Indiana Department of Education Special Education Needs Assessment Survey

The Indiana Department of Education has released results from their Needs Assessment Survey related to Special Education.

The information from this survey will be used primarily by those entities that are interested in creating a competitive proposal to become a resource center in a statewide network of resource providers. An agency would likely reference this data to support their rationale for their project design, activities, and deliverables, targeting one or more of the areas in their proposal.

The Needs Assessment Survey was completed by 97 different corporations and 8 Coop Groups representing a total of 134 completed surveys. The respondents were from a mix of Metro (13%), Suburban (30%), and Town and Rural (46%) corporations; and came from all of the all corners of the State, with 75% of completed surveys coming from outside of central Indiana.

Allocation of IDEA Funds
Every General Purpose was ranked as the most appropriate allocation of funds on at least one survey
· Only 3 General Purposes were ranked as the best allocation of funds on 10 or more surveys
o Statewide Technology (47), Professional Dev. Experiences (36), and PD Materials (19)
· Model Sites and Non-Profit Direct Service Groups had the two lowest average rankings

Potential Improvement Areas
An overwhelming majority of Potential Improvement Areas received support on the completed surveys. In fact, more Improvement Areas met the topic needs of 90% or more of the corporations completing the survey than Improvement Areas that met the topic needs of less than half of the corporations completing the survey.

Support for Improvement Areas

Scientific-based Interventions 97%
Strategies for Students with Autism 95%
Positive Behavior Intervention 93%
Literacy Instruction 91%
Imp. Transition to Adult Outcomes 90%
------ Below 50% ------
School-based Medicaid Claims 48%
Integrated and Community Arts 45%
ELL Disproportionality Issues 34%

Corporations also have a strong preference for how they would like to receive their professional development…


Web 37%
Partial Day Workshop 25%
All Day Workshop 17%
Multi-Day Conference 7%
Phone Consultation 6%
Demonstration Sites 4%
Academies 4%

CODA as a Records Management System
When asked, “is your school district currently using CODA as a records management system” 88% of respondents answered yes. The only subgroup of respondents (corporation position) that answered “yes” less than 90% of the time was School Corporation Superintendents.

The vast majority of the corporations who are using CODA are doing so to meet compliance monitoring standards and for special education tracking and counts.

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