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Infinite Campus (IC) has identified a "bug" with the dates on any new IEPs being developed within the AIM system after March 1, 2011. Because February 2012 is a leap year, the system is calculating the end date of IEPs and services within them to be 365 days minus 2 days, rather than the standard 365 minus 1. IC is working on a correction to this bug, but is not sure yet when it will be available. If you have further questions, please contact the Special Education Division at 406-444-5661 and ask to speak with a monitor.

It has come to the attention of the Special Education Division that there is some confusion regarding the locking of Evaluation Reports and Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) in the AIM system. It is important that you lock these documents when they are complete (parent has signed it and all other signatures necessary have been obtained), as it impacts various other functions within the AIM system, including:

· Pulling data into the IEP from the ER – if the ER is not locked, the disability information may not transfer into the IEP correctly

· Child Count data – the state cannot see the information needed for child count if the IEP is not locked

· Creating an Amendment – In order for an IEP to be amended if a change must be made, it must be locked

· Transfer of Records – in order for an ER and/or IEP to transfer with a student when they move to another district, it must be locked in the AIM system

Transfer of Special Education Records in AIM.

As we enter a new calendar year, we wish you good fortune and thank you for your continued service to students. It is also a good time to issue a couple of mid-year reminders to assist in effectively providing services to our students.

Districts continue to have issues with transfer of special education records in the AIM system. Attached please find the Records Transfer Guidance. An on-going barrier to the transfer process, as well as the data collection process, is unlocked forms. Forms that have been completed, signed, and provided to parents must be locked in AIM. Locking the form allows data fields to populate and allows the form to be transferred with data intact. Unlocked forms put the receiving district in the situation of having to unnecessarily re-do the entire form. Please help us with this issue and use the amendment process when change is necessary.

A review of the AIM system from the state level also reflects that some districts have not fully implemented use of the AIM system which was required as of March 1, 2010. District use of AIM will continue to be monitored and will be a factor in the calculation of the district’s submission of timely, valid data for the Levels of Determination.

When a student exits special education (through being found no longer eligible, moving, graduating, dropping out, etc.), the following steps must be taken by the case manager in AIM:

· End date yourself as the case manager on their Team Members tab – at midnight on the date you put in, the student will be removed from your caseload

· If the student has just been found to be no longer eligible for special education services:

o Open up the current school year enrollment for the student

o Under Special Ed Fields

§ Enter the date the student was found no longer eligible in the Exit Date

§ Select the Exit Reason from the drop down box (in this case, Returned to Regular Ed)

o Save the information

· If the student has moved out of the district, graduated, dropped out, died, or reached maximum age

o Follow your regular protocol for ending a student's enrollment, and also

o Under Special Ed Fields

§ Enter the date the student exited in the Exit Date field

§ Select the appropriate Exit Reason from the drop down box

When you have a student whose parent has revoked consent, you need to take 3 steps:

1. Do the appropriate paperwork in AIM (the revocation of consent form and the prior written notice form) that you are familiar with

2. Do an amendment of the current IEP, amending only the first editor (the Individualized Education Plan) with the reason below. This will not allow you to change the end date of the IEP, so be sure to put in the date the revocation went into effect

3. Go into the students enrollment tab (under General Student Information), and under special ed fields, put in the exit date and exit reason (01 – return to regular education).

The question has arisen quite frequently recently about how to exit a student who is speech only in the AIM system. The answer is simple - the same steps that were taken to qualify them for speech in the first place must be followed to show that they no longer demonstrate the need for services and are therefore no longer eligible.

You must:

1. have the parents sign an evaluation plan giving you permission to complete assessments to determine continued eligibility of their child

a. this evaluation plan must include, at a minimum, a classroom based assessment (CBA), an observation, and typically will include a communications assessment

2. Complete a "full-blown" evaluation report meeting - with the required members of the team present to make the determination that the student no longer qualifies and write ups of the assessments that were completed per the Evaluation Plan signed by the parents

a. you may use existing data for these assessments - the communications assessment can use the data from the sessions and the fact that the student has met all of the IEP goals, the CBA can be as simple as "Student does not have difficulties communicating with peers and his grades are not affected by his past speech difficulties."

Have you been seeing a red exlamation point (!) next to your IEPs and/or Evaluation Reports?

It could mean that the IEP or Evaluation is due within 30 days, or past due, or it could just mean that at least one of the service dates is outside of the start/end dates of the IEP (typically that happens when they do the draft IEP and then the meeting date changes - it will change the start/end dates of the IEP, but not the service dates). To find out exactly, you need to open the folder that has the exclamation point next to it, and hover your cursor over the title of the document (MT Evaluation Report, MT IEP, etc.) with it. A pop up box will appear, briefly, that tells you what the issue is.

If it is appearing on an Evaluation Report that is more than 3 years old, but there is evidence in the IEPs since the ER that a re-evaluation was determined to be unnecessary, just ignore the !.

If it is appearing on an IEP that is due within 30 days, when you have completed the new IEP and locked it, the ! will go away.

If it is appearing on an IEP because of a service date issue, an amendment will need to be created to fix the dates of the services to align with the dates of the IEP.

There will be a few very important changes to the Special Education Child Count Data Collection Application in the fall of 2011. The application will no longer be completed through the Citrix portal. It will be a stand-alone application with its own unique user log-ins for each person in your district/coop who will be completing the verification of the information. Details regarding the required login credentials will be sent to directors later this week. The new application will pull in information from AIM and the district/coop will verify that information. No information will be entered through the actual application, so it is imperative that all of your special education documentation and information be completed in the AIM system to allow it to sync to the state and be pulled into the new child count application. We cannot stress this enough. This process will be the only method for gathering child count data. More information will be available on the application this summer, as well as at the fall MCASE meeting in September. If you have questions, please contact Anne Rainey (arainey@mt.govor 406-444-4430) or Jan Duiker (jduiker@mt.govor 406-444-7432).

The Auto-Calculate Setting of Service button on the State Reported Data editor within the IEP is not working. Currently, when you enter the Total Instructional Minutes Per Week and click the button, you get a message "Total Active Service Minutes is 0..." If you recieve this message, click "OK" and manually choose the appropriate setting of service from the drop down box below the button.