Assessing Your Records

Access

For screenshots of each step in this process, see the RDA: Procedural Compliance Self Assessment Application User Guide

The RDA: Procedural Compliance Self-Assessment application is accessed through the Special Education Web Portal through WISEhome. The Special Education Web Portal is available to school district personnel only. The Portal uses your WAMS ID for authentication.

Directors of Special Education and their designees can request access by using the District Security Administrator Request Form. These users have access to all applications and reports. In addition, they create and maintain accounts for district users and which applications those users can access using DPI Application Security Manager through the WISEhome website. Each LEA should assign an application administrator for the “Special Education Portal-Cyclical Indicators,” if they have not yet done so. The application administrator will then grant “Director/Designee” or “District User” access to staff who will be reviewing records and entering results for the RDA: Procedural Compliance Self-Assessment.

The RDA:PCSA link will only be active if the LEA has assured DPI that the staff reviewing records have completed the RDA:PCSA Training and Certification eCourse.

Enter Contact Information

Log-in to the Special Education Web Portal and open the RDA: Procedural Compliance Self-Assessment application. The home page of the application requests LEA contact information. If contact information is not displayed, click the blue “Edit” box in the “Action” column to open a window where the LEA can enter and save the requested information.

Sampling Process

Depending on the size of the student pool, items in the self-assessment uses sampling techniques to assess compliance without reviewing information for every student. Additionally, samples are “weighted” to ensure certain subgroups are adequately represented in the sample. LEAs must include students in the pool that are placed in day treatment centers, hospitals, jails, and residential care centers (RCCs) where the LEA is the responsible FAPE agency.

In addition to the data pulled directly from WISEData, LEAs will need to enter student names to create the shortened day pool. LEAs must have a list of students who are attending school less than a full day to enter into the web portal.

Review Student Pools for Evaluation/IEP/Implementation and Discipline

Start at the home page, or select “Student Pool” from the blue bar at the top of the page. Click on “Manage Pool” to open a new window.

Review the LEA’s lists of students for the Evaluation/IEP/Implementation Pool, and the Discipline Pool to ensure students meet the pool criteria. If a student is not supposed to be in the pool – you may delete the student using the “Delete.” Make sure you review this step carefully as the students in the pool will determine your sample to review for compliance.

Evaluation/IEP/Implementation Pool

Remove the following students from the pool to ensure they are not included in the sample:

• Students for whom the district will not have FAPE responsibility during the previous school year (student graduated with a regular high school diploma, student moved out of the LEA, etc.); 
• Students found to be not eligible for special education (after either an initial or a reevaluation); 
• Students found eligible for special education but the parent did not provide consent for services or revoked consent; 
• Transfer students whose evaluations or reevaluations have been adopted from their previous LEAs; 
• Students attending under Full-time Open Enrollment unless the evaluation or reevaluation was completed by your agency; 
• Parentally placed private school students; and
• Home-schooled students.

Discipline Pool

Ensure the discipline pool includes all students with disabilities who were removed for a violation of a code of student conduct by LEA staff for more than 10 days in the previous school year (July 1-June 30). Ensure the data reported in WISEData reflects proper counting of disciplinary removals for special education. Examples of these kinds of removals include expulsions, out-of-school suspensions, certain in-school suspensions, certain bus suspensions, removals to interim alternative educational settings for weapons or drug offenses or for inflicting serious bodily harm, de facto suspensions, and other disciplinary changes of placement.

• Include in-school suspensions if: (1) the student’s IEP was not implemented; or (2) the student did not participate with nondisabled peers to the extent required by the IEP; or (3) the student did not have the opportunity to appropriately progress in the general curriculum.
• Include a bus suspension if (1) the student’s IEP includes transportation as a related service and (2) the LEA did not arrange for alternate transportation.
• Include a removal as a de facto suspension if the student is removed from school or class for not following rules without following the procedures related to suspension. LEAs should have procedures to accurately track and count de facto suspensions.
• Partial day removals must be included when determining the number of days of removal for a student.

Create and Upload Shortened Day Pool

Create a list of current students with IEPs who attend school fewer minutes per day than their non-disabled peers. Include all students for whom the LEA has FAPE responsibility, including students in alternative and off-site programs (including CESA programs). A key thing to consider when deciding whether to include the student or not is who determined the shortened placement. If it was an IEP team decision, generally include the student in the list. If the shortened placement was not determined by the IEP team, you generally do not include the student. Exclude the following students from the list:

• Students who have been excused from full-day attendance for medical reasons pursuant to the LEA’s general attendance policies;
• Parentally placed private school students;
• Students placed in residential care facilities (RCCs) by a county;
• Students in jails or juvenile detention facilities;
• Students in day treatment programs;
• Students who have written agreements developed through the mediation process regarding the length of their school day;
• Three-year-old children, and four-year-old children not enrolled in an LEA-operated 4K program;
• Students beyond the 12th grade participating in postsecondary transition programming; and
• Students who have been expelled.

