 3 year mark. If you would like it to be 1 year exactly, click on the date to bring up the calendar and click on the corrected date.

SEIS uses the IEP Date combined with the Purpose of Meeting to determine what dates should be listed for Last Annual and Eval and Next Annual and Eval.

At the Bottom of the Eligibility Page

Dates Specific to Initial IEP’s…

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Of these dates, the two that determine the 60 Day Timeline are:

Which brings us to 60 Day Timelines…

The Initial IEP must be held within 60 days of the date the district received parent consent. These days include weekends and holidays.

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The timeline can be extended if there is a school break of MORE THAN 5 days within the timeline, but this is often misunderstood.

• It must be more than 5 school days, not only 5 school days.
• It must be a school break, not student absence.
• The timeline must be adhered to when those school break days are subtracted from the timeline. If the 60 days is still exceeded once the break is subtracted out, you cannot use that as a reason.
• If the parent consent is received within the last 30 days of the school year, the Initial IEP must be held within the first 30 days of the new school year.

What Are Some Other Dates to Pay Attention To?

• Service Dates – we need to make sure we are accurately reporting when services actually begin and when they are scheduled to end. We will discuss this more when we talk specifics with services.
• Infant Referral Dates – LOTS and LOTS of bad data is sitting in these fields right now. Some of it is there because users mistakenly complete these fields when they shouldn’t.
• Goal Dates – A very common mistake when reusing or repurposing a goal is to forget to change the dates on the goal to reflect the new IEP.

How to Correctly Use Delay Reasons – and where to find them

• Four of the timelines that I mentioned earlier are expected to be 100% compliant, but there are allowable reasons why you may not be compliant.
• Some of these reasons are actually listed in Education Law as allowable circumstances for noncompliance. Others are not listed, but will still be excused by CDE.
• If you are noncompliant on one of these timelines – Initial Evaluation, 3^rd birthday, Annual or Triennial IEP – you will need to enter an Evaluation Delay reason for this.
• SEIS will prompt you to enter this reason. There is only one Evaluation Delay field. The type of meeting it applies to is determined by the Meeting Type you have populated for the IEP.
• If the reason you are not compliant is outside of the district’s control, you can use one of the reasons to explain and excuse this noncompliance.
• If the reason you are noncompliant does not fit one of the available reasons, you must use 90 Late without cause. This will cause your district to be found DINC.
• The Evaluation Delay field is found in the Student Record, CASEMIS A page. Using these fields correctly is important!

Not all reasons can be used for all Meeting Types. It is important to ensure that any delay reason used has back up documentation to support it. CDE requests backup documentation on 10% of submitted reasons.

Using Your Delay Reasons

Which Leads Us to DINC – So, What is DINC?

Let’s answer this as a multiple choice test:

1. A horribly debilitating disease
2. Something you say when you stub your toe
3. A difficult fact of life that has to be managed and monitored
4. Data Identified Noncompliance
5. Both C and D
6. B, C, and D

Sadly, the answer is E (and maybe F).

What is DINC?

• DINC is, essentially, a process for identifying and correcting students who are noncompliant with state and federal requirements in 5 key areas. We will discuss these areas at some length today.
• The reason this is so important is that there are very real consequences for districts who are not 100% compliant in all 5 areas.
• Some of these consequences are just time consuming, others can lead to some very unwanted attention from CDE.
• It only takes ONE student to make a district non-compliant – ONE missed timeline – to throw a district into the DINC process!

DINC Data Fields in SEIS

The 5 Areas Being Analyzed for Noncompliance are:

1. Annual IEP Meetings not held within 365 days of the previous Annual IEP.
2. Triennial re-evaluations not held within 3 years of the previous evaluation.
3. Students 16 years old or older who do not have all 8 elements of the transition plan in place. (Indicator 13)
4. Initial IEPs that exceeded the 60-day evaluation timeline. (Indicator 11)
5. Students who received Early Start services as infants/toddlers, not having the Initial IEP before the 3^rd birthday. (Indicator 12)

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These are ALL expected to be 100% Compliant!

All About Services….

