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Five Ways School Nurses Can Increase Their Sphere of Influence

The history of school nursing is more than 100 years old and began in the tenements of New York City. In 1902 Lina Rogers became the first school nurse. She was assigned by Lillian Wald to cover four schools with over 10,000 students to see if onsite care of communicable diseases would improve school attendance. Ms. Rogers made a significant impact in decreasing absenteeism by 90% within the first six months. Word quickly spread, and in the next school year there were more than 27 school nurses in New York schools. By 1914, there were over 400 school nurses assigned to NY city schools, and Los Angeles joined the trend. 1

If you’re a school nurse, you already know the importance of your role. School nurses are the dedicated, licensed health professionals in a school community, whose eyes and ears are an extension of both parents and staff. The role of school nurse has morphed into the Chief Wellness Officer (CWO), even if that is not your official title! There should be a school nurse in the building every day. If not, there are almost 56 million reasons to have one. School nurses have access to 95% of the nation’s 56 million children. But 25% of schools have no school nurse, and more than 35% of schools have only a part-time school nurse. COVID has amplified the contribution of school nurses and the need for each school district to have a comprehensive health services program.

Disease surveillance is one example of the expertise that school nurses provide. Did you know that in 2009, Mary Pappas, a private school nurse in New York, first alerted the local health department to what would become identified as the H1N1 outbreak?2 Student Wellness Services is a more comprehensive title for the enormity of the role that school nurses fill for their communities. School nurses working within the full scope of practice and available resources create a safe and healthy learning environment. They provide a safe place to land and bridge the gap between home and school.

However, to be successful in your role, you need opportunities to lend your expert input to health-related decisions within your school community. To create those opportunities, you need to increase your sphere of influence.

Here are five ways to get started:

1. Be present inside and outside of your school health office

This required a change in my daily routine and was quickly appreciated by staff and administration. Each morning I visit classrooms and do quick assessments of any students with concerns and respond to the teachers’ questions. This one action (in the pre-COVID world) changed the way staff engaged with me. They began to look forward to my morning rounds.

Think of it as a moving shift report. This daily check-in changed the dynamics of the school day. I felt more connected to the school staff by being present outside of my health office. Seeing the school nurse in the hallway, lunchroom, all-purpose room, and gym for non-emergencies creates opportunities for engagement and increases connections.

This strategy is effective in remote learning environments, too! I often visit Google classrooms or Zoom rooms to provide mini health lessons, read to my students, or check in for any questions or concerns.

2. Share your expertise with the school community

According to the Gallup Poll, nurses are the most trusted profession year after year. Leverage that trust and use your extensive professional experience, education, and training to provide information to your school community.

Publicize seasonal health information and current trends you are seeing in school. Embracing the school district’s use of social media helps to promote the work and role of the school nurse. Contribute to health-related content on the district’s website, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram accounts. The idea is to share your knowledge and translate health information for your school community.

I love writing on my blog The Relentless School Nurse because the messages are brief, 500 words or less. But if blogging doesn’t appeal to you, consider developing a column and naming it something fun and creative. Did you know that infographics are much more effective and widely read than articles? Create an infographic about who you are and what your background is. Let the school community get to know you!

3. Attend Board of Education (BOE) meetings

Ask to speak at a BOE meeting to share a health-related initiative. Let the decision makers know your value, and be prepared to share examples of the work you do.

Nurses have not been adept at promoting their value ― but keeping quiet has not served them well. Think of it as educating administrators and BOE members about the important role of the school nurse. Let them know how you succeed in the role of CWO. Have an “ask.” What can the BOE do together with the school nurse to support student success through a robust school health services program?

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4. Become an active member of your local, state, and national school nursing organizations

As I look back on my twenty-year school nursing career (36 as a nurse), I regret not joining my nursing organizations earlier. I actually waited 10 years to join the National Association of School Nurses and quickly recognized the value in becoming an active member. The rich, high-level professional development opportunities and the camaraderie of being with fellow school nurses are priceless. We are health professionals in an educational setting. What we bring is very valuable, but it is not always recognized or acknowledged, so finding our “tribe” is especially important.

Building leadership skills, learning about trends across school districts, and networking with colleagues are just a few of the many reasons joining professional school nursing organizations helps support your growth and deepen your practice.

School nursing must be done in collaboration with many partners. We cannot work in isolation. @RobinCogan #SchoolNurse

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5. Embed yourself in the school community

School nurses can be impactful and recognized members of their school community. This happens from being present inside and outside of school. You do not have to live where you work to make this happen; you need to be a valued member of the community. One way to accomplish this goal is to engage in conversations that matter with the experts in our students’ lives: the parents, educators, and caregivers. We are on the same team with mutual goals of having our students flourish in school and life.

For example, I use an evidence-based strategy called a “Community Cafe” to promote parent engagement and seek community-based solutions to issues that arise.3

Example: Community Cafes

Families in our community were over-utilizing the emergency room for non-emergent care. We held a series of Community Cafes to understand the reasons why this was happening. These conversations created a list of concerns that were then brought to the healthcare providers. A Community Collaborative was formed to forge better relationships among school nurses, families, and our pediatric partners. The skies are the limit when we partner with our community!

The overarching message is that school nursing must be done in collaboration with many partners. We cannot work in isolation. Visibility is key to personal fulfillment and a robust health services program. Stepping outside of our health offices and school buildings and embedding ourselves in school communities solidify our role as the CWO. In this way, administrators recognize they can lean on us to help inform crucial health-related decision making in our schools and communities.

Tools to help school nurses and their colleagues assess and address individual student needs and population trends. Learn about Frontline’s EHR & School Nursing Management software

SOURCES

1 Hanink, E. (2014). The School Nurse. Lina Rogers Struthers. The School Review, 26(4), 308-309. doi:10.1086/436913

2 Molyneux, J. (2016, November 21). AJN Speaks With Mary Pappas, School Nurse Who Alerted CDC to Swine Flu Outbreak. Retrieved January 01, 2021, from https://ajnoffthecharts.com/mary-pappas-school-nurse-just-carrying-on-despite-swine-flu-outbreak/

3 Cogan, R. (2018, June 01). Power of Community Engagement. Retrieved January 01, 2021, from https://relentlessschoolnurse.com/2018/06/01/the-relentless-school-nurse-power-of-community-engagement/

 

How DC Public Schools Use Student Data to Support Mental Health

In this article originally published in August 2019 on EdSurge.com, Douglas Gotel, Licensed Clinical Social Worker at District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS), describes how the Mental Health team there collects data to inform effective planning for trauma-focused interventions and crisis response.

Douglas Gotel understands trauma and its crushing consequences; when he was 21, his 11-year-old cousin was murdered. He recalls feeling helpless watching his cousin’s mother suffer in anguish without access to a grief therapist in the small town where they lived.

Today, Gotel approaches trauma from a clinical perspective as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and a Registered Play Therapist Supervisor. And as a Program Manager with the District of Columbia Public Schools Mental Health Team, he and his colleagues support the efforts of school-based social workers who deliver evidence-based treatment (EBT) interventions. The interventions support the 8 to 11 percent of all children in DC who have signs, symptoms, or diagnosable emotional and mental health conditions, including those related to trauma.

Here, Gotel speaks with EdSurge about the impact EBT interventions have on DCPS students. He also shares how the district uses case management technology to track these interventions, support clinicians, and help assess when students need help — and when they don’t.

“Our ultimate goal is to strengthen kids’ coping capacity and resilience.”

EdSurge: Tell us about your evidence-based treatment interventions.


Douglas Gotel: DCPS has 49,000 students, and more than 4,100 of those students are receiving ongoing prescribed behavioral support services through our comprehensive service delivery model. We’ve been offering EBT interventions as part of that model since the 2011-2012 school year. Our ultimate goal is to strengthen kids’ coping capacity and resilience. We also want to reduce disproportionality — where minority students (specifically, black and Latinx students in our district) are overrepresented in special education and discipline referrals.

DCPS mental health providers currently use 13 targeted EBT interventions that focus on supporting children who have social and emotional needs. They help reduce the symptoms of issues such as ADHD, ASD, and chronic exposure to trauma or adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), among other things.

For example, we use child-centered play therapy intervention in our elementary schools where kids learn how to solve their problems and work through relational difficulties.

Providers use puppets, wooden houses, and animal and people figures to facilitate symbolic play. Children get to retell the story of physical abuse, or even of having a difficult time with being placed in foster care, in a way that restores power and mastery to them. While it looks like play, there’s real work happening with the child.

