DATA MANAGEMENT ALERT     

Special Education Data Updates Webinar 

 The Exceptional Student Services Data Management team will be hosting our next Special Education Data Updates live webinar on Wednesday, October 20th from 2pm – 3pm. This session will cover a variety of data topics that will include: 

• Reminders 
• Trending topics 
• Topics requested by you 
• Q&A 

Registration is required to attend: Register for Special Education Data Updates webinar.

For questions, please contact ESS Data Management via email at [email protected]. 

DATA MANAGEMENT ALERT

New Integrity Rule -51002 – Student Home and Mailing address required

A new Data Quality Validation integrity rule -51002 will be introduced into the integrity process on FY22 Enrollment data shortly. This update is a continuation of our effort to ensure clean data for the state. A new one-sheet Integrity Tool is now available on our AzEDS SPED Reporting webpage for troubleshooting tips for Integrity Rule -51002.

It is expected for each site enrollment reported by your LEA, both a Home and Mailing address be reported. This will provide ESS with the ability to ensure that special education services can continue if educational programs are disrupted by a change of boundaries based on residence changes. Student site enrollments missing Home, Mailing, or both addresses will fail rule -51002. Student addresses are submitted at the site level. If your LEA is reporting the student at multiple sites, both a home and mailing address for the student must be reported for each site. This will allow both addresses to remain intact during the school site level deduplication process.

This new Data Quality Validation integrity category is now available on your INTEG15 report under the Integrity Category dropdown. Selecting only this category will show any students failing this rule for your LEA.

Please contact [email protected] with any questions regarding this update.

DATA MANAGEMENT ALERT

Reporting of Primary/Secondary Needs in AzEDS

This notice serves as a reminder that the most accurate disability representation should be reported for all students with disabilities throughout the school year.

When reporting needs (disability categories) to AzEDS for students, all eligible needs listed on a student’s IEP should be reported for all special education placements in Arizona. If a student has only one need, that need is reported as the primary need. For students with multiple needs, only one can be reported as the primary need and the other need(s) would be reported as secondary. The primary need is defined as the one that most adversely affects the student’s ability to access the general curriculum.

Accurate disability representation is required for statistical analysis, fulfilling data requests, state funding, data visualizations/dashboards, and making data-driven decisions.

For questions please contact [email protected].

DATA MANAGEMENT ALERT   

FY 2022 October 1 Data Collection

The Exceptional Student Services (ESS) Special Education (SPED) October 1 Data Collection (ODC) child count is a key process that is consequential for federal reporting, determining federal allocations and providing information for the state to make educational determinations over time. Public education agencies (PEAs) are required to verify the count of students receiving SPED services over October 1. Verification will be completed through the web-based ESS October 1 Data Collection application, available through the ESS Portal via ADEConnect.

The October 1 Data Collection consists of three phases:

• Phase I: Verification & Personnel
• Phase II: Reconciliation
• Phase III: Non-Reconciliation (if applicable)
   

For a complete ODC timeline, please review the ESS Data Management Important Dates document.

Phase I: Verification

The ESS ODC application will open on Wednesday, October 6, 2021. PEAs must login to the application to submit the October 1 verification and personnel counts. All technical assistance documents and FAQs will be available by accessing the “Help tab” on the home page of the ESS ODC application.

Please note that October 1 is the count date, not a due date or deadline.

October 1 falls on a Friday this year. If October 1 is a non-session day for your PEA (i.e., fall break), be mindful of the following information. To ensure an accurate count, include students who were enrolled on the last day school was in session before October 1 as long as they are known to have continued in special education on the first day school was in session following October 1 (whether it be in your school in your PEA or another PEA). The PEA that should count the student is the PEA the student was enrolled in prior to October 1.

Resources

ODC Manual – This manual includes documentation of the entire process of ODC, including frequently asked questions.

Please note the Important Dates document shows that Phase II of the October 1 Data Collection is due earlier this year than previous years. Ensure your SPED data in AzEDS is accurate and passing integrity regularly to ensure a smooth Phase II submission.

IDEA Conference (Conference Registration | Recording coming soon)

Special Education October 1 Processes, Report Out, and Upcoming Changes

This session will review the current processes of the child count requirement, report out on different perspectives in SPED placements and elaborate on significant upcoming changes moving forward.

To access ESS Data Management ODC training videos, please visit our ODC or YouTube webpages.

We highly encourage all PEAs to subscribe to ESS Data Management Alerts to receive ODC and other important SPED data reporting announcements.

Please join us at our monthly Special Education Data Updates (SEDU) webinars to discuss a variety of ESS data topics, updates, and live Q&A. Please visit the  Data Management website under Training Opportunities for more information.

