QUESTIONS and ANSWERS:Implementing RTI in your School OR in your District

“Nuts and Bolts” from Colleagues who are using RTI

Giancarlo AnselmoSchool Psychologist/RTI Coordinator

Cleveland County Schools

Nuts and Bolts

• Training

• What RtI looks like in our schools

• Things we have done to gain support

• Typical day

• Special circumstances

Cleveland County Schools

– Roughly 17,000 students– 4 high schools, 4 middle schools, 2

intermediate schools, 16 elementary schools– 13% of population is EC

Questions

• How many people have gone through state training?

• How much training did you receive in how to implement Tier I and Tier II?

Level IConsultation

Between Teachers-Parents

Level II Consultation With OtherResources

Intensity of Problem

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Level IIIConsultation with

the Problem Solving Team

Level IVIEP

Consideration

Define the problem

Implement Plan

Evaluate

Develop a Plan

Initial Training Team

• School Psychologist

• Curriculum Coordinator

• School Counselor

• Kindergarten Teacher

• Educational Diagnostician

• Principals of two initial schools

Local Norm Project

• Hybrid between DIBELs and Skill Builder Probes

• Local norm sample consisted of 576 students across 1st-5th grades

• More than 100 students per grade

• DIBELS data was from approximately 400 students per grade K-2

Sample From 1st and 2nd Grade

Overall Implementation and Expansion

• 2006/2007 school year RTI procedures were piloted in two elementary schools– One large school (700 students) Springmore– One small school (400 students) Casar

• 2007/2008 implementation has expanded into two more large elementary schools– Fallston Elementary (600 students)– Union Elementary (600 students)

• 2008/2009 we plan to expand into 2 to 4 new schools

Training Our District

• Initial team trained each school Separate trainings have been done on:– Overview of process– Tier I procedures– Tier II/III procedures– Interventions

• School Psychologist did a separate training with school-based problem solving teams to teach Tier III procedures

Teacher Supports

• Teachers have been trained on all tiers of process

• CBM training• Teachers each received intervention

notebooks • Intervention training• Teachers are assigned case colleagues from

the Problem Solving Team to help with procedures, paperwork, or interventions starting at Tier I

Case Colleagues

• Every grade has a case colleague

• Case colleagues help teachers with paperwork, interventions, moral support, and scheduling of meetings

• Case colleagues meet with teachers on a weekly basis

Roles of Case Colleague• Case colleague will meet with teacher at

the beginning of Tier I/Tier II to help with paperwork, interventions, and answer any other questions that arise

• Case colleagues also meet with teachers every other week to check in on progress

• Case colleagues will also meet with teachers at the end of Tier II

• Case colleagues will be in charge of setting up PST Team meeting if moving to Tier III

PST Team Makeup

People who might be on your team

• Principal• School Psychologist• EC representative• Regular Education Teacher• Interventionists• Teacher of student• Parents• Others as needed

How PST Team ChangedLast Year

• Principal• School Psychologist• EC teacher• Diagnostician• Teacher of student• Regular ed teacher• Title 1 reading

specialist• Counselor • Social worker• Parent

This Year• Principal• School Psychologist• Case Colleague• Title 1/Interventionist• Parent• Teacher of student• Diagnostician• Others used as

needed

MISTAKES

What is the Best Way to Train a Problem Solving Team

First Year Training

• Consisted of training teams using PowerPoints from state training

• Trained teams from two schools at once

Second Year Training

• Trainings consisted of sitting down with each PST team and going over case studies

• Cases from their own schools were used to help them go through the process

MISTAKES

Teachers Teaching Teachers

• Intervention training done in the middle of the year

• 90% of training was done by teachers who had shown great ability to run interventions in their classrooms and differentiate instruction

• Training went very well and most teachers were very receptive to ideas from other teachers

Students Entering Tier 1

First Year

• K-2 Students entered Tier I in reading based on DIBELS data

• All other subject areas and grades 3-5 where based on teacher discretion

Second Year

• All Children K-5 went through benchmarking process at RtI schools

MISTAKES

Benchmarking All RTI Schools K-5th Grade

• All students are screened three times a year using either DIBELS, Skill Builder probes, or Aims Web Maze Fluency probes

