A department coordinating its work across disconnected tools
Special education operations involved several spreadsheets, email exchanges, and manual tracking steps. Referrals brought together student information, supporting documents, reviewers, and follow-up work. Separate activities (supply requests, assessment orders, class lists, placement planning, and reporting) added more records to maintain.
Staff had to keep those pieces aligned: what had arrived, what was missing, who was responsible, which requests were waiting, and what needed to happen next. Progress depended on people moving information between the tools and maintaining their own view of the work.
Finding the bottleneck
The constraint was coordination across the full workflow. Collecting a form was only the beginning; staff also needed to review individual documents, request corrections, assign responsibility, communicate decisions, and carry information into subsequent operational steps.
The application needed to connect those steps while supporting different responsibilities and access levels. It also needed to remain useful as staff, classrooms, catalogs, and communication requirements changed.
What I built
I built SPEDEx, a custom web application that brings related departmental workflows into a shared system.
Referral intake and tracking
Multiple referral forms, supporting document uploads, confirmation records, staff assignment, status history, and submitter tracking.
Document review and follow-up
Item-level checklists, acceptance and rejection states, missing-document tracking, and document re-upload workflows that keep follow-up connected to the referral.
Completion communications
Tools for preparing completion notices and selecting recipients, with templates and shared recipient settings managed through the application.
Cumulative records requests
Pre-filled request letters, email delivery, time-limited upload-only links, receipt tracking, forwarding to receiving schools, and overdue reminders. Dates are recorded as supported actions complete.
Supply and assessment ordering
Request submission, an assessment catalog, staff review, status updates, notes, and request history.
Classroom and placement management
Classroom rosters, capacity information, student placement and transfers, staffing records, transportation tracking, and next-year planning tools.
Reporting
Enrollment projections, class lists, regionalized program reports, and program-provider reports generated from operational records or uploaded source exports, with print and export options.
Access and accountability
Role-based workflows, account administration, and history and audit records supporting review of departmental changes.
Connected records
These features connect work that previously required separate tracking. Referral records carry their documents and review history; records requests carry their own progress; classroom placements connect students to operational classroom information.
Built for the department to manage
Authorized staff can maintain notification recipients, reminder thresholds, completion-email wording, cumulative-records request wording, assessment catalogs, address-book contacts, provider-teacher information, school sites, staff assignments, and classroom details through the application.
Administrators can also manage user access and supported school-year operations. Access to these functions follows the user's permissions.
That flexibility matters in a department where people, assignments, and operating details change. A new notification recipient, an updated request letter, or a classroom capacity change can be handled by authorized users without a code change or redeployment. The application gives staff practical control over the information and settings they use to run the process.
What changed
SPEDEx replaced several spreadsheet and email-based tracking activities with connected workflows. Staff gained a shared view of referrals, missing documents, records requests, orders, and placements, along with the history and next steps attached to each record.
Communications and follow-up are tied more closely to the work itself. Reporting draws from structured records and defined import workflows, and routine administrative changes can be handled inside the application.
The result is a departmental platform that supports intake, coordination, follow-through, and planning in one place. It also reduces dependence on the developer for supported changes to the department's day-to-day configuration.
My contribution
I translated the department's manual processes into the application workflows, interfaces, data relationships, access rules, document handling, email integrations, reports, and administration tools. The work also included building automated checks for workflow rules and edge cases.