For questions regarding ODC requirements or anything else, please email us at [email protected].

DATA MANAGEMENT ALERT   

New AzEDS Portal Report: SPED50 – SPED Concurrency Report

The ESS Data Management team is pleased to announce that a new report is now available in the AzEDS Portal, SPED50 – SPED Concurrency Report. This report will help PEAs find concurrent SPED data in AzEDS along with the concurrent PEA, Site, and dates reported to aid in determining the accurate reporting for the student. This report will only show Primary SPED LRE data reported by your PEA that overlaps with Primary SPED LRE data reported by another PEA (Concurrency).

The report will display the following:

• State Student ID
• Student Last Name
• Student First Name
• School Site of your PEA
• LRE Entry Date of your PEA
• LRE Exit Date of your PEA
• Concurrent School Site of the overlapping PEA
• Concurrent LRE Entry Date of the overlapping PEA
• Concurrent LRE Exit Date of the overlapping PEA
• Concurrent PEA
   

If any exit dates are blank in this report, AzEDS translates this as the LRE continuing to the end of the Fiscal Year.

If the concurrent PEA does not show this information on their SPED50 report, this would indicate their LRE data is Orphan Data (SPED data missing Enrollment) and they should review their SPED99 – Orphan Data report.

For any questions about this report, please contact ESS Data Management at [email protected].

DATA MANAGEMENT ALERT

New LRE Decision Tree Documents now available

A new series of LRE decision tree documents have been made available on the ESS Data Management website. These documents will provide a roadmap and assist in determining the correct LRE code for students with disabilities. Each LRE decision tree has been separated into 5 categories:

• Preschool No Early Childhood Program
• Preschool with Early Childhood Program
• Public School
• RTC
• Secure Care
   

These LRE decision tree documents can be found on the ESS Data Management website in the AzEDS reporting section under Tools and Resources.

Please contact [email protected] with any questions regarding these new tools.  

DATA MANAGEMENT ALERT

Update to ASDB Student Reporting

Due to the passage of HB2863 during the Spring 2021 legislative session, the Arizona State Schools for the Deaf and Blind (ASDB) is now considered a local education agency (LEA) for the provision of free and appropriate public education (FAPE), for the submission of data and other required reports, and for the provision of courses of study that lead to graduation with a regular high school diploma for all students enrolled in their campus locations. This status change began July 1, 2021 (fiscal year 2022).

This memorandum addresses specific areas of responsibility that will impact both ASDB and public education agencies (PEAs) that place eligible students at ASDB through the IEP and voucher process.

Updated ASDB Student Reporting guidance from ESS Data Management is available here.

If you have questions regarding the guidance, please e-mail [email protected]

Special Education Directors,

Due to the passage of HB 2863 during the Spring 2021 legislative session, the Arizona State Schools for the Deaf and Blind (ASDB) is now considered a local education agency (LEA) for the provision of free and appropriate public education (FAPE), for the submission of data and other required reports, and for the provision of courses of study that lead to graduation with a regular high school diploma for all students enrolled in their campus locations. This status change began July 1, 2021 (fiscal year 2022).

This memorandum addresses specific areas of responsibility that will impact both ASDB and public education agencies (PEAs) that place eligible students at ASDB through the IEP and voucher process.

For questions on data reporting, please contact ESS Data Management at [email protected]. For any items pertaining to the institutional voucher, please contact the ESS Vouchers Unit at [email protected].

DATA MANAGEMENT ALERT

Special Education Data Updates

The Exceptional Student Services Data Management team will be hosting our next Special Education Data Updates live webinar on Wednesday, June 16th from 2pm – 3pm. This session will cover a variety of data topics that will include:

• Reminders
• Trending topics
• Topics requested by you
• Q&A

Registration is required to attend: Register for Special Education Data Updates webinar. 

For questions, please contact ESS Data Management via email at [email protected].

DATA MANAGEMENT ALERT 

New Integrity Rule for FY 2021: -10134 

A new integrity rule for FY 2021 will be introduced into the integrity process on SPED data shortly.  This new rule is a continuation of our effort to further validate SPED reporting to ensure clean data for the state.   

A new one-sheet Integrity Tool is available on our AzEDS SPED Reporting webpage for troubleshooting tips. It has been added to our SPED Integrity Rules Reference document and referenced on the FY 2021 & 2022 ESS Data Reporting Updates document. 

Integrity Rule -10134 

This rule will validate any students enrolled at an Arizona State School for the Deaf and Blind (ASDB) to have a corresponding SPED Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) reported. 

Please contact [email protected] with any questions regarding this new rule.