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Services and Minutes

How to Write Services

Service Changes

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Services and CASEMIS

• This is why you do not delete the service until AFTER the next June 30 CASEMIS data has been pulled.
• If a student is exiting SpEd because he/she no longer qualifies, do not delete the services. Just Discontinue them with the appropriate End Dates.

Changes to Duplicate Services

• Duplicate services cannot be reported for CASEMIS.
• A duplicate service is defined as two or more services with the same service code, service provider, and service location.
• Matching on service location is NEW!
• If you have a student with two 330 Specialized Academic Instruction services, but one is in a Regular Classroom and the other in a Separate Classroom, we can report both of them now.
• Using the Do Not Report checkbox will let a service print on the IEP, but won’t be pulled into the CASEMIS report, causing a duplicate service error.
• To determine which service(s) to mark as Do Not Report follow this method:
• Look first at the dates. Are the services occurring simultaneously or at different periods of time? If not at the same time, report the one that is occurring on the IEP date.
• Look at the amount of service time the student is receiving for each. We want to report the service the student is receiving the most of.

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Each June 30 EVERY individual Service provided during the previous 12 months is to be reported to CASEMIS

So, How Do We Use The Service Grid Correctly?

That is a really good question.

Let’s talk about:

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• How to Write Services in SEIS.
• Let’s talk the mechanics of how to correctly use the Amend, Continue, and Discontinue buttons in SEIS.
• How Do We Handle Service Changes When Students:
• End a service, but keep other services.
• No longer qualify for SpEd and exit.
• Change services between one school year and the next.

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Service Choices – Edit/Delete or Amend/Continue/Discontinue

When to Amend, Continue, or Discontinue

• Amend needs to only be used during Amendments.
• For an Annual or Annual/Triennial IEP, when you reach the Service Grid ask, is this service Continuing or Discontinuing.
• The answer you give will determine which button you click.
• Even if it is changing considerably, if the Service Code is going to Continue, click the Continue button.
• When you Continue, you can change ANYTHING except the Service Code.
• If the service code will not continue from this meeting on, click the Discontinue button.
• When Amending a service, there is confusion regarding the way to do this correctly.
• The screen that pops up first is the service as it has been happening up until now. All this one needs is an End Date.
• The second screen that pops up is the service as it will be once it changes. This can have any changes to it that need to be made.
• SEIS will automatically mark the first service DNR. If this is not accurate, uncheck the DNR.
• If a student already has a service that is expiring with the Annual or Annual/Triennial, we do not Create a New Service. We always adjust the service as it was on the previous IEP using Continue.
• If a second service is needed, we can Create a New Service then.

Ending One Service, but Still SpEd

• The service that is being discontinued needs to remain in the IEP until we report the services at the end of the school year, so we don’t Delete the service, just Discontinue it.
• The service that wasn’t changing remains the same.

Exiting from SpEd

• All services are Discontinued individually.
• The comment can be typed into the first one, then copied into the rest of the Discontinued services.
• We DO NOT mark exited services as DNR since we need to report them.

Also, When Exiting Students from SpEd, Please Remember These…

• Every student must have both disability fields completed. Do not remove them.
• If a student is EXITING SpEd because he/she no longer qualifies, check the Exiting from SpEd box. (Not Eligible for SpEd is for Initial DNQ students only.)

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• Mark Possible Change of Placement/Services AND Other Exit from SpEd in the Purpose of Meeting.
• Do NOT change the Percentage of Time in Regular Ed to 100%. Leave it as it was before the IEP meeting began.

Changing Services from One School Year to Another

Services are normally written from the IEP meeting date to the next due date. (2/7/2019 – 2/7/2020 or 4/1/2019 – 3/31/2020). However, sometimes services will be changing from one school year to the next.

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If this is the case, then services will need to be broken up to reflect what the service will look like in the current school year and how that service will change for the next school year.

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If the service is not changing, the service should not be broken up.

