Paperless Date Tracking

During an impromptu #schoolpsych twitter chat about paperless tools  (you can find my “archive” of the chat on Storify) we were talking about how I use excel to track due dates for IEP and Re-eval dates.  Even though I trust all of my colleagues 100% to be on top of their caseloads and know when IEPs and re-evals are due, sometimes life happens so I’ve put together a spreadsheet that helps provide me peace of mind and a backup.  Since I also don’t trust my own calculations of when IEPs are due I use excel’s formulas to calculate the dates for me.  I’m always try to work smarter, not harder.  I’m able to get excel lists of all students in each of building with IEPs and I use that list to calculate the due dates for the year.

If you’re working in your own sheet here is an example of how to write the formula.  Let’s say the student’s date of birth is in column B, annual IEP date is in column C and the date for their most recent evaluation is in column D.

Calculate Annual Date

In an empty cell/column  type this formula: =sum(C2+365) which will result in the next date for the student’s annual IEP.

Calculate 3 year Re-evaluation Date

In the next empty cell/column, type this formula for the student’s 3 year re-evaluation: =sum(D2+1095).

Calculate 8th Birthday for Early Childhood Re-evaluations

In another empty cell/column type this formula to make sure you don’t miss a re-evaluation of an early childhood developmental disability certification (ECDD) before they turn 8 years old: =sum(B2+2920)

After I copy these formulas all the way through the sheet I make the dates red for the evaluations that are due during the school year for easy reference. I also check to see if a child with an ECDD certification will turn 8 during the school year so our team can start planning our evaluation well before their birthday (parents don’t want a last minute meeting on their child’s actual birth date, they want to be delivering treats to their child’s classroom).  I typically check my eval list on a monthly basis to make sure we’re not overlooking any required re-evals.

For those of my blog followers who are using google I created an example sheet you can tweak for yourself, Google Sheet IEP Date Tracking Template.

 I also have an excel template that everyone is welcome to tweak for their own use. CaseloadExample

If anyone has any trouble with either form, let me know and I’ll help troubleshoot but if anyone has any improvements, pass them along.  Happy tracking and compliance!