EdSurge: Why did you decide to adopt special education case management technology?


Douglas Gotel: We needed a better system to capture — and then use — the immense amount of data we were collecting through our EBT interventions. We collected data around the frequency of certain behaviors, who was receiving treatment, how much treatment, and then the outcome of the treatment.

Initially, we used bubble forms to collect those details, but the process took months. We had to package up the data and send the forms to a vendor for scanning. Then an analyst had to aggregate the raw data and put it into some usable form for us.

We needed to get the data much faster to tell each student’s story and show the impact of their treatment at multi-disciplinary team meetings. That ultimately led us to adopt AcceliPLAN, now Frontline Special Education Program Management, in 2017, a customizable special education management system. We already had a contract with Accelify, now part of Frontline Education, for Medicaid billing, and we needed to replace our previous data system for provider management and 504 compliance, so it made sense.

EdSurge: How does special education management technology support your district’s mental health services?


Douglas Gotel: We can customize Frontline’s Special Education Program Management software so it aligns with our workflow and policies. For each intervention, the system is programmed to expect our school-based clinicians to complete particular behavioral or symptom scales for all of our students, both general education and special education. That’s helped us enforce our progress-monitoring policy.

Within a multi-tiered system of supports, using this technology, clinicians can easily collect and use anecdotal and hard data to substantiate a statement of progress or a statement of regression.

“We needed a better system to capture — and then use — the immense amount of data we were collecting through our EBT interventions.”

And then there are time savings.

For example, a critical support we provide is school crisis response. When a crisis event, such as a staff death, takes place, we organize and deploy mental health providers from our campuses to provide support at the school. With Frontline, we created a custom crisis response manager. We can see where these events are happening and how many staff and students received crisis counseling. The system also populates the data entered on response details into a downloadable narrative report.

That saves us hours in productivity because we don’t have to create charts from raw data in a spreadsheet. Those are hours we can spend ensuring students receive quality mental health services

“These interventions help children heal so they can go out into the world and live their dreams.”

EdSurge: With more accessible data, what have you learned about how interventions impact students?


Douglas Gotel: The national data overwhelmingly demonstrates that children of color are disproportionately represented in special education services. But how do we right-size services for a student whose IEP may exceed the demonstrated need and functioning of that student? This tool quickly puts behavioral data, intervention-specific data, and outcomes data into providers’ hands. Now they have quantitative data to justify and advocate for reducing services or exiting kids from special education services where appropriate.

We’ve also been able to consistently demonstrate that participating in trauma-focused interventions significantly reduces PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) symptoms. For example, on average, students who received the Grief and Trauma Intervention for Children (GTI) had an initial score of 20 on the Child PTSD Symptom Scale, indicating moderate symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress. The average score of students after receiving the intervention was 12, which tells us their symptoms were significantly improved. This type of mental health outcomes data is unprecedented for a school district.

Those numbers aren’t just stats; they represent our children’s emotional well-being. For instance, we had a high school student who used to cut herself. She wasn’t suicidal; she would cut to manage stress. After completing the SPARCS intervention (Structured Psychotherapy for Adolescents Responding to Chronic Stress), that student no longer needs to harm herself; she learned better ways to cope with sadness through SPARCS.

These interventions help children heal so they can go out into the world and live their dreams.

Evidence has shown several times over that students cannot learn if their social-emotional needs aren’t being met. The data we collect from Frontline supports this.

 

Why You Need to Care About Time Collection (and How Doing It Right Can Boost Safety and Efficiency)

Note: This post was written in collaboration with our friends at Touchpoint, experts in time collection and partners with Frontline in serving the education community.

If your district manually tracks employee hours using paper timesheets, you might feel like climbing the walls. Anyone who has ever been responsible for monitoring, calculating, and managing payroll knows how time consuming it is, how meticulous the task is — and how valuable a reliable digital system can be.

Accurate time collection is the foundation of any time and attendance system. Without that, it would be impossible to correctly determine hours worked and pay workers accurately for their time. School districts looking for a quality time collection system should make sure it’s supported by three solid pillars. It must be seamless for administrators, simple for IT, and easy for employees.

Seamless for Administrators

As if district administrators didn’t already have enough challenges on their plates, complicated COVID-related questions keep cropping up. A paperless and automated time collection system means one less thing to worry about.

Payroll administrators count on having their data well organized and well structured. When that data flows correctly, reporting and approvals are reliable and timely. With an efficient and accurate system, the payroll process will not spring unwanted surprises.

With digital timestamps, employees can’t simply average their hours or habitually write “9-5” on their daily timesheets. Implementing this single change can translate into substantial savings for payroll budgets each year. And using a digital time collection system means data is more accurate and available. A system could include the location of time collection, the device used, and geolocation (if mobile) for enhanced accountability.

And of course, getting rid of paper means less data entry and more accuracy. Compiling timesheets and running payroll can go from taking two weeks to just two days!

Simple for IT

IT techs are swamped — no surprise, right? Most districts have far fewer IT resources than a similarly sized corporate setting would. That means IT departments need to get creative about how they fight bottlenecks brought on by too many support requests. One huge advantage is to have a simple and efficient plug-and-play system that doesn’t require R&D or lengthy programming and setup plans.

This year, you can’t talk about technology without looking at how school closures threw a wrench into the machinery. IT teams across the country are working frantically to support thousands of teachers with remote technology in the classroom. Administrators and hourly staff working from home or on-site need help, too. That increased demand puts a tremendous burden on a traditionally overworked department.

Any IT tech will tell you that a system that can be maintained or supported remotely makes a difference. Since time collection is complex, a system that is stable and dependable will reduce the workload, allowing technology teams to provide more assistance in classrooms for teachers and students.

Easy for Employees

Don’t overlook the time collection experience for employees. If you want to succeed at implementing a digital system, winning them over is at least half the battle.

Tracking hours worked can be frustrating and time consuming. Hourly employees want to do their jobs, and extra paperwork is one more thing nobody needs. If clocking in and out is easy and familiar, it will go a long way toward gaining employees’ acceptance.

Employees will more readily accept a time collection system with an interface that’s easily recognized and user friendly and not one more new thing they have to learn. Allowing employees to swipe their existing proximity badge and avoid high-touch surfaces like pin pads will increase compliance and reduce complaints.

Be Prepared for the Unexpected

Even though school districts deal with the unexpected every day, during a pandemic they’re facing enormous challenges that go far beyond what they experienced in the past. Since COVID-19 has exacerbated fears of contracting a deadly virus from the workplace, districts must focus even more on health and safety. And because a time-tracking system is something that employees must personally interact with every day, it’s important to get it right.

Non-exempt employees

Even if teachers are teaching from home, non-exempt employees without the option to work remotely must report to their jobs in person. Custodians, bus drivers, food service workers, front office staff, and other employee groups need to clock in and out every day to be paid. Keeping them safe is a high priority for every district. That challenge increases the burden on the payroll system and the people supporting it.

Safety

With the onset of fall and cooler weather, a second wave of COVID is beginning to creep into communities. Employees want to keep working and stay healthy and safe. They also want details about their health and wellness kept private, making data security increasingly important. That’s why technology-based options like thermal scanning and screening questionnaires embedded in a time collection system, with settings that help districts maintain HIPAA compliance, go a long way toward instilling confidence.

Technology is our friend

Like every school system, you’re looking for the best way to operate efficiently while protecting students and staff. Paper systems have significantly more potential for spreading the virus. Since contactless electronic processes are both safer and more efficient, technology is our friend right now. Everyone from payroll administrators to hourly employees to IT techs will appreciate having access to a system that is simple to use, safe, reliable, and easy to maintain.

 

School-Based Medicaid Billing: Maximizing Your Random Moment Time Study

The Random Moment Time Study (RMTS) is a critical element of both school-based Medicaid Administrative Claiming and Cost Reconciliation and Settlement. However, each state’s implementation of the RMTS determines how it is administered and to what extent individual districts can impact the results. This guide will help you understand what the RMTS is, when it’s used, and to how you can maximize your results.

What is a Random Moment Time Study?

The RMTS is a statistically valid sampling methodology that is used to determine how much time eligible participants spend performing all work activities, and how that time is allocated between education, direct services, and administrative functions.

In the RMTS, participants are matched to random moments in time during the quarterly sampling period and must report what type of activity they were performing during their selected moments, based on a set of codes. The time study results are then used to determine the overall percentage of time spent performing reimbursable activities under both the School-Based Medicaid Administrative Claiming program and Cost Settlement program.

