The Maine Department of Education’s Office of Special Services would like to request Directors of Special Education and other school personnel to check the information in the Department’s data system, NEO, to ensure that special education teachers are correctly coded in the system. Please check to see that:
- There are no missing codes.
- The coding for each teacher is correct.
- Teachers who were granted a one-year extension for certificates expiring on July 1, 2017 per Commissioner Hasson’s priority notice dated May 5, 2017 should not be coded as having a waiver.
- Special education teachers who teach children with a number of disabilities should not be coded as teachers of children with Multiple Disabilities unless the students are coded with that disability.
- Educational technicians should not be coded as special education teachers or teachers.
This is an important correction for SAUs to make since we are trying to determine capacity needed to address the alternate pathways requirements of the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) and Maine’s newly revised certification rule, Chapter 115 which became effective on August 12, 2017.
Log in processes to NEO can be found at the following link: https://neo.maine.gov/DOE/NEO/Accounts/Account/Login?ReturnUrl=%2fDOE%2fneo%2fAccounts%2fHome%2fHome.
For questions about logging into NEO, contact the Maine DOE Help Desk at MEDMS.Helpdesk@maine.gov or 207-624-6896.