IMS Data Entry Personnel Meeting
Notes – April 5,
2011, 10:00 A.M. – 12:00 P.M.
|
Agenda |
1. Site Equipment Check 2. Required Data Report Required. a. E-mail Michelle sent regarding the
Required Data Report and EC Codes on January 20, 2011 3. E-mail Changes 4. Networking and Sharing Announcements 1. CRI
Change Code 2.
Follow-up to Survey |
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Site
Equipment Check |
The sites checked in. |
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Required
Data Report |
Michelle presented information on the Required Data Report including: ·
Correction Guidelines ·
Correction Specifics. To access the PowerPoint file, see link on prior page. Summary of presentation: ·
On a regular basis, run the Required Data
report and keep up with the corrections.
For some, on a regular basis may mean daily. 1.
There will be fewer corrections to make
than if they are left uncorrected for awhile. 2.
The data entered the day before will be
easier to recall or revisit than waiting. ·
Some corrections are missing the initials
of the person who made the correction and/or the date of the correction. Some corrections aren’t current. Please research those items. ·
When researching corrections, follow your
AEA’s procedures on how to obtain answers. ·
Know the codes and their differences, when
applicable. For example, it is
important to understand the differences between change codes and exit codes
as the report is being worked on. ·
If something doesn’t make sense, ask
colleagues, John or the Center. As the
question is being answered, this will also help all of us to increase our
knowledge and understanding of the data and system. Michelle led an activity where
participants were asked how they would go about correcting specific
examples. Images were provided so the
participants had additional details about each example. Michelle thanked Lisa Lohman who provided feedback
on both the presentation and the activity. Note: In
the Count Comments field, AEA 10 requested that data entry personnel also
include the AEA (formatted as A10) in addition to the date and the
initials. This helps them figure out
who wrote the notes, especially if the notes were written quite awhile ago by
another AEA. Post-Meeting
Note: If a student appears on the Required Data report for a reason of (Change
Code) Follow up needed and does not resurface, John Lee provided the
following information: ·
If the student still appears in the list in 30 days, do some
additional research. For example: 1.
Is the student in the IMS system and under another name? 2.
Is the student in general education in a district and not in special
education? 3.
Have the student’s records been requested? ·
If the student hasn’t resurfaced in 45 days, and no evidence has been
found which would indicate that a different Exit reason should be used, use
UNK (Unknown). ·
If the student resurfaces after the code has been changed to UNK, then
it is possible to change the UNK to an appropriate Change Reason. Question: How can I get rid of an old comment? Answer: Delete all the text and replace it with a
‘.’ and save. Question: Which code should be used, CPI or CPN when
a student is pulled from school to home school, but comes to school for a
service. Answer: Since this student comes to school they
would still be rostered for that service in school. Use the code CPI. Question: If a service is carried over to the next
school year, does this service need to be closed and reopened? Answer: If the attending and resident districts are
still the same, do not close. The
enrollment calendar will account for school year dates. Michelle
also reviewed information about the EC codes and referenced an e-mail that
was sent in January. Here is a
reprint of that email: From: Hi Everyone, The Required Data report has been updated now
so it looks at the new EC Setting Codes. When you run the Required Data
report for your AEA, you will notice a number of records in the report which
pertain to the Early Childhood Setting codes. Therefore, please note the
following: ·
If the correction code is “EC Code Blank” AND the child
listed will turn 6 before the next Special Education Enrollment Count
(October 28, 2011), you can ignore that record. By the time of the next
Count, each child who is in this category should have an LRE rather than an
EC Setting Code and will not appear in this list. I know that it is not
ideal to have to “weed” through these records to get to the data that truly
need to be corrected. However, we will not tweak the report, at least
now, to eliminate these records from this report as it is identifying the
records it is supposed to report: records without a new EC code. ·
If “EC Code Invalid” appears in the Corrections column,
that record will need to be corrected. For example, if the code A was
entered rather than A1, that child’s name will appear in the Required Data
report. In short, when you are looking at the Required
Data report, only disregard records with “EC Code Blank”. Follow the
established procedures for all other corrections. If you have any questions about the Required
Data report, please feel free to contact me or John Lee. Michelle In summary,
only disregard records with “EC Code Blank”.
