Iberville Parish Schools lightens the IEP documentation load, builds collaboration, and keeps the focus on student growth. Background In the spring of 2025, the Iberville Parish School Board in Louisiana adopted Brolly to streamline special education documentation, improve monitoring, and strengthen collaboration across schools. The district’s special education team, led by Supervisor Pamela Moore, is focused on ensuring compliance, supporting teachers and related service providers, and driving progress for students with disabilities. “We support schools, special education teachers, and related service providers in their support of students with disabilities. We provide intense training and support to teachers through monthly Communities of Practices… and we monitor IEPs for quality and progress monitoring for student growth, she explained.” The Challenge Before Brolly, teachers were using a patchwork of paper and electronic methods to track IEP services, goal progress, and student supports. “We had set expectations and provided templates and models, but the teachers made the final decision of how that would look for themselves,” she said. This inconsistency created significant strain: Difficulty in monitoring for both school leaders and the SPED department. Hard to access data from past years when there was a need (parent complaints, parent requests, state and Medicaid audits). Teachers lost time recreating tracking tools each year, which “caused a delay in services/start of documentation or both.” Why Brolly? The timing was serendipitous. Pamela explains, “Honestly, I happened to see it (Brolly) right when we were experiencing frustration about our current processes, and it seemed to offer exactly what we needed. We needed a uniform data system that met the needs of special education service providers and compliance needs. We wanted to release some of the documentation burden from providers. Brolly does this for us.” The district considered three other platforms, but Brolly stood out in three major ways. 1. Integration with eSER: “Brolly saved teachers so much time in comparison to what we were doing as well as in comparison to other options we explored.” 2. Focus on Data Only: “We did not want a platform that would bog teachers down in searching through resources... some other platforms were a one-stop shop with vast amounts of resources. It would have been impossible for us to vet through them to ensure high quality.” 3. Administrator Access: “This was a critical component to our collaboration with site administrators in the support of their special education teachers.” A Thoughtful Launch Iberville was strategic with when it chose to launch Brolly. Rather than waiting for the start of a new school year, they implemented the new tool in April to avoid overwhelming their staff. By starting in the spring, some teachers even used the system during ESY (Extended School Year), giving campuses “some real data to look at in the system at the start of the year.” Looking Ahead Heading into the 2025–26 school year, the district sees Brolly as a foundation for more effective and efficient special education services. Pamela explains, "For the special education leadership team, we are better equipped to monitor and support schools as we have easy access to all of this data. For schools, they can be more efficient and effective. Additionally, the consistency of data across all stakeholders makes for better collaboration." She also anticipates gains in compliance, reduced administrative burden, and improved service delivery. “I see each of those areas improving. I also see the efficiency of the system will free up time and energy to provide more and better supports to students thus resulting in more student progress.”

Every educator wants their students to thrive, and inclusive classrooms are critical to achieve this mission. However, creating learning environments that support all learners — especially those with individual education plans (IEPs) — can be challenging for many districts.  However, some leaders have blazed a trail for fellow educators to follow, like Jaymi Brumfield, a veteran Special Education practitioner now serving as the Director of Special Education at Teays Valley Local Schools (TVD) in Ohio. Level Data sat down with Brumfield to discover how her team advanced its inclusive classroom practices for students with IEPs. The article summarizes what we learned — watch the full webinar for more insights. The commitments and challenges of creating inclusive learning spaces By law, schools are required to support students with disabilities and unique learning needs — that is the whole point of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) as well as similar state mandates. But Brumfield emphasizes that inclusive classrooms are in everyone’s best interest. First, accommodations or modifications for one student often benefit others. For instance, when a teacher reads texts aloud several times or uses visual cues paired with a text, students in general education classes also better grasp the content shared.  