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If it is, the services should be written as:

• 2/7/2019 – 6/30/2019, and 7/1/2019 – 2/7/2020
• 4/1/2019 – 6/30/2019, and 7/1/2019 – 3/31/2020

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• Notice there are no breaks in the service year. The entire IEP year is covered.
• Also, there are no overlapping dates.
• Finally, the break occurs on 6/30 and 7/1 because the fiscal school year ends on 6/30 and the next fiscal school year begins on 7/1. This keeps each year’s services in the year they occur within.

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Changing Services from One School Year to Another

Examples of what NOT to do that users are currently doing.

This service has two different issues:

1. Dates should not overlap unless the services themselves overlap. In this example, the service should have been written from 1/24/2019 – 6/30/2019, then 7/1/2019 – 1/23/2020.
2. The service does not change from one school year to the next so it didn’t need to be broken out. It should have been written 1/24/2019 – 1/23/2020.

The three services in this example have three different issues:

1. The services range from 3/13/2018 – 5/14/2020.
2. The service shows a gap in services twice – once from 6/1/2018 – 7/2/2018 and again from 3/12/19 – 8/1/2019.
3. There was no reason to discontinue the service beginning 3/13/18 and starting it again on 7/2/18 since the services are exactly the same as one another.

The Purpose of Comments on the Service Grid

The Comments box on each service can be a valuable tool to use when used appropriately.

• You can use this to designate which subject area or class the service will be provided in.
• You can use this to help explain what this service might look like on a daily or weekly basis.
• You can use it to clarify confusing information in the service.
• You do not need to use it as a disclaimer, since that is already on the IEP. (It prints automatically at the bottom of the service page.)

• You can use to specify the student is exiting from a service.

Finishing Up Your IEP….

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Team Summary & Offering FAPE

ESY & RSIA Forms

Draft IEPs

Numbering Pages

Ensuring Consistency Throughout Your IEP

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Using Your ESY and RSIA Forms

• These forms have both been provided to you in the Future IEP as tools to help the IEP team to make a fair and unbiased determination of eligibility for extended school year and for a related services instructional aide.
• Using them when there is a suspicion the student might need either of these services means that the team can demonstrate that all possible needs were investigated thoroughly.
• These forms actually help to protect the team from accusations that services were denied unfairly.
• They also clearly spell out under what circumstances a student would be eligible, making explanations to parents much easier for everyone.

Team Meeting Comments

• The Team Meeting Comments page is set up as a grid to allow for multiple meeting notes for a single IEP.
• This is used primarily for meetings held in multiple parts, or for meetings that are opened to adhere to a timeline, and then continued later when all team members can be present.
• Nothing disappears from the Future IEP unless it is removed.
• Team meeting comments from previous IEPs should be removed from the new IEP BEFORE Affirming and Attesting.
• Deleting the old Team Meeting Comments does not delete them from the Current IEP, it just doesn’t include them in the new IEP being held.

Ending the IEP

Some Reminders

• The IEP Meeting must always end with an offer of FAPE.
• If you have not reached the end of the IEP meeting and made the new offer of FAPE, end by reiterating the old offer of FAPE and stating that it is still in force until a new offer is made and accepted.
• Once the IEP meeting has been completed, and the new offer of FAPE has been made, the IEP needs to be Affirmed and Attested within 7 days. (Even if you do not have parent signature.)
• A copy of the IEP needs to be given to the parent before he/she leaves. A cleanly typed “pretty” copy can be sent home once it has been entered in SEIS.

Ending the IEP

Tips to Save Time and Hassle

• It is recommended that IEP Meeting Dates and Meeting Type NOT be changed in the Future IEP of SEIS until the day an IEP meeting is scheduled to be held.
• The day before your IEP is scheduled, print out a DRAFT copy of the IEP.
• This can include draft goals, but should never have services altered from the current IEP.
• Services changed prior to an IEP meeting can be interpreted as a unilateral predetermination of placement.
• When printing your IEP, make sure to check that you want the pages automatically numbered in the print options.

Ending the IEP

The Most Important Final Step!