School-Based Administrative Claiming (SBAC) defined:
SBAC is a federal Medicaid reimbursement program that allows districts to recoup federal funds on a quarterly basis for Medicaid administrative outreach and support activities conducted, such as outreach to Medicaid eligible children and families, assistance with the Medicaid application process, coordination with other health care providers, and health-related training.

Cost Settlement / Cost Reconciliation defined:
Cost Settlement is an annual Medicaid reimbursement program that allows districts to recoup federal funds for the actual Medicaid allowable costs for providing health services to students with disabilities. The costs are reduced by any Medicaid funds received throughout the year through the Direct Service (otherwise known as Fee-For-Service) claiming program.  This program allows districts to receive additional federal funding to assist in covering costs beyond the payments received through Direct Service Billing through the year and can be very beneficial to districts in states with low rates of reimbursement for billable services.

How does the RMTS process work?

  1. Develop participant list and create sample moments: Each quarter staff who may perform Medicaid reimbursable activities (administrative activities and/or direct services) are identified and included in the sample pool. From the sample pool, names are randomly selected and paired with random moments during the participants’ working hours to create “sample moments.”
  2. Complete sample moments: Participants complete their sample once the specified moment has passed. There is a federal requirement to meet an 85% sample completion rate for the RMTS to be valid.
  3. Code moments: In some states, such as Florida and Pennsylvania, rather than selecting the appropriate code, participants are required to write an Activity Description that describes the activity they were performing at the time of their moment, and a central coder is responsible for coding the moment based on the description.

When writing this statement, it’s important to include the following information to ensure the coder has enough information to determine the appropriate code:

    • WHAT you were doing
    • WHO you were with
    • If necessary, WHERE and/or WHY you were doing the activity

Activity descriptions should not include proper names of students, staff, or parents.

  1. Calculate claimable percentage: Based on the results of the time study a claimable percentage is calculated, which is used when developing the administrative claim and cost settlement report.

How can you impact your RMTS results?

How much control you have over the RMTS depends on how it’s administered in your state.

  • State-administered RMTS: If your RMTS is conducted statewide, while as a district you don’t have as much control on the results, you should focus your efforts on:
    • Making sure the state agency is adequately qualifying all participating districts.
    • Hitting the 85% completion rate for all moments in your district.
    • Ensuring your time study participant list is up to date, so you can include all eligible participant costs (e.g. salaries/benefits) in your Administrative Claiming and Cost Settlement cost pools (as appropriate).
    • Monitoring changes to the claimable percentage to ensure it’s not trending downward, and if so, advocating to the state to understand why.
    • Keeping up with changes at the federal level that can affect what’s claimable and enacted in your state and ensuring federal regulations are interpreted correctly.
    • Keeping a record of all your time study information. While this responsibility may also fall on the state vendor, it’s always best to keep your own records to protect your district and your funds should you be subject to an audit.
  • District-level or consortium-administered RMTS: If your RMTS is conducted at the district-level or through a consortium/group of districts, in addition to the items above, you can focus on some other areas to maximize your RMTS.
    • If your RMTS methodology requires participants to select the code, proper training is necessary to ensure participants understand which codes are claimable and non-claimable to ensure they select the appropriate code. This is not just necessary to maximize your results, but to minimize audit risk as well.
    • If your RMTS methodology requires participants to write an Activity Description, it’s important to follow the “What, Who, Where, and/or Why” guidance above so the coder can accurately code the sample, without the need to request clarification. You should also validate coding as necessary to correct staff samples that are not accurate.
    • If you’re part of a consortium, make sure the consortium fully understands the program and has a claimable percentage that is in line with others in the state.
School-based Medicaid claiming is complicated. Simplify the process while optimizing reimbursement and compliance with Frontline Medicaid Management

School-Based Medicaid 101: Enhancing Medicaid Reimbursements for Schools

 

 

School-based Medicaid claiming programs enable districts to seek reimbursement through three distinct avenues: Fee-for-Service Billing (otherwise known as Direct Service Billing), School-Based Administrative Claiming, and Cost Reconciliation. Understanding the definitions of each program and how they are related are the first steps to understanding how the cost reconciliation process can impact your district’s revenue.

What is Fee-for-Service Medicaid billing?

Fee-for-Service (FFS) billing is the process of claiming for individual therapy or health sessions with students in a school setting. Sessions are bundled into claims and can be submitted throughout the year.

Reimbursable service types vary by state, but can include:

  • Physician and nursing services
  • Physical therapy
  • Occupational therapy
  • Speech therapy
  • Audiological services
  • Personal care services
  • Transportation services
  • Vision services
  • Hearing services
  • Mental health services
  • Durable Medicaid equipment
  • Case management
Questions about Medicaid for Special Education? See our FAQs

While payment schedules do vary from state to state, most districts can expect FFS payments within a month of claim submission. Payment totals are based on the procedure code identified by the provider in each session and are tied to a state-defined rate for that code.

Rates vary significantly. For example, individual speech therapy in Florida pays at $3.74 per 15 minutes. In Virginia, the rate is $31.91 per session. In both cases, the rate does not reflect the cost of service provision to the district.

What is School-Based Administrative Claiming?

School-Based Administrative Claiming (SBAC) is a quarterly process that allows districts to recoup funds based on the Medicaid administrative outreach and support activities conducted at the district. Claims are based on a quarterly time study that codes different types of professional activities from PTO to direct therapy time to educational services.

Districts begin the process by identifying the pool of personnel that conducts Medicaid outreach and support services. This pool is sampled using a Random Moment Time Study to determine the percentage of time spent on outreach and support services. The total percentage is then bundled into a quarterly claim along with personnel and other district expenditures. Districts receive a quarterly payment that reflects the portion of costs that were Medicaid related. However, according to CMS guidelines established in 2003, direct therapy costs are not included in the SBAC payment.1

What is Cost Reconciliation?

Cost Reconciliation (also known as Cost Settlement) is an annual process that allows districts to receive additional funding for direct therapy when the actual cost of service delivery exceeds that which was received in interim fee-for-service payments throughout the year. Not every state offers a cost reconciliation option, but in some states, Cost Reconciliation is required to ensure Medicaid reimbursement is consistent with the actual costs incurred in providing services.

The Cost Reconciliation submission-to-payment timeline is lengthy for two reasons: the report must be submitted after both the Fee-for-Service billing period and administrative claiming is completed for any fiscal year, and the report is audited prior to payment. Districts typically receive revenue 18 months to two years after services are delivered. Claiming requirements are similar to those used in SBAC claiming and some data pulls from the Random Moment Time Study process itself:

    1. The Random Moment Time Study process defines the overall percentage of time spent delivering direct therapy.
    2. The district is required to report:
      1. Total annual costs for personnel
      2. Total annual costs for district expenditures related to direct therapy for Medicaid-eligible students
    3. The total costs are then multiplied by the Medicaid Eligibility Rate within the IEP student population to determine the costs associated to direct therapy for Medicaid-eligible students.

Do I need to participate in Fee-for-Service claiming or Administrative Claiming to receive Cost Reconciliation funds?

In short, yes. Most states require some level of Fee-for-Service billing per quarter and service type for that personnel to be included in the cost report. In some cases, FFS billing must be maximized, or the districts overall revenue will be reduced in the cost report.2

In addition, because the cost report is based on percentages of direct therapy determined from the quarterly RMTS process, the RMTS is mandatory. While the district does not need to submit an SBAC claim from the RMTS process, these administrative costs for outreach and support services can be claimed through the SBAC program.

How can I maximize my Medicaid cost report for school-based services?

The best way to maximize your cost report is to review which costs your district is including as well as the sources of funding for those costs. In many instances, cost reporting maximization requires adjustments to your overall budgeting process.

Personnel costs

Providers that are funded through federal programs such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) cannot be included on a cost report. As you look to maximize your cost report, you should ensure that providers who conduct direct therapy are funded through local sources.

Expenditures

Districts can claim multiple types of expenditures for reimbursement, including large capital expenditures such as motorized wheelchairs or lifts. Costs to outfit buses with specialized medical equipment can also be claimed. In addition, the amortized cost of capital expenditures can be claimed annually.

Expenditures include not only the large capital expenses but also items like bandages or disinfectant. The below list captures the allowable costs in Texas for Medical supplies that can be claimed if they are used in support of Direct Medical Services:

Vendor fees for FFS claiming

The fees that vendors charge for supporting districts with documentation and FFS Medicaid claiming services can also be included in cost reports, depending on the state. In Virginia, for example, as long as the vendor fee is based on fixed pricing, this charge can be added to the cost report and reimbursed.

