Crafting Stepwell: A Future Guided by the Past

the stepwell logo representing a spiral staircase, inside an orange circle captioned "Stepwell"

 

At Red Cedar Solutions Group, we’re always ready to take on new challenges. With each project we engage with clients, dive deep into understanding their specific needs, and thoughtfully craft our software to meet those needs Whether it’s our continuous work on MI School Data or our various independent software products, each project uses our design and development skills in order to craft  user-friendly, accessible, and functional  solutions.

Our latest project, Stepwell, takes our experience with educational institutions and incorporates it into a new, revolutionary cloud-based technology. Essentially, it takes the headache away from managing a crucial component of public education.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) ensures that children with disabilities have access to a free and appropriate public education. Since it began as the Education for All Handicapped Children Act in 1975, the act has helped millions of children with learning, visual, hearing, and other disabilities. But when it comes to implementing the regulations laid out in IDEA, things can get complicated.

Essential as the act is, managing all of its demands and complexities can be a Sisyphean task. Between IDEA Part B, for individuals ages 3–21, and Part C, for children from birth through 2 years old, there are 28 indicators that states and local schools are required to meet that vary in goals and performance targets. Achieving compliance with these indicators involves a myriad of reports, responsibilities, deadline-based actions, and documentation. Currently, most of this is completed through paper, emails, and overly complex software. For the millions of dedicated teachers and administrators who work to serve the nation’s students, this system can be somewhat of a headache.

Here at RCSG, we’ve created a product that solves these problems. Stepwell is a web-based platform that organizes the responsibilities of state and local education agencies, compiles and displays data, and monitors workflows. Not only will it make the jobs of administrators and educators easier, it will also provide an in-depth understanding of how state and local agencies complete these tasks, thus driving continuous improvement in special education with automated best practices and on-demand access to the right data.

Everyone at RCSG is excited about Stepwell and how it will be a force of positive change for the education agencies and special education programs across the country. Now, guided by our philosophy and experience, we will continue to design, develop, and craft game-changing solutions.