Washington Township Public School System
Some folks set out to become pioneers, e.g., Columbus or Lewis and Clark,
while others become pioneers as if by luck, chance or coincidence. Sometimes
it just happens, with little or no forethought. The two founders of Apple®
Computers started their business in a garage while the duo behind Ben
and Jerry’s® Ice Cream opened for business in a renovated small-town
gas station--and yet each pair is heralded for pioneering new and creative
ways of doing business in America. In the late 1980’s when the Washington
Township (NJ) Public Schools purchased a learning information software
system, called TIE 2000, little did they realize that they would become
pioneers of a different sort--in the efforts to reengineer public schools
in America.
According to Lona Conicelli, who coordinates the district’s Special Education initiatives, TIE 2000 was originally purchased to help save time in preparing Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) for its Special Education students. "It was very new, we were probably one of the first customers," she said. "It was a learning experience. With the training and learning new programs, my head spun for a while. Prior to automation, all of our IEPs were hand-written and then typed on a typewriter. With this software we get legible, well organized, easy-to-read IEPs. We’ve even had teachers, whose children attend other schools, tell us that they like our IEPs compared to what they’ve received from other school systems.
TIE 2000 is a unique software program designed to give educators the important information they need to guide their educational efforts. The strength of the software is that it is fully customizable to fit particular needs. As an owner, you control what information you wish to input and extract from the software in order to meet the identified needs. In addition, TIE 2000’s software applications have also been designed to meet such specialized needs as Special Education, Bilingual Education and Title I.
"Our district has made the software program fit our needs," said Conicelli. "I now have special forms--that we created--for pre-schoolers, speech students or learners undergoing program changes. Other districts may just use one form, but we’ve made changes that fit our needs. We also added all of the district’s curricula into the database and we match our IEPs to that information, as well as to New Jersey’s State Standards. About the only thing we’re not doing with the software is using it to generate our state and federal reports--although we could do that too. I think this is a wonderful program."
According to Conicelli, "We have people moving into our school district because of the quality of our Special Education system." In leading the charge to introduce appropriate uses of technology into American schools, Washington Township Schools have not only affected changes within the district, they’ve also become unwitting pioneers.