Medicaid Eligibility Rate

In some states, more than one type of Medicaid is allowed both for Fee-for-Service billing and Cost Reconciliation recoupment. When determining the Medicaid Eligibility Rate, you should analyze which types of Medicaid are acceptable for school-based claiming in your state. In some states, students who quality for State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) meet the requirements to be claimed by schools.

What information should I have to back up my cost report?

Cost reports are not paid until they undergo an audit. You should have on hand:

  • Transportation trip documentation
  • IEP December 1 count
  • Medicaid eligibility ratio
  • Random Moment Time student pool personnel per quarter
  • Random Moment Time Study results
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“My state does not have a Cost Reconciliation program”

You should petition your state Medicaid agency to develop a program! This is a long and tedious process for a state to undertake and would require the state agency submit a state plan amendment to the federal government for review, but it benefits school districts by bringing in more federal dollars to help provide health services to students. If Cost Reconciliation is not an option in your state, even if you maximize your Fee-for-Service claiming, state procedure code rates are not guaranteed to fully reimburse your costs.

Concluding thoughts

Cost Reconciliation is the best methodology to ensure that IDEA services are fully funded at the federal level by allowing districts to recoup exactly what they spent on the services they provided. However, the responsibility falls entirely on the district to claim every cost. We hope this guide will help your district examine your cost report with new eyes to ensure your Medicaid funding is maximized.

Bring much needed funds back into your district by simplifying health services documentation and Medicaid claiming procedures. Learn how Frontline can help

1 https://ahca.myflorida.com/medicaid/childhealthservices/schools/pdfs/School_District_Administrative_Claiming_Guide_2013.pdf

2 https://www.dmas.virginia.gov/files/links/156/Cost%20Report%20Instruction%20Guide.pdf

A Collaborative Game Plan for Student Equity

Q: What happens when teachers work to ensure their students’ success but that success remains elusive?

A: Frustration. I hear frustration from teachers when they feel they are not meeting the needs of their students. Teachers care deeply. They work diligently to meet their students’ needs. At the root of their concern, they may not have had the professional development to gain the skills to equitably meet the diverse needs in their classes. Their frustration is palpable, accompanied by descriptions of students not participating in instructional activities. They want to help but may be uncertain how to equitably meet the needs of their students.

This concern is often especially vivid when working with English Learners. English Learners (ELs) bring the fullness of second languages and cultural diversity into classrooms. They provide different perspectives on our world, yet frustration is often the emotion I see in teachers as they wonder how and when they can meet the needs of their EL students. The combination of celebrating different cultures and perspectives while providing equitable access to instruction and academic language can lead to awesome rewards for both teachers and students.

Studies confirm the concerns that teachers have with providing equitable instruction for ELs. Ross (2014) found that teachers felt less confident teaching ELs than non-ELs, and years of teaching experience did not change teachers’ lack of self-efficacy.1 Reeves (2006) found that nearly 70% of teachers “reported they did ‘not have enough time to deal with the needs of ESL students’” (p. 136).2 In that same study, over 80% of teachers disagreed with the statement that they had adequate training to work with EL students. O’Brien (2011) revealed that teachers indicated they were unable to meet the needs of ELs in lessons, assignments, and projects.3

The good news is that professional development, in face-to-face or remote environments, can increase teachers’ self-efficacy and skills in reaching and teaching ELs and save the teachers time.

Educational leaders can reduce the frustration for teachers and provide them with collaborative professional development opportunities that will enable them to meet the needs of students. Professional development involving collaboration builds not only the sense of self-efficacy for teachers with English Learners but also their abilities to implement more equitable practices (Hazzard, 2019). 4

As leaders formulate a game plan for equity, there are several critical steps.

1.   Find out the needs

Ask and listen to students, families, and staff about needs they see related to equity. Include teachers in discussions to clarify needs. Teachers have great insights into what students and parents perceive their needs to be. Along this journey, leaders have the opportunity to build stronger relationships with teachers and families. By listening, leaders learn the needs of their constituents and can formulate the game plan for meeting their needs and exceeding their expectations.

This spring when we all suddenly found ourselves working and teaching from home, I listened as teachers shared that ELs needed more support with their assignments. Teachers shared that students felt frustrated as they strived to meet instructional challenges. Teachers worked tirelessly from home but often did not have the opportunity to directly see the struggle of ELs after a synchronous class or group meeting, and the students didn’t always reach out to the teacher to ask for help.

Teachers and parents were united in their commitment to the success of our students. More academic language support was necessary for some students to be academically successful.

2.   Set the goals for equity

Based on the needs discovered while listening to students, families, and staff, set the goals for equity. What are you trying to accomplish in the name of equity? Consider how your data aligns with those needs. Data can be numerical or qualitative. What you hear from parents, students, and staff is an important part of your data. What support can be offered that will meet student, family, and staff needs, and what will impact the data that you have?

Pre-made and readily available scaffolds for students became more critical during remote learning. Those scaffolds needed to provide support for any student who needed access to academic language including ELs. If teachers needed support in creating those scaffolds because of time and learning how to make them, then a solution must be forged.

3.   Offer professional learning for the short and long term (impact now and later)

Professional development during remote learning is not just for remote learning. Professional development needs to impact practices for the short and long term. The practices need to work whether we are face-to-face or remote to meet students’ needs in any situation.

Teachers implemented many engaging remote activities, and the work was intense and time-consuming. How could we incorporate something that saved teachers time during remote learning in our professional development? We needed to help teachers, students, and parents during this time frame and ensure the impact would be lasting.

4.   Create the opportunity and purpose for teamwork

Collaboration offers the opportunity for everyone to combine their expertise and build relationships. Leaders focus the team on the goal. Time is important, so ensure the purpose is clear for the work of the team.

Create teams that offer the opportunity for cross-sharing complementary expertise to reach the goal. If teams of teachers and specialists will be working together, consider the expertise lens that each team member will contribute. For example, reading specialists offer great insights into English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum and students’ literacy needs. EL specialists contribute valuable insights regarding academic language and ensuring access to grade-level content. Special Education teachers can promote ideas for differentiation. Content teachers maintain focus on grade-level content and standards. When leaders focus expertise on one purpose guided by the needs and goals set before them, then real change for equity can happen. Diversity in team members’ skill sets can help meet the needs of diverse learners.

Ensure that where your team meets, especially if it’s remote, is conducive to teamwork. Zoom breakout rooms work better for collaboration than large groups in Zoom. When we are face to face, breaking larger teams into smaller collaborative groups or partners encourages strong collaboration from all. Remember, the members of groups and partners should offer heterogeneous insights into solving the problem.

5.   Create the path for communication

When a team has great ideas for a great purpose, then those ideas need to be shared. Consider what opportunities already exist for communication and sharing. Can they be leveraged efficiently and purposefully?

During remote learning, my district implemented weekly Remote Planning Workshops (RPWs) akin to cross-school Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) for grade levels. RPWs were created to provide teachers from the same grade levels throughout the district with the opportunity to cross-share ideas for upcoming content. Two reading specialists would lead each grade-level RPW in a Zoom with breakout rooms. These RPWs were the perfect opportunity for professional development about academic language supports because the supports could be linked to the content discussed during RPWs. EL teachers and I shared academic language scaffold examples and the “why” behind them with grade-level teachers.

One key to the communication pathway for the RPWs was learning the content to be discussed prior to meeting as a team. Reading specialist meetings followed by EL specialist meetings were key in this process. Each week to prepare, I learned what ELA instructional topics the reading specialists would be talking about the following week in RPWs and then relayed that information to the EL specialist team, so they could develop examples of academic language supports to share in each RPW. Collaboration with reading specialists and EL specialists provided opportunities for necessary communication to meet our goal.

6.   As leaders, model the way5

Leaders must model the importance of the steps they are asking their team to take for equity. Set the example for your team, so they take strong steps for equity with you.

I wanted my EL specialist team to know that I valued equity — and the work that goes toward it. After meeting with the reading specialists, I made scaffold templates and models to share with the EL specialist team. Then I met with the EL specialists who designed similar models for different grade levels. For example, we made writing frames and graphic organizers for argument and opinion as one type of scaffold. I shared examples in grade-level RPWs with the EL specialists. I modeled the importance of enhancing equity. One EL specialist or I shared a grade-level model in each RPW.

This game plan resulted in wins for our constituents.

