Forms Storage , Retrieval and Compliance Reporting

Fannin County is a predominantly rural Texas community that lies on the border of Oklahoma. The community operates a Shared Services Agreement (SSA) to provide Special Education services for more than 1900 children from 27 schools in 10 districts within the county.

The challenge was to provide an affordable, easy-to-use database application that can collect, analyze, and generate reports from large amounts of information in highly detailed education plans, goal-setting, and progress reports for more than 800 current and 1,000 former special education students. The organization needed a database application that could run reports for therapists and evaluators serving special-needs children, helping them track and improve efficiency as well as meet rigorous state and federal regulatory compliance standards.

More than six years ago, when Dr.Sara Baker became director of Fannin County Special Education SSA, the organization was using a database to manage its records. However, Dr. Baker found that the forms employed by the system were excessively complex and time-consuming for teachers.

“You must understand that we are required to hold annual ARD (Admission, Review and Dismissal) meetings for each of our kids, in which their Individual Education Plans (IEP) are developed and reviewed,” Dr. Baker explains. She adds, “Each of these meetings generate from 15 to 45 pages of information about the student’s education plan, progress and goals.

“I wanted to free our Special Education teachers from having to spend so much time with forms, so they could spend more time with the kids.”

Dr. Baker redesigned the forms to simplify them and make them less time-consuming for teachers. While the new form system worked beautifully, the organization lost the database tied to the previous forms, meaning it now had no way to automate the tracking and analysis of organizational data, or generate reports for service providers.

Her organization needed a database application that could run reports for therapists and evaluators serving special-needs children, helping her organization to track and improve efficiency as well as meet rigorous state and federal regulatory compliance standards.

In addition, Dr. Baker explained, frequent changes in regulatory requirements necessitated a system in which fields could be easily added and edited.

Sansoft IMS' engineering team built a data-driven application that’s easy to use and can generate reports the organization needs to operate efficiently, effectively, and in compliance with state and federal laws. The application’s data fields can also be added to and edited to allow it to keep up with new requirements. The main features were annual ARD (Admission, Review and Dismissal) reports for each student to review their Individual Education Plans (IEP).

“Frankly, I was leery of using them at first, because they are in California and we are in Texas,” she said.

“But, the way they worked with us, we could be talking together and looking at the same computer screen as though we were face-to-face,” she added.

About Sansoft IMS

Since 1997, Sansoft IMS has delivered nearly hundreds custom solutions with 100% success. This immeasurable practice has made us capable of eradicating risk from the business analysis, the design, and the coding. We know the critical path to success of your project because our team has traveled that same path over a thousand times. We adhere carefully to best practices and industry standards. The key to success we've learned is that regular communication and agile development are the most cost efficient.

Over the years, we have managed to build a solid team of software outsourcing professionals that come from various backgrounds and expand the creative potential of the company. The expertise that they posses embraces a wide range of custom programming skills involving the latest and most effective development technologies and databases like Visual Basic (.NET), SQL Server, SQL Azure and Microsoft Access along with reporting tools like Crystal Reports, SQL Server Reporting Services, and the Microsoft Office tools Excel, Access, and PowerPoint. This, to a great extent, defines the quality and reliability of the custom software applications that we develop. Our competence and experience ensure that we deliver excellent services and products to our customers. At every stage of the development process, from conceptual design to product release, the highest quality standards are maintained. Our extensive communication facilities allow us to keep in touch with our customers 24 hours a day.

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