• Teachers have been shown data and given recommendations on who needs to enter Tier 1

• Teachers have been shown what skill to teach and what to use to progress monitor each child

Curriculum Based Measurements

• Teachers are being taught to use CBM’s for progress monitoring

• Training was done by school psychologists during planning times broken up over several weeks

• Nearly all instruction is tracked using CBM data • Data is not graphed or charted until child enters

Tier III• Teachers are given guidance on setting

appropriate goals

Target Student

Discrepancy 1: Skill Gap (Current Performance Level)

Avg Classroom Academic Performance Level

Discrepancy 2:Gap in Rate of Learning (‘Slope of Improvement’)

Jim Wright 2005

Timelines

• Beginning of the year benchmark assessment• Targeted students enter Tier I based on

information from class and assessments• Plan is written with help of parent and usually

Case Colleague• Teachers intervene in specific area for 6 weeks

or longer• Dialogue continues with Case Colleague• Process will repeat with Tier II except more

people are generally involved

Tier III Structure

• Different people at all schools handling interventions:

• School 1- Person hired with Title 1 money doing all interventions

• School 2- 3 Title one teachers doing most interventions

• School 3- EC teachers are main interventionists

• School 4- Combination of Title 1 and EC

School Wide Support For Process

• Showing how the Discrepancy model was probably not the best model in order to catch students early

• Studies done at local level showing legitimacy of Curriculum Based Data

3rd Grade EOG Comparison to ORF

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Words Read Per Minute On DIBELs ORF

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Cleveland County Schools EOG/CBM data 2007

Correlation Studies looking at EOG and CBM Assessments

• EOG and ORF correlation coefficients– 3rd grade: .69– 4th grade: .59– 5th grade: .53

• EOG and Maze Fluency correlation coefficients– 3rd grade: .61– 4th grade: .63– 5th grade: .63

Correlation Studies looking at District Performance on EOG and

CBM Assessments

• EOG and Skill Builder Word Problem probes correlation coefficients– 3rd grade: .64– 4th grade: .49– 5th grade: .60

School Approach to Interventions

• Each grade level has an intervention period built into the daily schedule

• Fluid time when any student in that grade level can go anywhere in the school to receive intervention

• Students not on intervention plan receive challenge enrichment activities – gifted teacher can consult with staff about activities

• Can be hard to schedule but has great results and great teacher feedback

Psychologist’s Roles at RtI Schools

• Help with implementation and scoring of Benchmark data

• Crunch data from benchmark and put into consumable form for teachers and administration

• Help teachers with academic and behavioral interventions-How to implement? Where to find?

• Provide guidance on whether progress is sufficient enough to warrant moving up or down in the tiers

Psychologist’s Roles at RtI Schools• Help with the monitoring of student

behaviors for management plans• Give guidance on appropriate goals• Teach how to administer and score CBM’s• Sit on Problem Solving Team• Progress monitor students in Tier III two to

three times a week• Keep master database of where each child

is located in process

Special Circumstances

• Child moving within district from RTI school to non RTI

• Child moving within district from non RTI school to RTI school

• Parent request for testing

Parent Request for Testing

• Child still goes through the RTI process

• Traditional testing is completed

• All data is then used to make a decision about placement

Fidelity and Integrity checks

• Case Colleague meeting form

• Interventions are observed before a child moves to a new tier– Intervention observation form is used

• Before placement is considered, third party is looking over Tier III process to make sure everything has been done properly

Behavior Students

• Tier I simple behavior plan and modifications are implimented and monitored

• Teacher meets with PST team at the start of Tier II– Part of this process will generally incorporate

a FBA/BIP

Child Moving within District from Non RTI School to RTI School

• If child was in SSMT process, child automatically enters Tier II

• If child was in the middle of an evaluation, then the child starts receiving interventions in Tier III

Child Moving within District from RTI School to Non RTI School

• If child is in Tier I, new school is instructed to keep a close eye on student’s progress

• If child is in Tier II or Tier III, it is suggested that they use their SSMT process and decide whether an evaluation is appropriate

Questions?

mail.clevelandcountyschools.org/~ganselmo

RTI/Intervention Resources: Cleveland County Schools