Marlene Gross-Ackeret, WI RtI Center/PBIS Network

Dana McConnell, WI RtI Center/PBIS Network

Tiffany Helmke and Amy Tranel, Dodgeville Elementary School

Linda Zeman, Chetek-Weyerhauser School District

Including Students with Disabilities in a Culturally Responsive Multi-Level System of Support

Agenda

IntroductionsOutcomes for the daySystems view

For ALL

Belief System/Culture District level support

structuresData

How are you collecting data?

Looking at data? Using Data? What are you missing? Data walk-through

School Examples Dodgeville Elementary Chetek-Weyerhauser

Questions…

Outcomes for the Session

Research and rationaleUnderstanding of benefits for ALL

students and staffData walk-through and its usesSchool Examples of what this looks

like

We Know…….

To improve the academic success of our children, we must also improve their social success.

Academic and social failures are reciprocally and inextricably related.

Educational Outcomes for Students w/Disabilities

Students w/disabilities are almost 2X as likely to be suspended from school as nondisabled students, with the highest rates among black children with disabilities.

13% of students w/ disabilities in kindergarten through 12th grade were suspended during the 2009-10 school year, compared to 7% of students without disabilities.

Among black children with disabilities, the rate was much higher: one out of four were suspended at least once that school year.

Department of Ed.; The New York Times, August 7, 2012

Educational Outcomes for Students with EBD

40-60% drop out of high school (Wagner, 1991, 1996; Wagner, Kutash, Duchnowski, & Epstein, 2005)

Experience poorer academic performance than Students with SLD (Lane, Carter, Pierson & Glaeser, 2006)

10-25% enroll in post-secondary education (compared to 53% of typical population) (Bullis & Cheney, 1999)

High rated if unemployment/underemployment post-school (Bullis & Cheney, 1999; Kortering, Hess & Braziel, 1996, Wagner 1991; Wehman, 1996)

High rates of MH challenges, poverty, incarceration (Alexander, et al., 1997; Kortering, et al., Lee and Burkham, 1992, Wagner 1992)

Youth with EBD . . .

Disengaged from school/family/communityMost likely disability group to be educated in

a segregated settingHighest rates of disciplinary infractionsPerceived by teachers as having significantly

lower levels of social competence and school adjustment (Lane, Carter, Pierson, & Glaeser, 2006)

Bridging the Gap

General + Intensive Resources

General Resources

Intensity of Problem

Am

ount

of

Res

ourc

es N

eede

d to

Sol

ve P

robl

em

General + Supplemental Resources

Systems View

What is the culture of your building? Is there a belief that SwD should be included in our

schoolwide system/data? Do we have high expectations for ALL? Academics

AND Behavior?

Are we ALL working towards the same vision and mission?

What are our non-negotiables in order to achieve that vision and mission?

Healthy School Culture

“Educators have an unwavering belief in the ability of all of their students to achieve

success, and they pass that belief on to others in overt and covert ways. Educators create

policies and procedures and adopt practices that support their belief in the ability of every

student.”

- Kent D. Peterson in Cromwell, 2002.

Cultural Change

“Structural change that is not supported by cultural change will eventually be

overwhelmed by the culture, for it is in the culture that any organization finds meaning

and stability.”

Schlechty, Shaking Up the Schoolhouse:How to Support and Sustain Educational Innovation (2001), p. 52

District Level Support Structures Needed for Sustainability…

District structures must be in place in order to support and

sustain systems change efforts!

Data Audit

*Behavior Data*ODRs per day per mo.

*By behavior

*By time of day

*By location

*By infraction

*Other including M/m

*Group, etc.

*Attendance

*EE or LRE

*Detentions

*Suspensions I/O

*Expulsions

*Academic data per group/individual

*Etc.

Activity: Think – Pair- ShareReflect on Current Practices

What are your current practices for teaching behavioral expectations? What about for SwD’s?

Are SwD’s included in your school-wide discipline data? How are you using this data?

Do you capture data differently for SwD’s? Separate system or extension of school-wide system?

Do you have the same behavioral expectations for your SwD’s? Are they linked back to the school-wide expectations?

Think about this……..

Academics: CCSS, CCEE = Smarter Balanced

Behavior: Behavior Matrix = ODR’s

WHAT DOES THAT REALLY MEAN?

HOW ARE WE USING THE DATA TO MAKE DECISIONS?