The grade-level teachers left the RPW with great ideas for ELA, an academic language scaffold they could implement with students soon after, an understanding of why the academic language scaffold was helpful for ELs and other students who needed it, and a template to make a similar scaffold in the future. Teachers were thankful for those examples that they could use right away for instruction. Parents could see their students participate in activities using those scaffolds during remote learning. Using those scaffolds reduces student frustration and enhances learning.

In this process, the EL specialists gained a stronger foothold with grade-level teachers and reading specialists. Their collaboration extended beyond the RPWs, and the learning extended beyond our spring remote learning. Leadership was distributed.

Equity definitely isn’t a game, but we can make a game plan for it.

Equity, especially during remote learning and especially for English Learners, is a challenge and an opportunity. Make a strong game plan for equity. Plan for team members with diverse expertise to collaborate and develop professional learning that will impact equity for the short and long term. Model for your team just how important equity is to you, and they will reflect its importance in the work they lead.

1 Ross, K. E. L. (2014). Professional development for practicing mathematics teachers: A critical connection to English language learner students in mainstream USA classrooms. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 17(1), 85–100.

2 Reeves, J. R. (2006). Secondary teacher attitudes toward including English-Language Learners in mainstream classrooms. The Journal of Educational Research, 99(3), 131–142.

3 O’Brien, J. (2011). The system is broken and it’s failing these kids: High school social studies teachers’ attitudes towards training for ELLs. Journal of Social Studies Research, 35(1), 22–38.

4 Hazzard, J. (2019). Professional development for the equitable assessment of English learners. (Publication No. 13881232) [Doctoral dissertation, Wilmington University]. ProQuest.

5 Kouzes, J., & Posner, B. (2012). The leadership challenge: How to make extraordinary things happen in organizations. Jossey-Bass.

How to Leverage Your IEP Service Tracking System for Better Progress Monitoring

Why does progress monitoring matter?

School districts need to monitor student progress to assess student outcomes, submit mandated state and federal reports, and in many states, claim Medicaid reimbursements. But progress monitoring can also be used to help identify and support requests for additional staffing needs or pinpoint professional development gaps.

Getting the most benefit from the progress data you collect and report on depends on how you leverage your service tracking system or other systems you have in place to manage it.

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Use systematic progress monitoring to improve student outcomes

Accurate and detailed progress monitoring is critical to student success. You need accurate data to:

  • Guide instruction
  • Make decisions about student growth
  • Communicate progress on IEP goals
  • Determine effectiveness of providers and programs

Creating standardized procedures for progress monitoring and using consistent tools for progress data collection are much more efficient than allowing all service providers to use their own preferred methods or disparate systems.

Every provider should follow the same steps for each student:

1. Clearly define the concern.

Be sure to use specific language. The target behavior should be alterable, meaning the student’s performance can be changed. Be very specific: Identify when and how long the behavior occurs. Give examples: Is it observable? Can you see it or hear it? How would you measure it?

2. Determine how progress will be measured.

Teachers and service providers have to measure a wide range of student responses. Data might include the duration or length of time a student stays on task or the frequency a specific behavior is observed. To describe the action accurately, use common rubrics or rating scales.

It’s also important to include data on how much assistance was provided to the student by counting and reporting the number of cues given.

3. Decide where you want to start and where you want to end up — the baseline and the goal. Use charts to collect data and track progress.

Establish a baseline, usually the average of at least three data points or comparison with typical performance standards. Then determine precisely what goal a student must meet to determine success. Using a SMART model helps identify a specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely goal.

Examples:

    • The student will demonstrate correct production of the /l/ phoneme in all positions of words at the sentence level with 75% accuracy independently by 9/30/2020.
    • By March 2020 when properly positioned, given light touch physical cues and verbal cues, the student will use a switch (jellybean, etc.) to engage in preferred cause/effect operations to initiate and/or continue activities modeled to her (ex. Switch toys, computer interface switch with computer access), on 4/5 opportunities over 3 consecutive sessions.

Produce true data-driven IEP progress reports

Use a simple chart to track progress. It should include a baseline data point and the goal data point. Connect the baseline point to the goal data point to create an aim line representing the student’s estimated or expected growth rate.

Collect and review data regularly — determine the schedule by identifying the IEP progress reporting periods and annual review dates. Use the data to make decisions on frequency and duration of services.

Are the provider’s strategies working, or do they need to be adjusted? Does the student’s goal need to change prior to the next annual review?

Would providers benefit from professional development in specific areas of concern?

Does the data present a need for additional staff to support student success?

Fiscal and regulatory impact

In many states, a quality progress monitoring system also demonstrates fiscal responsibility as it is necessary for both compliance and Medicaid reimbursement. Systematically implementing progress monitoring can make a significant difference in the revenue a district can collect through Medicaid reimbursements to support ongoing student services.

Medicaid impact

“Documentation of each individual or group session must include the following information…. Student’s progress toward established goals.” — Medicaid Certified School Match Coverage and Limitations Handbook, Florida

“LEAs must maintain documentation of the student’s response and progress resulting from the claimed service. This documentation must be updated no less than quarterly.”  — Handbook for LEAs, Illinois 

“The Progress Summary is a written note outlining the child’s progress that must be completed by the provider every three months from the start date of treatment or when medically necessary. The purpose of the Progress Summary is to record the longitudinal nature of the child’s treatment, describe the child’s attendance at therapy sessions, document progress toward treatment goals and objectives, and establish the need for continued participation in treatment.” — LEA Provider Manual, South Carolina

  • Services must improve a condition, not just maintain it. To be reimbursable, regular progress monitoring data is required to show that services impact student achievement.

Revenue impact

  • Sometimes providers have their own way of collecting data to document student progress. If they also use the data for IDEA documentation, state reporting, and Medicaid reimbursement, entering it separately for each function leads to unnecessary duplication of effort and takes time away from students. If providers document services for Medicaid claims in one place and progress monitoring data for IEPs is collected elsewhere, they’re doing the work twice! Wouldn’t it be better if they spent their time servicing students instead of doing more paperwork?
  • What if you could collect all the data in one place and use it for compliance reporting, Medicaid reimbursement, and progress monitoring for IEPs?  Imagine how that would reduce the workload, increase documentation, and drive up Medicaid revenue.

IDEA impact

“The Progress Summary is a written note outlining the child’s progress that must be completed by the provider every three months from the start date of treatment or when medically necessary. The purpose of the Progress Summary is to record the longitudinal nature of the child’s treatment, describe the child’s attendance at therapy sessions, document progress toward treatment goals and objectives, and establish the need for continued participation in treatment.” – LEA Provider Manual, South Carolina

  • Progress on IEP goals must be reported at least as often as parents are informed of their non-disabled student’s progress. Is that data easily accessible in your service tracking system?

Are you using the right service tracking system?

Does your service tracking system work for you, or are you working for it? You might be spending more time and effort than you need to. With standardized procedures and a quality tracking system, every provider in your district enters progress monitoring data at the end of each session directly into your service tracking system.

This has several benefits:

  1. Improved visibility: Reports are automated and every provider’s documentation is captured in the same way. All users can see the reports along the way and make adjustments in services without waiting until the annual review of the IEP.
  2. Parent engagement: A quality tracking system can even improve parent engagement. Any time a parent requests an update on their child’s services, you’ll have the data at your fingertips and a consistent quality of reporting across providers.
  3. Audit protection: Your IEP service tracking system may also affect your audit results. Ideally, it should give you peace of mind, not keep you up at night worrying that negative findings could affect funding.

But don’t overlook the most important benefit: STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT.

Your system should be built not only around compliance with state reporting and IDEA requirements but also best practices that result in improving student achievement. Evaluating your current IEP management system can help you determine whether it is fully supporting your school, staff, and students.

Reports should be able to answer the following questions:

  • Which intervention strategies impact student progress the most?
  • Which therapy types might need extra support?
  • Are the goals short or long term?
  • Are the goals the right length?
  • Are students meeting goals in the right time frame?
  • Are the goals attainable?
  • Do goals need to be adjusted to make them more attainable or more challenging?
  • Do you have enough data to determine ESY eligibility?

With the right system, you will have all the data you need to make the best decisions for your students and your district.

Simplify the documentation, management and tracking of student services and strengthen compliance with Frontline’s Medicaid & Service Management software.

How to Make Online Professional Learning Successful

Implementing professional learning programs to meet the needs of all teachers and staff has always been challenging. Over the past few months, a monumental shift has thrust many schools and districts into what feels like a tailspin:

“We have to put together online personalized content using new resources and tools — as quickly as possible!”