• Check your IEP over carefully for inconsistencies BEFORE you Affirm and Attest it!
• Does the offer of FAPE in the Team Summary match the Services page?
• Are your Dates and Meeting Purpose correct?
• If you are using a template for your meeting comments, do you have the correct student’s name AND gender listed in the notes?
• Are your services all dated correctly – are you sure?
• If you have ESY marked “Yes,” do you have ESY services listed?
• For students in SH programs with several services, did you remember to put in the SAI service too? You would be surprised how often that one gets left out!
• For students with Transition Plans, have you correctly documented all the required Transition components? Do you have 800 services? Do you have services other than JUST 800 services?
• Does your student with OHI have their health concerns listed on the Present Levels page?

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Teachers’ Tasks

• Log in and check your Home Page notices DAILY.
• Keep your notices of added and removed students cleared out.
• Using the Add Students and Student Change Notices as soon as possible to make any changes to your caseload.
• Check your caseload data frequently to ensure it is correct. If SEIS says you have an overdue IEP, but it was just held – do not ignore this. That means that a date in the Future IEP is incorrect. Get this corrected.
• Case Managers Communicate regularly with IEP teams.
• Case Managers remember to affirm IEPs within 7 days of the meeting
• Pay attention to your local news items.

Amendments and Making Notes in SEIS….

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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

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

Clicking the Amendment tab allows you to Add Amendments, Edit an Unaffirmed Amendment, or View/Print an Affirmed Amendment.

Writing an Amendment

To Add a New Amendment, click the +Add Amendment button. If an Unaffirmed Amendment already exists, SEIS will not allow you to add a new one until the existing one is resolved (deleted or affirmed).

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To Edit an existing Amendment, click on the Edit icon (the pencil) beside it.

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The Key Components:

1. Amendment Date. Please make sure to enter a date in this field. You will not be able to move on to other forms until it is in place.
2. Amendment Purpose. Check what applies.
3. Checkbox – parent and district agreed meeting not needed.
4. Purpose of Meeting. Add a couple of sentences to explain why.
5. Comments – what is changing on the IEP?
6. Yes/No buttons to access additional IEP forms.

The Amendment Page

The Amendment Page

To the right of the Amendment form you will find the buttons for Saving, Printing, Affirming, and Navigating back to the Current IEP.

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If you are not sure how to use this form when you are on it, don’t worry. Directions are provided right on the page!!

Accessing Additional Forms

Selecting Yes for Does this Amendment require additional forms will cause our complete Future IEP forms list to drop down below.

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You can click on any page of the IEP you will need to make changes to.

Accessing Additional Forms

The form you select looks exactly the same as that form in the Future IEP with one exception. This one has an Amendment date instead of the IEP date. You can navigate within these forms the same as you would in the Future IEP.

Once all forms have been updated, you can return to the Amendment form to verify everything there is complete before Affirming the Amendment.

DO NOT change the Meeting Type on the Eligibility Page to fit the meeting purpose for the Amendment. The Amendment form has its own Meeting Purpose.

Affirming Amendments, Step 1…

When you click the Affirm button, this is the first screen you are taken to.

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The meeting purpose you marked on the Amendment form is already populated here for you. Check whether the parent has signed or not and then Continue.

The second screen is complete with Instructions, in case you need them.

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Check ALL IEP pages you made changes to in your Amendment. These will be automatically attached to your Amendment IEP.

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You can preview the IEP as a pdf before finalizing the affirm process. This is a good way to catch mistakes before it is too late!

Affirming Amendments, Step 2…

Printing the Complete Amendment and Attaching Documents to It

Here is the Amendment we just affirmed from the Current IEP page. If I click the printer icon I can go into the Amendment List page for this document.

The Amendment List page for this Amendment lets me change if it has been signed or not. I can add Attachments and/or Comments by using the labeled tabs at the top. Also, all IEP forms that I check marked as being part of this Amendment will be included here for easy printing of the entire document.

Adding Notes and Comments – The Art of Documentation…

Documenting the interactions, the attempts to communicate with the family, and other relevant information that helps other users understand what is happening with this student is CRITICAL to do. Best of all, it is easy to do too.

In all the same places (except the Future IEP) that we could attach documents, we can also enter Comments or Notes. That includes the Notes/Attachments page of the Student Record.

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

Thank You…any questions?