Department of Human Services, Office of Education
In life, some
of our biggest, most exciting adventures begin with small, simple steps.
Such was the case five years ago when the State of New Jersey
Department of Human Services, Office of Education
sought a solution to a consistent and nagging problem--having to hand-write
Individual Education Plans (IEPs) for each of their Special Education
students. The thought was that perhaps by using technology to solve this
task of IEP generation, it would greatly simplify the process and be a
tremendous time-saver.
The need led to the discovery of a little-known learning information system, called TIE 2000, which could in fact, create the kind of specialized computer-generated IEP package needed for each and every DHS Special Education student in the State. This successful implementation eventually led to the formation of a committee within the DHS, Office of Education to examine the possibility of taking this technology even further. The committee had a two-pronged approach in mind. They were interested in connecting and enhancing this learning information system into an extensive database. They wanted to use the TIE 2000 software to 1) better manage student data and, 2) generate the necessary and mandated NJ State Department of Education reports for all of its regular and special education student populations.
The answer as to whether TIE 2000 could meet these needs has been an emphatic yes. The TIE 2000 application has proved to be such a great success that the DHS, Office of Education can now manage and provide compliance responsibility for more than 2400 of the state’s pre-school to high school learners. Approximately 22% of these students are regular education pupils; the remaining 78% have been designated as having special needs--but are schooled alongside their regular education counterparts.
The value of the TIE 2000 approach proved effective for the DHS, Office of Education because it was designed and developed by a pair of educators with a vision of applying technology to affect positive improvements in the instructional process. The simple goal behind TIE 2000 was to provide educators (administrators, teachers and central office staff) with a powerful technology tool that would give them the critical data upon which to base their instructional efforts.
The DHS, Office of Education project is fully operational. The system has been installed in more than 30 institutions accross the state including the Trenton the central office. The committee designated multiple needs for our TIE 2000 software: system-wide data collection, curriculum development, report generation, and fiscal monitoring and tracking. In addition, the system contains the DHS , PK-12 curriculum which was correlated by DHS staff to the NJ Core Curriculum Content Standards.
DHS has recently applied Citrix Metaframe technology to the TIE system for the purpose of accessing its centralized database statewide. TIE 2000 has been modified to run within this new environment and an enormous number of man-hours have been saved by this wide area network effort.
