IEP Caseload

When to use this

Use Caseload when you carry a group of students and the paperwork is the part that eats the week. Import a page from an IEP and Beacon reads the goals, baselines, services and minutes off it; you review every row before anything saves. Then log a data point in one tap during the session, and see at a glance who has no data this week and whose benchmark is overdue. Students are kept by initials or a nickname, never a full name. Beacon is your own working copy; your district's system stays the record.

How it works

1. 1

   Agree once, before the first student

   You confirm you work with these students and are authorized to keep your own notes, that you will use initials only, and that your district's system stays the official record. Asked once, before the camera opens.

2. 2

   Import a page

   Photograph or upload an IEP page, a progress report, a data sheet, a Section 504 plan, a behavior intervention plan, a functional behavior assessment, a prior written notice, an evaluation report or a transition plan. Beacon reads it and shows every goal, baseline, service, minutes line, date, accommodation and behavior it found, each for you to confirm. Nothing is saved until you approve it. Every page you save is listed on the student's page under Imports, with when, what kind, what it added and what the page said, and each goal says whether a page brought it or you added it by hand.

3. 3

   Log in one tap

   Each goal carries its own button, prefilled with the last value. Tap it, change the number if today was different, save. Built for one hand, mid-session. On the goal's own page, Delete This Goal asks first and names what goes with it.

   See it in the example
4. 4

   Log what actually happened

   One tap logs the scheduled session. Log a Session logs a makeup, or a service with no line yet, and it shows under Unscheduled. A line that has ended is no longer listed. A second data point on the same day asks which one to keep, or keeps both.

   See it in the example
5. 5

   Make the probe, run it, log the number

   Every goal card has Make a Probe. Beacon prints a two-page sheet matched to how the goal is measured and the student's grade: trial lines, an item list, a tally, a timing sheet, a graded reading passage with the word count down the margin, a fact sheet, a task analysis with prompt codes, or a rubric. Page 1 is the sheet, page 2 the directions. Run it, write the number, scan the code on the sheet or tap the goal's button, and the number is on the chart.

   See it in the example
6. 6

   See who needs you first

   The roster sorts by who needs data first: an overdue benchmark, then a student with no data at all. Minutes delivered against scheduled sit on the same row. A session logged with no service line behind it, a makeup or a line not yet entered, still counts, and the student's page lists it under Unscheduled.

   See it in the example
7. 7

   Set your terms, then hand a family a report

   Caseload keeps your own calendar: one list of grading terms and school breaks per account. Add Term takes a name, a start and an end, copied from the IEP or the district calendar. Add Break works the same way, and Beacon never assumes a date. Roster minutes count the term that contains today, and any whole week that falls inside a break is skipped. A break that only touches a week leaves that week counted. On a student's page, choose a term and press Download Progress Report. You get one student, one term, as a PDF written in plain language for a family: initials only, with the data points, the latest value, the baseline, the target and the service minutes. It never says on track or behind. What the numbers mean is the IEP team's conversation, and your district's system remains the record.

   See it in the example
8. 8

   Take the record with you

   Export puts the whole caseload, or one student, into a spreadsheet or a PDF: one tab per student in Excel, one page per student in the PDF, with every goal, every data point and the service minutes. It is on the roster and on each student's page. Nothing is shared by Beacon; you download the file and decide who sees it.

   See it in the example
9. 9

   Place every service into your week

   The Week page, one link from the roster, shows every service on your caseload placed into your own week: a day and a start time per session, Monday through Friday. The Unplaced card at the top lists every service with minutes still unplaced, and Place opens a small sheet: pick the day, the start and the minutes, or press Suggest a Time and Beacon fills in the earliest free start on that day. You still press the button; nothing is placed for you. Two students who meet together are one group session, so grouping them clears the overlap. When two of your sessions do collide, the Week says so in one sentence and Fix on that day takes you to it. Speech and OT at the same time are two different people, so they never collide unless one student is in both. Edit on any row opens a small sheet where you can move the session or remove one student from it. On a student's page, each service line says where its minutes sit, and none of this is sent to anyone. A line that starts mid-week can be placed from the day it starts; its minutes count from its first whole week.

   See it in the example
10. 10

    Keep the dates, the accommodations, the behavior and the phases

    On a student's page, add each important date from the IEP: the annual review, the triennial, a consent, a transition plan, a manifestation determination. The roster shows every open date above the students, overdue first, then the next thirty days, and each student's row says how many are overdue; tap Done when one is met. Log an accommodation the day you provide it, with the setting if you want it, and it prints on the family's progress report for that term. Log a behavior event as what happened, what came before it and what came after it, with a time and an intensity if you have them, and a removal with its days when there was one. Beacon adds up your in-school and out-of-school suspension days for the school year against the ten that IDEA treats as a change of placement; other removals are kept but not counted, and your district's count is the record. On a goal, add a phase when you change something, a new prompt or a peer model, and the trend draws a dashed line where it starts. The lines label your data; they never grade it.

11. 11

    Archive at the end of the year

    Archive a student and their record is kept but off your roster, and you can restore them. Deleting is separate, asks again, and takes every goal and measurement with it.

A real example

A school SLP imports one page of an IEP on Tuesday, then logs during Thursday's session. Every student here is initials only:

Try these with Beacon

• “M.R. has been flat on the break-card goal for three weeks. What now?”

  Beacon reads the goal, its baseline and the last five data points, then talks through whether the target is right, whether the prompt level has changed, and what to try in the next session.

• “Draft a progress note for J.M.'s reading goal for this quarter.”

  Beacon uses the stored measurements and the goal's own wording to draft a note you can edit, in initials only, that you paste into your district's system.

• “Who needs data before Friday?”

  Beacon lists the students whose last data point is oldest and whose benchmarks fall soonest, so the scarce minutes go where they matter.