Key Challenges:
- Needed a solution that could help them keep up with compliance and deadlines.
- Former software solution was slow, unreliable, and would easily lose unsaved work.
- Needed to spend more time on instruction and less time on paperwork.
- Time and resources were wasted trying to keep up with the multitude of small tasks.
Key Results:
- Completing paperwork is faster, leading to more time with students.
- With text libraries, Prior Written Notice documents only take around 30-45 seconds to create.
- They are excelling in meeting their deadlines and staying in compliance.
- Teacher satisfaction has increased.
Forrest County School District, a public school district based out of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, aspires to embrace, inspire, challenge, and grow by respecting the worth, value, and full potential of all individuals. They started working with Euna Special Education in 2014 to support the 450 students across their district with Individualized Education Programs. By doing so, they’ve streamlined their processes to become more efficient and excelled in compliance by pairing hard work with purpose-built technology.
After nearly a decade of working with Euna Special Education, Director of Special Education, Ardella Mack, and Process Coordinator, Katcha Fowler, reflect on the transformation their district has seen since implementing the software.
The Challenge
Before using Euna Special Education, Forrest County School District used a different software solution that wasn’t user friendly. They were facing a multitude of difficulties, from inefficient processes to work getting lost in the system.
“It was frustrating to our teachers that they would spend some time working on an IEP and it wouldn’t save, or it wouldn’t download correctly.”
Frustrations like these made it extremely difficult to keep up with the deadlines and compliance measures they needed to meet. Katcha stated that they needed a solution that would give them a quick response and allow them to work more efficiently on paperwork—specifically IEPs—so that their teachers could gain more time back in their day.
Another contributing factor to their challenges was the fact that they needed more visibility into their caseload. Katcha stated that they did not have a fast way to see a snapshot of their upcoming dates and deadlines. They needed an easy way to see where they were at in the process, what tasks had been completed, and what their next steps needed to be. Without this visibility, both on the administrative side and the teaching side, staff were spending more time on tedious tasks trying to keep track of caseloads and paperwork.
“We just needed a program that was going to allow our teachers to have more time with instruction and less time on paperwork.”
All of these issues lead to one thing: wasted time and resources. There are a lot of small details that have to be accounted for, and they tend to pile up into more time-consuming tasks. Without Euna Special Education, the department was dealing with a lot of back and forth in their processes to keep up with these small details.
The Solution
Once Forrest County made the switch from their former software solution to Euna Special Education, they began to see their efficiency pick up. As special educators, teachers and administrators are constantly bouncing from one task to another. One minute they may be working on paperwork, and the next minute they are in the classroom teaching or attending a meeting.
With Euna Special Education, they’ve found the flexibility they need to start and stop their tasks as needed, but still save time and bookmark progress. One of the features Katcha mentioned that was most helpful for teachers was the checklist available when working through the tabs in the IEP module. As teachers are running from task to task, “they can know exactly where they left off.”
Another game changer highlighted were the reminders and compliance checks embedded throughout the software. Not only does Euna Special Education give dashboard alerts about upcoming dates, but email reminders are also sent out, making it nearly impossible to forget deadlines. On top of that, there are error checkers and checklists to aid teachers as they work through the paperwork itself to ensure complete compliance.
The Results
From writing IEPs, to filling out a Prior Written Notice, to completing eligibility paperwork—Forrest County School District sees time savings across the board.
“Regardless of what it is, [the paperwork is] far and above faster than what it was 10 years ago when we had a different program.”
A Prior Written Notice, for example, takes around 30-45 seconds to create because of features like the text library, which allows users to input common paragraphs that are pre-formulated by admin. Instead of manually writing content each time a document is made, they’ve streamlined their document creation and have access to terminology that’s already admin approved. On top of that, the software will automatically pull in student information such as their name and pronouns, making the process even easier.
Time saving features are not only beneficial for teachers to allocate more time in their day for higher-priority tasks, but they’re also essential for meeting compliance standards. In one centralized location, Euna Special Education helps you identify your upcoming dates for meetings, evaluations, and compliance deadlines. There are also extra measures implemented to ensure nothing gets skipped through due process checklists and error checkers. All of these features lead to a more compliant, streamlined special education process.
“Over the last several years, we can probably count on one hand the amount of deadlines that we’ve missed, and some of those [were] completely out of our control [because] sometimes things just happen.”
Meeting deadlines is crucial for compliance, and using a software solution that powers this process will create a domino effect of positive results. Whenever a district implements efficient processes and easy-to-use solutions, staff satisfaction follows. For both administrators and teachers alike, a fully functional software solution can transform the way caseloads are approached.
“I don’t know any of our teachers that don’t thank us year after year for getting Euna Special Education.”
With teacher satisfaction and student success being top-of-mind, it is essential to implement a solution that can be tailored to both, and that is what Forrest County did.
Conclusion
The administrative team of Forrest County School District knows how hard their staff works to ensure students are being taken care of and classroom time is maximized. That’s why they’ve created surefire processes to help take burdens off their teachers.
One of those process solutions is Euna Special Education, a software solution designed to simultaneously save time, increase compliance, and reduce the strain of paperwork. Forrest County has transformed their district from being paper-pushers to digital drivers, creating better outcomes for staff and students alike.
Manage Your IEPs & Evaluations with Euna Special Education
Gain access to a purpose-built solution, designed to save you time and maintain compliance with features such as:
- Form Revisions and Restoration
- Goal, Test, and Text Libraries
- Error Checkers
Request a demo today to learn more about how we can transform your special education process.