How do you disaggregate your data?

Main Ideas

•Build “decision systems” not “data systems”•Use data in “decision layers”

–Is there a problem? (overall rate of ODR)–Localize the problem

–(location, problem behavior, students, time of day)

–Get specific. Do not speak in code.

•Do not drown in the data•It’s “OK” to be doing well•Be efficient•What do you do for students without IEP’s that display similar behaviors (e.g. homework completion)?

Main Ideas cont’d

• Do we have a problem?• Refine the description of the problem?

• What behavior, Who, Where, When, Why

• Test hypotheses• “I think the problem on the playground is due

to Eric”• “ We think the lunch period is too long”• “We believe the end of ‘block schedule” is used poorly”

• Define how to monitor if solution is effective

We can’t include SWD in our data!

SWD will skew our dataWe have this one kid who . . . We will look bad when we present data to the

School BoardIf we keep track of every thing he/she does,

that’s all we would have time to doOthers?

Here is how you can………

Set Your Preferences to Require IEP Identification

Drilling Down the Data

Monitor Progress of Interventions/Programs/Supports

Year End Report: IEP Summary

ALL Students

“Equality means we don’t find a place for her; we make this the place for her.” (Rob Horner, 2013)

The single largest reason: students are moved social behavior teachers leave social behavior

Key Concept

Putting outcomes forstudents with IEP’sinto the context of

schools as systems toeducate and support

ALL students.

SCHOOL EXAMPLES: Outline of Focus

Historical view in implementing PBIS and RtI (CR-MLSS)

What is the culture of your building? Is there a belief that SwD should be included in our schoolwide

system/data? Do we have high expectations for ALL? How do you show this? How do you know you have a positive school culture? Are you

measuring this?Have you included SwD in your data from the

beginning? What does this look like in your school? What obstacles/challenges did you encounter? How did you overcome them?

Outline cont’d

How are you using your systems data to support your SwD? What benefits/efficiencies have you identified by doing this? Are there

things that you have been able to eliminate or ‘take off people’s plates’? How else are you using this data for SwD?

What does disaggragating data look like in your school?Have you had any “Ah-ha’s or Uh-ohs”?What other supports/structures do you have in place to close

achievement gaps for SwD’s in your school?What does the role of your special educators look like within

your school system? How has the role of special educators evolved? Or, hasn’t it? How are they involved in collaboration time?

What has the impact of your efforts been?

Dodgeville Elementary

Mtss for

Swds at

Des:An alphabet soup story of our FYIs, OMGs, BTWs for including SwDs in

MTSS.

Once upon

a time

…

Here’s a story, of a

lovely school district:1288 students

2 elementary schools598 students

1 middle school294 students

1 high school396 students

Race/EthnicityAsian-1.4%; Black- 2.2%; Hispanic- 2.6%; White- 92.7%

Economically Disadvantaged32.2%

Mobility RatioRatio of non-Full Academic Year (FAY) students: FAY students-0%

Disability Status11.9% SwDs

Our Beg:

RtI Implementation:

9 yearsREACh grantReading

PBIS Implementation:

Tier 1: 5 yearsTier 2: 2 years

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A Fyi: Our Mtss framewo

rk

Marriage of RtI and PBIS

Co-teaching to support IEPs wherever possible to support academic and behavior needs

Academics- Benchmarking, progress monitoring, gap closure, growth

Behavior- SWIS (behavior and attendance) and life skill data

Btw, we believe that:

The MTSS framework is for ALL students-

including those with disabilities.

School Report Card data- SwDs needed to be an area of focus

Track progress co-teaching model

Racial diversity is limited, therefore SwDs are followed as a sub-group due to risk ratios

SwDs have always accessed core. Recently began participating in Tier 2 with general education students (previously provided through special education services)

Omg. We have high

expectations.

But we like it.

District goal: Close gap of each SwD by 1/3 each year

Focus on not only students who are struggling but those accelerating

Ensure all students are accessing core and interventions

Co-teachers

Share knowledge of accommodations and interventions

Provide interventions

Support others in progress monitoring

Team approach for all- administrators, counselors, Encore staff

Special Educati

on Teacher

sAKA

Masters of playing multiple roles in our

story!

MTSS meetings

PST meetings

Grade level meetings

Professional Development

Educator Effectiveness Pilot

Bffs talk!