Otherwise, follow established procedures to correct. |
|
E-Mail Changes |
Michelle indicated Myka Petersen will be the
programmer who will develop the e-mail feature in the new system. Myka would like input from data entry
personnel regarding this feature. She
also will be asking for volunteers to test this piece of the application in
the future. Michelle
led a discussion of the current capabilities in regard to the system sending
e-mails when a change is made in IMS. Participants were asked the following three
questions. Their responses are also
included: ·
What capabilities/features do you really like in the current system? Ø Already addressed to whom it needs
to go Ø Student name, DOB, attending – everything
already there ·
What capabilities/features do you wish would be removed? Ø None ·
What capabilities do you wish would be added? Ø Be able to click on e-mail, or it
pops up, no way to by-pass Ø Difference between IEP & IFSP
data entry persons Ø Add resident building Ø Send to new host district for FC
& DCP Ø Make sure contacts/addressee is
current Ø Add new attending district contact
person Ø Contact list – organized by
district Ø Search district and pull up
person’s name (similar to web IEP banked) Ø Multiple persons for districts Michelle
summarized and added that every effort will be made to incorporate all of the
ideas listed above into the new application.
However, there may be some that conflict with each other and those may
not be able to be included. |
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Networking and Sharing |
There are
two items that I wish to clarify at this time in regard to the data
verification of the enrollment reports: 1. A question has been raised as to
whether or not services that will carry over between school years need to be
closed by the end of the school year in order to be reported corrected in the
new Enrollment reports that will be used by LEAs. Data entry personnel are to continue entering services as
they currently have been doing. This means that if the student will continue
in the same (attending) district with the same resident district in the next
school year, it is not necessary to close out that record and to enter it
again with dates that correspond to the school year. The Enrollment Reports, in conjunction with the district
or building calendars, will account for situations where a student’s services
carry over between school years. It will continue to be important to enter accurate service
start and service end dates, especially when the weighting, resident or
attending district changes. 2. One AEA has reported that if the
Service Begin equals the Service End Date there are some records that are
correct. Here is my advice in regard to that issue: I’m not sure we can tweak the report much more as there will
be some records with the same begin and end date that will not be correct. If the data are correct, then I would advise the data
person to make notes such as below and keep those handy. (I believe
that there was another project where we had the data entry personnel do the
same thing.) Then, when the report is run again, she will be able to
refer to the notes and not have to do the research again. |
|
Announcements |
1.
CRI Change Code We need to make sure that whenever a student’s weighting
changes, the current instructional record needs to be closed out with a CRI
and then a new record added with the new weighting. The Service Start
and Service End dates are also important so that the end of the year reports
the LEAs submit to the DE are accurate. 2. Follow-up to Survey Thanks to those of you who answered the survey during the
month of March about your current practice related to data entry of
services. The differences in data entry became noticeable as the Center
was trying to develop some outputs for the DE and Iowa Braille and The Operations Work Group, the operational arm of the OGC,
discussed the survey and the current practices at their March 24 meeting.
Here is a summary of their discussion: ·
Data Entry of o
In the application that is being rewritten, every service will have a
delivery building – the building where the child receives the service. This
will eliminate the problem. o
Between now and July 2013, AEAs will not be asked to change how
they are entering non-public school data. o
It should be noted that attending district and building are not
used to determine which districts receiving funding from Child Count. ·
Services o
There is a difference between a service that is known or that will be
delivered, although infrequently, and one that is just available. It is
possible that consumers are using “Upon Request” for both situations. o
Two DE staff will develop some clarifying documentation. o
At the April 28 Operations Work Group meeting, there will be further
discussion about that clarifying documentation as well as how to proceed with
the data entry personnel. o
Further information on the discussion held at the Operations Work
Group meeting is available via the meeting notes posted at www.iowaidea.org; Section: Governance;
Subsection: Meeting Notes or Minutes. |
|
Preview
of Future Business |
Next meeting will be Tuesday, May
3rd, 10:00 – 12:00 Topics: TBD |