Department of Education staff use a variety of methods to monitor local educational agencies (LEAS) including focused monitoring activities and desk review activities to investigate LEA performance, especially in areas of low performance or noncompliance. It is critical that these activities:

• Be implemented fairly and consistently across districts/programs.
• Identify areas of noncompliance.
• Trigger effective corrective actions, technical assistance, improvement strategies, fiscal decisions, and other investments, sanction, and incentives that ensure timely correction.
• Lead to status determination of districts/programs.

Some of the monitoring activities involve teams of department staff and at least 1 family member/parent who visit several school districts each year.