Online learning is not a new concept. In 2007, I began working with school districts across the nation to provide blended professional development activities aligned with their strategic plans. These programs included face-to-face workshops along with supplemental online courses. After each face-to-face workshop, we encouraged teachers to use the online platform to independently extend their learning. These courses were created by industry experts who not only understood the best practices of instructional design but also had a passion for educational research. How could these educators not jump at the opportunity?

When we met with the district leadership to review the outcomes of learning, I remember the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as I presented the rate of completion for the online courses. It was mind-boggling to see that the completion rate was under 10%.

In the years since then, as I have continued to collaborate with districts to implement blended learning programs, it became clear that successful online programs have several common characteristics. Below are several steps you can take to help ensure that your program flourishes.

Have a growth mindset.

As you implement your new online learning program, it will be a trial-and-error experience. Nothing is perfect right out of the gate. You will learn, grow, and get better with every new online offering. This consistent mindset will push your organization toward greatness.

Address the change factor head on!

As you introduce the concept of online learning programs, take a moment to answer the following questions:

  • Why is online learning needed in our organization? Why will it be important to our employees?
  • What preconceived notions do our employees have about online learning programs?
  • When we have tried to implement online learning in the past, where have we succeeded — or not — and what have we learned?
  • What are my fears about implementing online learning programs?

From the very first moment you introduce online learning programs, teachers will form their initial impressions. Addressing the needs, values, and challenges head on will help educators to develop a sense of buy-in and lessen the anxiety about change and the fear of the unknown.

Build an online learning program team.

You may have personnel to dedicate toward this initiative, or you may be running a one-person show. But do everything you can to seek out creative and talented employees in your organization who are passionate about providing online learning options. Invite them to be a part of the process and to take ownership in making it a success. By utilizing the resources you already have (Technology Department, Teacher Leaders, etc.), you will not only accomplish more together but also provide an opportunity for others to have experience in a leadership role.

Evaluate the software tools you use.

More often than not, tools and resources are purchased to accomplish a single purpose or perform just one task. Eventually, your organization will have multiple systems and solutions, which can lead to difficulty for your educators trying to use each one effectively. At an organizational level, this often means adding duplicate data entry processes across multiple solutions in order to analyze what’s working and what isn’t. That leads to wasted time, wasted energy, and frustration.

As you weigh your technology needs to support online learning options, consider these questions:

  • How will we meet the individual learning needs of all our educators and staff?
  • Are there ready-to-use resources that we can combine with customized district resources to help us lessen the burden and time in creating online courses?
  • How will we track all professional learning formats (synchronous and asynchronous) and processes (in-district and out-of-district)?
  • How can we analyze our full professional development program effectiveness?

While the thought of creating and implementing an online learning program can be overwhelming, you have a unique opportunity to redesign a professional learning program that encompasses technology, creativity, personalization, and innovation. If you fast forward a few years, I am confident that you will look back in appreciation at what you have accomplished!

Talk Data to Me: Good News for K-12 Recruiting and Hiring

Previously on Talk Data to Me, we used data from the Frontline Research & Learning Institute to explore how COVID-19 has impacted K-12 hiring. In short, though January and February of this year looked almost identical to the same months in 2019 and 2018, the data quickly and markedly departed from the previous years immediately following the president’s March 13 National Emergency declaration.

Far fewer applicants applied for jobs, fewer jobs were posted, and far fewer districts chose to post even a single job. It appeared that some facets of the K-12 hiring market came to a screeching halt. Almost every hiring metric we track dramatically diverted from the patterns we expected based on those from previous school years.

School districts and job seekers have had more time to grapple with how best to navigate the job market during a pandemic. Many changes have occurred over the past three months, so we rolled up our sleeves and dug deeper for more insights. What we found is some good news for job posters and job seekers.

In March, the raw number of applicants fell by nearly 50% compared with the weeks before. Though it has ticked up since then, the overall number of applicants still tracks slightly lower than it did in previous years. However, as the chart below shows, in most weeks since the shutdown began, there have been more applicants per job posting this year than in previous years.

Good news for job seekers: the number of jobs being posted, the number of districts posting jobs, and the number of jobs being filled have all rebounded. The shutdown brought on a ~30-40% decrease in these totals as districts instituted hiring freezes, cancelled job fairs, and postponed job postings all together. But some districts seem to have reversed these policies, and in the past few weeks, these totals have approached their expected levels.

In a survey Frontline Education conducted in April, 46% of employers (out of 240 responses) said they have seen delays or had to push back their hiring efforts. The recovery shown here indicates that districts that have chosen to resume recruiting and hiring have done so with success as jobs continue to be filled faster than ever before with more applicants per posting than expected. Though there are still a lot of unknowns for the upcoming school year, our data indicates that districts are posting plenty of jobs, plenty of applicants are applying, and plenty of districts are finding success in their recruiting and hiring.

Real-Life Success: Online Job Fairs

Natasha Wright, Director of Human Resources at Berkley County School District in South Carolina, was faced with a difficult task after school closures spread across the country. She still had schools to staff, even with canceled interviews and job fairs, and potential hiring freezes. Natasha decided to try something new — she utilized tools within Frontline Recruiting & Hiring — such as online events, proactive campaigns to qualified job seekers, online applications, integrations to support online interviews, and remote onboarding — to create a virtual online job fair.

Not knowing what to expect, she started by posting for one specific position: a math teacher. A fantastic potential candidate from another state joined the job fair, and she was able to validate his credentials easily and get the principal involved. They were able to move him through the process quickly and confirm the hire. The candidate — one who Berkley County would likely not have found otherwise — relocated to their district in South Carolina, as not only a middle school math teacher but also a coach.

Natasha shared that the virtual job fair process was very easy, and she wants to pursue this option more. She said she loves new ideas like this, especially when they are cost-effective and maximize the systems that they currently use.

The ability to proactively send campaigns to qualified job seekers also helped Berkley County SD find a Special Education teacher from out of state who was interested in their opening — another potential candidate who they likely would not have found without the Proactive Recruiting tools in Frontline Recruiting & Hiring.

What Can You Do to Enhance Your Hiring Efforts?

  1. Have confidence! Seeing hiring data steadily returning to expected levels over the past few weeks has made us feel more confident in the current state of K-12 hiring, and you should, too!
  2. Don’t just recruit — focus on retention as well. Teacher turnover can be very costly, which is one reason why retaining your current staff is so important. With nearly half of all new teachers leaving the profession in their first five years and a diminishing supply of teachers entering the profession, education leaders are forced to focus not only on recruitment but also on retention.
  3. Strengthen your recruiting. Broaden your recruiting horizons and check out these tips for teacher recruitment.
Looking for help managing your district virtually. Check out these tools designed to support the entire employee life cycle — even when you’re operating remotely.

[Interview] What Should Schools Do Right Now to Care for Students’ Mental Health Needs?

Note: The interview responses below have been edited for clarity and brevity.

2020 has been a hard year: schools and workplaces have sent people home, unemployment is skyrocketing, loved ones have died.

As schools closed, students found themselves navigating a new way of learning from home. For some, it was okay. For others, difficult home situations, hunger, lack of access to technology, and social isolation made learning impossible or close to it. Then, when protests and online conversation erupted in response to the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, many students (and adults) wrestled to process a pressure cooker of emotions.

This year’s events landed on top of already rising rates of anxiety and depression for students, and the compounding effects on the mental health of students (and staff) have yet to be fully seen. Because of the pandemic, students who relied on school services for mental health care may find access to those resources much harder to obtain.

In May and June, we spoke with people in a variety of education roles about the readiness of schools to care for students’ mental health. One question we asked:

What should schools be doing right now to care for students’ mental health needs?

Dr. Dorothea Gordon, Executive Director of Special Education, Grand Prairie ISD, Texas:

Are we identifying students? Are we assessing those needs when they walk into our buildings, and also when they are on Zoom lessons? Are we being skillfully aware of those interactions? That’s something we can do right now.

We also want to continue to provide for their basic needs. When I say “basic needs,” definitely continue with the federal feeding program. We need to continue with that to ensure we’re addressing those basic needs.

Another thing that we need to do is continue to engage the community, because now that we do not see them for six hours at a time or more during this pandemic situation, we need to make sure that our community members understand or are aware of the symptoms that they might be showing in order to get the scholars and families the resources that they need.

Mark Hansen, Superintendent, School District of Elmbrook, Wisconsin:

Most schools, including ours, know the kids who probably suffered the most isolation, had structures that weren’t as supportive as we would like them to be. Checking in with those kids now, doing virtual home visits. In our district our students kept their Chromebooks over the summer so we have a mechanism to get to kids, escalating the connectedness to our kids who might be more susceptible to risk than others.