Second, a frustrated student tends to behave in ways disruptive to the entire class. Accommodations and modifications reduce these feelings while also helping the student continue to grow. Last, and most crucially, inclusive classrooms create a collective responsibility and community approach to help every student thrive. In this way, staff move from talking about “your” students to “our” students, taking ownership for all kids’ success, with and without IEPs. However, establishing inclusive learning spaces isn’t always straightforward. The most common challenges include: Large caseloads: Specialists often assist many students with IEPs, and general education teachers may have multiple students with IEPs in their classrooms. With ongoing special education teacher vacancies and possible budget cuts on the horizon, staff may face even larger case loads. Lack of consistent and/or effective co-planning: Without dedicated co-planning between general education and special education staff, lessons may lack the appropriate alternatives or adjustments for students with IEPs, risking noncompliance or at least forcing educators to adjust learning “on the fly.” Ambiguity in accommodations and modifications themselves: In some cases, general education teachers may not have access to or understand a student’s modifications or accommodations. In others, adjustments themselves are not clearly defined, making them challenging to implement for a student.  Fortunately, as TVD demonstrates, careful planning, collaboration, and communication help districts overcome these challenges. The power of proactive collaboration and communication With nearly 18% of students in the district receiving services, TVD needed a better approach to consistently fulfilling these students’ IEPs and easing staff’s workload to track services. This was especially true in their secondary schools, where accommodations and modifications may not come as naturally in a classroom setting. The stakes are higher in middle and high school, too, as students need credits to advance academically and graduate.  Brumfield pointed out that collaboration and strong relationships between general education and special education staff can make a huge difference. To illustrate this, let’s follow two hypothetical students and their learning experiences within TVD’s five-level system of services. Planning for accommodations Marques is a 7th-grade student receiving Level 2 services for reading. His IEP outlines accommodations for reading and writing assignments. This means that he receives the same learning content as his peers, but staff adjust how he engages with it. In a best-case scenario, Marques’s teachers share lesson plans with the reading specialist in advance, so she has time to review and prepare or offer feedback on his accommodations. For instance, in Social Studies class, students may read a text about Abraham Lincoln, then answer questions about it. The specialist would highlight key phrases or sections of that text to guide Marques towards the answers, helping him complete his assignment. But what if this specialist walks into Marques’s classroom only to discover that students are instead taking a pop quiz about the Civil War? Even veteran practitioners with a robust toolkit of “quick” accommodations can struggle to constantly make changes without advanced notice. Planning for modifications Proactive co-planning is more important when students require modifications, as is the case with Cara. As a 4th grader receiving Level 3 services for math, Cara sometimes engages with the same math content as her peers, but more often, her math specialist delivers it in less frustrating ways. Without upfront knowledge of a day’s lesson, Cara’s specialist may struggle to adequately adjust an assignment on multiplication and division in the moment. Any modifications he introduced “on the fly” add to the general education teacher’s workload, too, who must now spend time understanding what Cara did learn that day and its impact on future lesson plans or grading. Because of these challenges, TVD encourages staff to jointly lesson plan as early and often as possible. With digital tools like shared documents or folders, teachers collaborate even when schedules don’t support face-to-face time. Strong relationships greatly aid this collaboration. When specialists and general education teachers trust each other, they can more effectively work together to serve every student. General education teachers may be more open to receiving feedback or guidance on accommodations for a lesson from a specialist they know well. In kind, specialists can help general education teachers navigate challenges like student frustration while ensuring that student receives the support they need. One centralized solution to capture it all To build inclusive classrooms — not to mention remain compliant with IDEA and other mandates — districts also need effective documentation systems to manage service minutes, IEP documentation, and more. TVD adopted Brolly by Level Data over two years ago to streamline, centralize, and simplify these processes.  Brolly standardizes IEP data collection for all educators who work with students with IEPs, capturing information in one location. The solution then presents real-time information about service minutes, goal process, and compliance status to administrators. To Brumfield, this systematic approach to…

As the Director of Special Education for Birmingham City Schools, Pamela Wimbish ensures that students with disabilities identified under IDEA receive the appropriate services and supports as outlined in their Individualized Education Plans (IEPs). A major challenge for the district was ensuring that schools document services with fidelity, initiating appropriate progress monitoring systems, and maintaining timelines. Before implementing Brolly, the district relied on paper documents to track services, and a structured process for documenting progress was not in place. This lack of consistency made it difficult to outline student progress and contributed to an increase in legal cases. Why Brolly? When looking for a solution, the ease of use for teachers and the ongoing support provided to the district made Brolly stand out.