In 2005 the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) Office of Special Education and Early Intervention Services (OSE/EIS) and the Office of Early Childhood Education and Family Services (ECE & FS) designed and built a system of processes and technical tools to fulfill both federal and state requirements for the collection and review of special education compliance monitoring data. This system needed to be flexible enough to keep up with changes in federal and state regulations, simple enough to operate at both the state and local levels with existing personnel, and credible enough to deliver a message of increased accountability. The Continuous Improvement & Monitoring System (CIMS) is Michigan’s model for monitoring both compliance and outcomes for children and students with special needs.

Over the past three years, the MDE has worked to bring all local educational agencies (LEAs), including public school academies (PSAs), state schools, state agencies, and center-based programs from Part B as well as service areas from Michigan’s Early On® into CIMS. With three years of experience and all locals on board for at least one round of the CIMS Service Provider Self-Review (SPSR), the timing was ideal to reflect on what was learned, respond to new influences, and determine how to improve productivity and achieve efficiencies in the process.

CIMS-2, which is scheduled to launch in April 2009, is the result of 18 months of designing, refining, and improving the CIMS process based on input from Part B and Part C stakeholders including: LEAs, intermediate school districts (ISDs), service areas, parents, and other CIMS users. Watch this website for updated information on how CIMS-2 will affect you.