Improving Student Services
Background
Horizon School Division (HSD) operates 42 schools across east-central Saskatchewan, with its central office in Humboldt. Horizon spans a geographic area of approximately 30,970 square kilometres. The school division celebrates diversity in the communities and schools, including those that are made up of 100% First Nations students and families and those that are made up of new Canadians that have come to work in manufacturing and other sectors.
Central office personnel maintain close contact with a variety of agencies that support students who are at risk or who have intensive needs. Horizon student counsellors, psychologists, speech and language pathologists and occupational therapists frequently meet with professionals from other health and mental health services in an effort to provide optimal programming for all Horizon students.
Solution
Horizon’s transformation from a manual paper-based system to a centralized automated system was set in motion when changes within the division impacted half the staff working under Student Services and it was essential to rethink their processes and find opportunities to improve efficiency and resource allocation. Everyone was in agreement that the Learning Support Referral process was too labour intensive, required multiple stakeholders to schedule meetings, repetitive scans and emails, acquiring signatures and physically sending documents back and forth for review and approvals.
“clevr is a way to expedite service to children at a very reasonable cost”
– Superintendent of Student Services –
If they could find a solution to solve this crippling problem, then they could apply that learning and methodology to other processes as well. The Superintendent of Student Services connected with clevr, already in use and trusted by many divisions within the province, and liked how easy and user-friendly the software was. From an adoption standpoint, this was very important to get people on board, who had traditionally used paper forms.
Forms Implemented
| Academic Wrap- Around Referral | Career Counsellor Contact Tracking Log | Psych Consultation Forms | Speech-Language Review Summary | Student Counselor Contact Tracking Log |
| ASIST Suicide Risk Assessment | Learning Supports Meeting Notes | Record of Adaptations | Speech-Language Year-End Summary | Student Services Specialized Programming Request |
| Assistive Technology Request | Learning Supports Referral | School Psychologist Contact Tracking Log | Speech-Language File Closure | Student Services Transportation Request |
| Assistive Technology List | Occupational Therapist Tracking Log | Speech & Language Contact Tracking Log | Speech-Language Year-End Summary | Violence Threat & Risk Assessment (VTRA) |
Impact on the District
The Learning Support Referral was a 3 page form that Horizon condensed into 1 electronic form subdivided into tabs to easily organize the information. Automated notifications let central office staff know that the referral is ready for review.
At the school level, the principal, learning resource teacher and classroom teacher no longer have to plan meetings, they can each contribute to the form and see the status in real time.
The greatest cost was the time lost while children were waiting for necessary services. Now with clevr, there is no wasted time, staff are delighted, the division can communicate quickly when information is still required, and clevr securely saves the record history in a centralized place. It’s dependable, and it works.
The ability to search the archives to identify when specific services were first provided for a student is incredibly valuable. clevr is our trusted database that can surface the required information instantly.
– Reduced Referral Process from 3 weeks to 1 day –
Future Forecast
The success of moving the Learning Support Referral process to clevr, has inspired the division to look at other processes that had always been done with paper. September is a very busy time for educators and 100 or more transportation requests would pour in at the beginning of the school year. Horizon now uses clevr to handle these requests as well, and it has cut down the processing time significantly.
clevr is also being used for Violence Threat & Risk Assessment. Online documentation is completed by principals and counsellors as soon as a threat is identified and central office receives the information immediately. There is no more waiting for scans and emails – central office staff have immediate access to this sensitive information.
Horizon strives to better meet the needs of children with special needs, through quick service and a collaborative platform like clevr. Since 2014, Horizon has implemented 20 electronic forms and the possibilities are endless.
