Responsiveness to Instruction Vermont Principals Association Strand August, 2011 Julie Benay, M.Ed.

Why RtI? With so many possible places to focus your energy, why focus on RtI?

What are the results? Swanton Elementary School – 600 students PreK-6 th grade 47% qualify for free or reduced price hot lunch 20% Native American (Abenaki) Less than 1% other diversity (ELL or children of color) Used Comprehensive School Reform Grant to begin implementation in 2006

“Wait to Fail” vs. Early Identification and Prevention

Reading Proficiency Sub Groups

Math Proficiency Sub Groups

Going to scale means fundamentally developing the system at all levels. Fullan, 1999

Response to Intervention: Framework for School Improvement Practice Community

National Center on RtI

“If less than 80% of students are benefiting from the primary prevention system, consider focusing school improvement efforts on improving core instruction and curriculum. If there is a large percentage of students in the tertiary level, consider implementing large group instructional activities and system changes to address the needs of these students within the primary level. Typical ‘tertiary’ interventions will not be cost effective or address the overall problem that led to the large number of students needing tertiary support.”

A Short History Of “RtI” RtI first came on the radar in 2004 as part of the reauthorization of the law guiding the education of students with disabilities It was based on the “well child” model implemented through the public health system and was designed to be preventative in nature and data driven RtI was created in response to the “wait to fail” problem that is clearly evident if schools use a discrepancy model to determine eligibility for special education

RtI As Prevention “In summary, RTI is a preventive framework. RTI is not the name for a pre-referral process. The intent of RTI is to improve outcomes for all students while providing immediate supplemental supports for students at risk for poor learning outcomes. RTI may be a component of a comprehensive evaluation for SLD determination but that is not why we implement RTI.” – National Center on RtI

Current State Using “last word” protocol, let’s read and discuss the EdWeek article, “RtI: More Popular Than Proven?”

Key Components to RtI High quality, research based core instruction Universal screening and benchmark testing Continuous progress monitoring Research based interventions Interventions adjusted based on data, including: frequency, intensity, fidelity Collaboration, teaming, shared responsibility

RtI: Procedures Universal benchmark screening Ongoing progress monitoring Interventions provided with sufficient frequency, fidelity and intensity Instructional adjustments made based on data

The Big Ideas of RtI High quality instruction Frequent Assessment Data Based Decision Making

What Lies Beneath When a student is not making expected progress, who is responsible?

Response to Instruction “How will we respond when a student isn’t learning?” – Mike Schmoker “Find out what the child is thinking and intervene accordingly” – Dr. Lillian Katz RtI is more than “response to intervention.” Digging deeper means considering the quality of instruction at all tiers, building in quality assessments, and helping teachers to have meaningful conversations about their practice.

Back At The Ranch What does this mean for your school/district? Consider the “RtI Readiness Tool” and Data Questions.

Ideal RtI

Grade 6 Literacy: January 2009