Suzanne Sibole, School Counselor and founder of Youth Risk Prevention Specialists:

Reaching out. Some schools are reaching out virtually, reaching out by phone if you have students you are particularly concerned about, maybe a family member has been affected by COVID or that student has contracted it, or it’s just that that student struggles.

It’s hard to do. It’s summer, teachers are off contract. I know there are many teachers that are super committed, counselors and administrators that are very, very committed to their kids, but some might not be available and might not be able to do that. So I think one thing is reaching out as much as possible. Checking your email. I’m off contract for the summer from my school job. However, I try to check it every three or four days. I had one email that just said, “Ms. Sibole, I need help.” And that was it. I contacted the student right away because I thought, “I don’t know what she’s asking for exactly.” I feel like we need to keep monitoring our email if we can, if we have access to it over the summer.

I know many schools are gearing up for this, for mental health concerns. So educating, sending out information to school staff: “These are some things we can expect. We can expect fear, we can expect anxiety. We can expect depression, grief, because of being isolated or losing family members, so these are some of the things to watch for, and this is what you do when you see them.” And I think it’s important that that take place before school starts if at all possible, or at the very beginning of school, because people need a chance to study that and understand and ask questions so they know how to respond to students.

Paul O’Neill, Supervisor of Instruction, Mill Pond Elementary School, New Jersey:

We’re certainly not clinicians. We’re certainly not providing deep psychological services and things of that nature. But students are coming to us with emotional trauma, or in deep psychological situations where we need to make sure that we have access to people that can help us screen better, and people that can guide us to make sure that we’re giving the proper level and the proper amount of services at that given time.

April Strong, District Instructional Coach, Martin County School District, Florida:

I’m fortunate to have been trained as a youth mental health first aid trainer through the National Behavioral Council. There’s also mental health first aid for adults. Mental health first aid has been around for a while, and that training has been really helpful to our district. We’re only in year two of it and we’re trying to train everyone.

It’s going well, but we could definitely improve by making a larger team so we can educate more throughout the school year. What I hear through these trainings from educators and support staff is they want more strategies. The training allows you to learn how to give first aid, much like CPR, what steps could you follow? You’re not a medical professional, but you would know how to help until help arrives. But the deeper question that educators ask often is “What specific strategy?” As an instructional coach, that weighs on me because I’m used to giving them strategies in my role.

I think we can do better at partnering to learn what are those strategies. Every case is so different, but I wonder if there’s some sort of playbook or checklist or something that gives the empowerment over to the adult who would be with the student: more strategies in the moment.

Dennis Griffin, Jr., Principal, Brown Deer Elementary School, Wisconsin:

How do we proactively talk about what’s happening to let kids know “we’re here to support you,” to help them navigate between right and wrong, and making sure that they’re getting the right message about why things are happening or why we need a change. That’s the complicated piece.

How do we proactively start to educate our families as well? Someone I know said, “You know, I need help explaining this to my daughter. I need help explaining this to my son. Where do I get the resources to talk about this? Who can help me talk about this? Because I don’t have the experience.”

We’ve started to really use Zoom a great deal. What if school educators started to talk more about racism, talk more about differences and acceptance, and talk about how we can be the change in a world on Zoom platforms? And we bring families, and we bring the kids together and say, “What questions do you have?” The more challenging conversations you have with someone, the more and more you start to trust them, and you will go back and engage in further dialogue, especially if there’s an action plan and you can feel yourself growing in the process. That’s one way that a safe space is really created.

Dr. Missy Brooks, Director of Instruction and Special Education, Mountain Brook Schools, Alabama:

We’ve got to think even down to our scheduling of students and what that looks like. We’ve been in the same model of school forever — do we need to relook at what school looks like? Are we as a school entity and the way we work putting pressure on students so that they’re underperforming?  Are we contributing to the anxiety? And if we are, how do we fix that with some structures that we have in place like scheduling and even bringing speakers in to talk about things openly? Do we have advisory programs so that every student is plugged in to one particular person, so that at least they can say, “Yes, there’s one person in the building who cares about me”?

I think we need to look at structures like that, and we can do that immediately. That’s not something that requires more money. It just requires creativity.

Ted Nietzke, Executive Director, CESA 6, Wisconsin:

The direct strategy is to minimize the threats. Acting out in violence, the increase in depression, children acting out, what’s happening is, there has been a breakdown in the chain for minimizing the threat for that child, and that’s what has to happen.

Right now with kids at home, online learning, and all the equity issues that are created as a result of that, there are a lot of little threats there. If I am engaged as a third grader and I live in an urban setting, but I don’t have access to the internet, or I don’t have the materials, when I come back to school, the threat becomes the gap that’s been created between me and my colleagues, where they have more information than me, which makes me feel small, and that’s going to get me to act differently.

For me the root issue is minimizing those threats to kids. And that’s creating a warm and engaging and safe environment, going back to the key idea of empathy, trying to work with and understand that. When we go back this fall across the nation, the gap has grown significantly. As a result of that gap, the threat has grown for those kids to feel inept, and we’ve got to figure out a way to bridge that fast.

Jim Wright, RTI/CCSS Trainer & Consultant, School Psychologist, and School Administrator:

I would start by wondering, what are going to be the mental health implications of a COVID shutdown? We certainly are going to have students who fall behind academically, and that will create feelings of anxiety, frustration, disconnection in school. And those are obviously mental health manifestations. So I would start by connecting with teachers across my school to get a sense of who are those really disengaged students. Those students would go onto my watch list as the fall semester begins, to really check in with them and get a sense of their mental health adjustment.

We also have to realize, of course, that the whole COVID crisis will bring its own mental health repercussions. There are some students who will have lost family members to this virus. I think we need to be checking in there as well. We need to be thinking about grief counseling.

I want schools to start to think about the possible mental health repercussions of COVID and ask themselves, “Okay, how can we check in with our student population now to get a sense of who should really be on our radar?” And then we have to prepare because of that vast uncertainty. Is there a way in the fall, if schools decide to continue to do remote learning, to check in with students, with parents if need be, to facilitate referrals to outside agencies to really help students to cope with any emerging crisis situations?

But we’d want to start now by simply surveying who might be at risk and how we might want to think about responding, either remotely or onsite.

The above responses are just one small part of a larger interview about student mental health. Read the full article here

Talk Data to Me: Why Substitute Engagement Matters More Than Ever This Year

Students may still be out for the summer in many parts of the US, but administrators and school officials are hard at work, planning for the start of a school year for which few feel ready. Though the list of COVID-related apprehensions is long, a potentially unprecedented number of teacher absences is near the top.

How is your substitute pool looking? Long before March 2020, many districts have grappled with a shortage of substitute teachers. To make matters worse, as schools — like those in Kentucky — increase the number of days available to teachers for COVID-19 emergencies, you may worry about spreading your substitute pool too thin.

You may already be short on time, energy, and resources. But investing a little bit now on maximizing your district’s substitute engagement can go a long way.

Previously on Talk Data to Me, we discussed trends in substitute teacher engagement and its connection to absence fill rate using data from the Frontline Research & Learning Institute. Here, we’ll revisit that topic with updated data. But first, a review of what you already know.

Employee-to-substitute ratio and fill rates

Substitute engagement strongly correlates with absence fill rate. The more engaged a district’s substitutes are, the fewer unfilled jobs there will be. But how do you gauge engagement? That requires letting your data talk and listening carefully to what it says about these two metrics.

A district’s employee-to-substitute ratio has a negative relationship with fill rate. The higher the ratio of employees to substitutes, the lower the fill rate tends to be — so it’s more difficult to fill absences for districts with much larger numbers of employees than substitutes. Makes sense, right?

Data from the 2018-2019 school year, shown in the chart below, illustrates this connection.

The percentage of non-working substitutes also has a negative relationship with fill rate. Data from over 5,000 districts nationwide over three consecutive years revealed decreasing fill rates, increasing percentages of non-working substitutes, and decreasing numbers of days that substitutes worked each year.

Finally, the most recent data from the 2019-2020 school year once again confirms the connection between non-working substitute percentage and fill rate.

Here is where the connection between fill rate and non-working substitute percentage becomes strikingly clear. As the chart above shows, in districts with an average monthly non-working substitute percentage of 76%, only about half of all teacher absences were filled. Yet in districts where the average monthly non-working substitute percentage was just 10% lower, nearly all absences were filled. This shows that even a slight increase in substitute engagement can have a big impact on fill rate.