Upload the list of students by clicking “manage pool” for Shortened Day. Download the .csv template in the application and save the list of students to the template. Upload the saved .csv file to the application. Review the uploaded shortened day pool for accuracy.

If the LEA has no students meeting the criteria for the Shortened Day pool, click on the yellow “Confirm the LEA has zero students meeting the pool criteria” button, and complete the confirmation process.

Generate Samples

Click "Generate Sample." The reporting tool will generate samples for each of the following categories (if applicable):

• Evaluation/Individualized Education Plan (IEP);
• IEP Implementation; 
• Discipline; and
• Shortened Day.

Review the generated sample again to insure included students meet the pool criteria.

When you are confident your sample meets the requirements, click “Lock Sample.”

The sampling tables used for determining the size of the Evaluation/IEP, Implementation, Discipline and Shortened Day samples. Please feel free to use this information for planning purposes, but be aware that the rounding rules built into the application may produce slight variations in actual samples.

Conducting the Self-Assessment

Before LEA staff begin evaluating the records, they must have completed the RDA:PCSA Training and Certification eCourse.

For each student within the sample, ensure the required records are available on the day the review will be conducted:

• For the evaluation items, review the student's most recent (within the past 12 months) evaluation report or reevaluation report. If the parent(s) and LEA agreed to waive the student's reevaluation within the last 12 months, review the Notice of Agreement That A Three-Year Reevaluation Not Needed (DPI Model Form RE-3);

• For the IEP items, review the student's current IEP (the IEP that is in effect);

• For each student in the IEP implementation sample, review evidence to indicate whether or not the student received the required services, the parent received the progress report, and the assessment accommodation was provided (student IEP, progress report, student schedule, teacher notes, teacher schedule, attendance record, assessment accommodation print out, etc.); and

• For Discipline item 1, review whether each student was provided educational services during each removal beyond the 10th cumulative day of removal (Worksheet for Documenting Educational Services Provided During Disciplinary Removals that Do Not Constitute a Disciplinary Change of Placement (DPI Model Form DW-1) or other district documentation).

• For Shortened Day, review the student’s most recent IEP and Determination and Notice of Placement (DPI Model Form P-1 or P-2) and determine whether each student’s day was shortened appropriately.

DPI established monitoring directions and standards for each requirement in the self-assessment. LEA staff uses the directions and standards to determine whether the student's record is in compliance or not in compliance. 

LEA staff record results directly ("yes," "no," or not applicable ["NA"]) in the online reporting tool available through the Special Education Portal.

Results are automatically entered by the application, so users can exit the application and return to complete the assessment at any time. 

If staff wish to assess records on paper before entering results into the portal, paper recording worksheets can be downloaded for Evaluation, IEP, Implementation, Discipline. 

All self-assessment records must be maintained for the year in which the self-assessment is completed and for four (4) additional fiscal years (July 1 through June 30).

Reviewing Results and Submitting Data to the Department

The self-assessment reporting tool, through the Special Education Portal, allows LEAs to enter data into the system, save the results, and review required student-level corrections. For each student in each sample, mark whether or not the record is in compliance in the reporting tool ("yes," "no," or "NA").

LEAs may enter and update self-assessment results and activities to ensure current compliance and revise until the system is locked in November. If changes to the self-assessment report or activities are needed after it is locked, email DPI. 

Student-Level Errors

Each time a student record is marked a "no" in the self-assessment reporting tool, it is a student-level error and noncompliance. The reporting tool includes a report that will list all student-level errors that must be corrected as soon as possible. 

Ensuring Current Compliance

Each time a student record is marked a "no" in the self-assessment reporting tool, it is noncompliance and the LEA must take steps to ensure future compliance. Once the self-assessment results have been recorded in the reporting tool, note which items were identified as noncompliant.

DPI strongly recommends reconvening the LEA's ad hoc self-assessment committee to conduct a root cause analysis of why the noncompliance occurred. Once the ad hoc committee has determined the cause of the noncompliance, it can choose action(s) that will remedy the noncompliance to ensure current compliance. DPI has created a list of possible actions to ensure current compliance that the ad hoc committee may want to consider. If none of the DPI suggested activities will ensure current compliance, the LEA may choose its own action(s).

Once the ad hoc committee has determined which action(s) the LEA will take to ensure current compliance, the designated LEA administrator must enter those actions into the reporting tool, finalize the self-assessment report, and submit the results. The self-assessment report and LEA actions must be finalized and submitted to DPI by November 1.

DPI may use validation procedures to ensure the accuracy of data submitted by the LEA.