Special Education Teachers collaborate

frequently.

It’s a necessity.

Student progress- Are students making progress? Maintaining? Or regressing?

Many questions such as:“Why change what we are doing? By including them in general education programming, does this lose focus of an individualized education plan?”

Including Swds? It was Ez!

JK.

We had challenges along the way.

Initiated courageous conversations about programming and performance of students

Implementation of the problem solving process- not separate from the IEP team, but offered frequent support through collaboration on meeting student needs

System of support in responding to all needs- System of breaks, behavior responses, providing interventions

What’s Gr8 about

including Swds?

A systematic, team response so that ALL are meeting student needs- ‘All our students, all the time’ philosophy

Support system for staff and students

CST- including individuals from all areas to support students

Is the culture in our

fairytale

positive?

You bet. It’s what we do. It’s our philosophy. We are a PLC. We

even LOL together.

Student surveys

Parent surveySubstitute survey

Strong acknowledgement system for staff and students

Number of students qualifying for special education services has decreased. We support them through MTSS. Influencing more focus on early intervention.

Many SwDs are on track or have closed the gap. Positive progress for those in co-taught classrooms as well.

Positive percentages for students meeting growth goals.

Positive feedback from students and parents regarding co-teaching, particularly for SwDs.

Significant decrease in suspensions this year.

There will be more!- We haven’t finalized our fairytale ending yet because we are continuing to refine our system.

What can we Celebr8

?

There’s always room for celebration.

Hopefully this isn’t TMI?The End!

Chetek-Weyerhauser

Chetek-Weyerhaeuser Area School District

About the District

• Just over 1000 students PK-12• High poverty rate• Declining enrollment• In the RtI journey for over 11 years

– We started with a focus on reading and behavior– Math and language arts was added later

• More than 99% of our SWD are fully included in core curriculum and general classes– SWD have been included in in data sets from

beginning– Our buildings use resources differently

What We Know

Structure change alone will not improve a school.

Educators must create a new culture with new assumptions, beliefs, expectations, values & habits that constitute the norm for that school.

A Necessity

• We had difficult conversations–Grading–Formative vs. summative

assessments–Accommodations vs. modifications

Critical Philosophies

• All students fit into the multi-tiered system– We do not have adequate staff to create two

separate systems.

• Challenge expectations for SWD– All but 4 students expected to meet all academic

expectations• Academic expectations can be modified

– All but 6 students expected to meet all behavioral expectations• For each student we are accommodating for their

disabilities but have not needed to modify expectations.

Critical Philosophies• Continual use of data and all students

count• Look at the whole child

– Academic screeners– Behavior screeners

More About Data

• Systematic process to examine data sets

• Discussion protocols to keep the team directed

• As interventionists-special education teachers are part of the problem solving team

Obstacles

• IEP process is not responsive enough to fit with the RtI system– Any student needing an intervention gets an

interventions – it is not an IEP issue

• If time and intensity are constants, learning is the variable.

• When you have limited resources if one teacher has an intervention with 3-7 students, the other class sizes will increase.

Obstacles

• Pyramid of interventions need to address both skill deficits and motivation issues – “can’t do” vs. “won’t do”– Adequate data sets?

• Example:• What we know about our failing high school

students– Low academic skills does not consistently predict

failure– Multiple missing assignments– Often have poor attendance

Mindset Intervention

2 X a week for 30 minutes• Entrance criteria

– Failed one or more classes in the previous trimester

• Exit criteria– Passing all classes at end of the trimester– Will remain for entire trimester

Intensive - 5 X week for 60 minutes• Entrance criteria

– In mindset previous trimester and still failed one or more classes

• Exit criteria– Passing all classes at end of trimester

Special Education Teachers

Roles they play• Interventionists

– Academic– Mindset– Academic resource

• Co-teachers• Case Managers

Roles they don’t play• Teach slower and louder

Our Impact

Impact

Then Now

Our SWD were more likely to be incarcerated than to be employed after graduation.

Our SWD are more likely to go into post secondary education than to be employed after graduation.• 40% plan to attend 4 year colleges• In the 2013-14 school year we

completed more assessments for ACT accommodations than in the past 25 years combined.

Academic growth of SWD was significantly slower than their non-handicapped counterparts despite special services.

SWD meet exit criteria for interventions at an impressive rate.

Thank you!

QUESTIONS?COMMENTS?