How do you boost substitute engagement?

The connection between an engaged substitute teacher pool and a high fill rate is clear. Keeping up your fill rate requires engaging your substitute teachers and getting them to accept at least one job per month. The question is, how do you foster, maintain, and increase substitute teacher engagement to make sure these jobs get filled?

There are several action steps to take:

  • Know the data. The metrics discussed above, and many others, are available through the Frontline Research & Learning Institute’s National Employee Absence & Substitute Data Report. In addition, if you use Frontline Absence & Time, you can access interactive, in-product tools to track your district’s data and compare it to national, state, and like-district benchmarks.
  • Use the resources. Check out these resources from Frontline Education on why substitutes work in your district (or not) and changing perceptions of substitute teaching.
  • Make sure you have the right tools. Making it easy for substitutes to find and accept jobs is vital. That means catering to communication preferences. Data from a recent survey of substitutes tells us that when it comes to receiving absence notifications, substitutes prefer to receive notifications through a mobile app rather than text message, phone call, or internet browser by a ratio of 4:1. Better yet, a seamless mobile experience makes it quicker and easier for teachers to enter absences and alert substitutes about jobs — and data shows that the sooner an absence is recorded in the system, the more likely it is to be filled by a substitute.

Whatever the coming year may hold for your schools, preparing now with data, resources, and tools will help as you work to engage substitutes and fill any vacancies that arise.

Introducing the new and improved Frontline Mobile App, that includes substitute functionality!
Reach substitutes more quickly — in the way they prefer — with this three-in-one app that allows teachers to schedule absences, substitutes to fill jobs, and administrators to manage absenteeism and substitute placement and stay on top of absence trends. All in the palms of their hands!
Find out how it works

Retention-First Recruitment

How Breaking Down Silos Between Instructional Growth and Human Resources Support Recruiting and Retention

Frontline’s Mitchell Welch, former principal and teacher, and Cydney Miller, former school HR leader, discuss how to retain teachers in your district, starting on day one of recruiting.

 

Mitchell Welch
Solutions Consultant, Frontline Education

  • 13 years as a teacher (science, math) and administrator in public schools
  • Worked toward school turnarounds as an elementary, middle, and high school AP and principal
  • National consultant developing and building training departments and programs focused on leadership, mentoring, classroom management, and parent involvement

Cydney Miller, MBA, SPHR
Sr. HCM Solutions Consultant, Frontline Education

  • 18 years of HR and Staffing experience
  • 9 years in HR leadership for a 4500+ FTE district
  • National, state, and regional thought leadership presenter on topics ranging from strategic staffing, next generation retention, and recruitment and employee engagement.

With more than half of teachers leaving the profession in their first five years and a diminishing supply of teachers entering the profession, education leaders across the country are now focused on retaining the teachers they recruit.

Historically, the concepts of human resources (handling recruiting) and instructional growth (handling educator development) have been managed under separate goals and strategies in a district — often in siloes from one another. But when HR and Instructional Growth work together to increase retention by investing in teachers as soon as they’re recruited, highly qualified teachers stay — and grow! The difference in a building’s culture is tangibly different, and recruiting gets easier over time. All of that, of course, makes a huge difference to your students.

Here are four traits of an effective Retention-First Recruitment model.

Center Recruiting and Retention Around A Culture of Support

The Instructional Growth Perspective

When creating a learning environment for our teachers, we need to create a space in which it is safe for them to learn. As they are learning they have to take risks, make decisions, and have the freedom to make mistakes. Something that I learned in the very beginning was that “True learning does not happen unless you learn how to fail first.”

Think about all the things you must fail at first before you get good at them: dating, cooking, dieting, parenting, and most of all, learning.

It is our responsibility, from the day we recruit teachers, to guide them through meaningful relationships, meaningful interactions, meaningful learning experiences, and hold them to accountability measures in order to become instructionally mature. Teachers need to have learning embedded in their surroundings to retain and apply it in their everyday experiences. We have to provide a learning environment for our adults that mirrors the learning expectations that we expect for our students.

The Human Resources Perspective

Strategic Human Resource leaders must have a long-term commitment to the entire growth journey of an employee, and professional learning is at the heart of this journey.

The Human Resources role in professional learning does not have a definitive end or beginning, but rather a full scope view of the entire human journey. There is no better way to support a person’s growth than to showcase a commitment to all parts of that journey: the good and the bad. It is our responsibility, from the day we recruit teachers, to facilitate meaningful relationships, provide effective learning opportunities, and support their ability to fairly and equitably grow as professionals.


Center Recruiting and Retention Around Employee Goals

The Instructional Growth Perspective

For teachers to reach an impact — or mastery — state, we have to create a culture of improvement and learning based on our mistakes, and most of all a culture of retention, putting them at the center, preventing their loss in the early stages of their development. We have to surround them from all directions with consistent processes in a world of disjointed programs.

More importantly, we must look for ways to simplify and streamline resources and accountability measures so we can impact student learning. Professional Learning has to be targeted, individually meaningful, paired with mentoring, and most of all aligned to the individual needs of our employees.

The Human Resources Perspective

One simply cannot complete a successful growth journey if the end is not defined or if the path to that end is not clear. We cannot provide that path without putting the employee at the core of our philosophy.

It’s imperative to the practice of Human Resources that we provide a learning vision based on accountability, process, and structure. The path for an employee to achieve his or her learning and growth goals should not be so daunting that it prohibits success. Rather it should be a smooth, clear guide to the end goal. Professional learning and a culture of success is supported by a targeted, flexible, and meaningful path that employee and employer can enjoy together.

Recruiting the 21st Century Teacher

 Center Retention Around Mentoring and Measurement

The Instructional Growth Perspective

When effective new teachers leave, everyone shares in the loss: the programs that prepared them, the school districts that recruited them, the schools where they worked, and the students they taught.

Although much is made of a teacher shortage, no matter how many teachers are recruited, it will do little good unless they stay in teaching long enough to develop into skilled professionals, and then stay to share their expertise throughout their careers.

We need to:

  • Create mentors from our mentees.
  • Look at professional performance data and pair teachers with mentors and coaches that support their individual needs.
  • Create outcomes that are employee-centered, promote individual growth, promote the groups in which they work, and provide accountability measures that point to student success.
  • Measure the impact of our professional learning and the correlation to student improvement.

The Human Resources Perspective

Human capital is the single greatest investment we can make to ensure a successful future for our students. Because it impacts everyone and everything, it is extremely difficult to recover from a loss in this investment. When we lose an employee, not only are we faced with the financial expense of replacing them, but we are also losing our investment in the intellectual capital that employee provides. HR’s focus should be on retaining and supporting this investment in every way possible.

Research has shown that professional growth and learning is at the core of a long-term retention strategy. That means that we must be thorough in our approach and provide mentor leaders that guide the learning experience with success measures along the way. By giving all we have to the retention efforts of our teachers, we are creating a profession worth choosing and worth staying in. 

Center Retention Around Active Engagement With Growth Opportunities

The Instructional Growth Perspective

We need to provide multiple opportunities for employees to be actively engaged. This should include job-embedded content that includes meaningful and authentic learning experiences such as collaborative learning groups, employee-led interactive sessions, analysis, discussions, case studies, portfolio creation and justification, safe conversations, and valid, relevant peer interactions.

Through coaching, mentorships, relationships, and vulnerable conversations, we need to consistently engage our teachers and help them answer the following questions:

  • What are my “Learning Gaps” and how do I connect them to measurable goals that will improve my students’ learning?
  • Is everything I am doing relevant to my day-to-day job?
  • Do I have flexible learning opportunities that are sustainable and created around my personal growth needs?

The Human Resources Perspective

A retention first staffing model is not a linear one. It is a continuous cycle of growth that promotes the evolution of the individual and effectively directs his or her development toward the success of the greater good.

When the student becomes the teacher and the mentee becomes the mentor, a cycle of growth has come full circle and should begin a new journey to the next level…and so the path continues.

As Human Resource leaders, it is our responsibility to make sure all paths are directed toward mastery and the continual cycle of growth.

Conclusion

The goal of an educational leader is to create a working environment where the best teachers are retained year after year, and we engage them in growth opportunities to help them expand their instructional maturity. The goal of an HR leader is to create a retention-first, employee-centered culture of engagement and support. It’s not hard to see what these goals share in common, when you look at it this way. Break down siloes between HR and instructional growth the begin retention efforts during the recruiting process.