Louisiana's new electronic Special Education Reporting System (eSER) isn't working. It's the new platform that the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) implemented to track Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) for special education students. The rollout of this new electronic database has been riddled with bugs and defects that make it difficult, if not impossible for the special education teachers forced to use it.
The annual fall deadline to submit new and expiring IEPs is October 1st, but many special education teachers have not been able to input the data, despite spending hours navigating the glitchy system, on top of their already demanding workload.
This system has made it much more difficult and time intensive for teachers to enter IEP data, make amendments, and properly track a student's progress. Some might say it's expected that a new program will have a few bugs, but we shouldn't penalize teachers who already have so many extra responsibilities. Moreover, the IEP data entered in the system is instrumental in ensuring that all special education students are counted and that districts receive the proper state funding for each student. There is a lot of confusion from district to district about the timeline and the steps that LDOE will take to ensure all students are properly accounted for.
Click here to send a letter to State Superintendent Cade Brumley, Assistant Superintendent of Assessment, Accountability, and Analytics Thomas Lambert and the entire Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. Ask them to extend the Fall deadline to give teachers extra time to figure out the new system, work through the bugs, and get all the data properly entered.