| The purpose of this research was to investigate school administrators' perceptions of the Compliance Monitoring for Continuous Improvement (CMCI) process. The CMCI process consists of administrative procedures for auditing special education programming and implementation, focusing on effectiveness of services and district accountability, as a result of which districts may be found to be out of compliance with federal, state, and local regulations. Special education administrators were tasked with completing the compliance requirements over the course of a year. The purpose of this study was to examine administrators' perceptions relating to the compliance monitoring process in order to present and recommend professional develop suggestions to improve outcomes of the process prior to future monitoring cycles. A lack of current research on this topic led to the development of this research study. The study utilized a qualitative case study approach focusing on one district located in western Pennsylvania and employing observations, participant interviews, and analysis of archival data. A total of four district-level and building-level administrators were interviewed. It was found that building-level administrators have less knowledge and understanding of the CMCI process than district-level or special education administrators. In addition, organizational capacities for improvement, such as policy/programming, human capital, social capital, program coherence, and resources emerged as themes discussed by the administrators. |
