CENTRAL COMMUNITY UNIT SCHOOL DISTRICT 301

Curriculum & Assessment --- Student Support Services

RTI is a federal and state initiative intended to meet a wide range of individual student needs through general education services. The regular classroom teacher and other personnel (other classroom teachers and educational specialists) can help meet the needs of individual students. The goal of RTI is to provide students with the help they need to be successful as early as possible in their school career.

RTI is built on a system of tiered service delivery. Tier 1 consists of the Core Curriculum and should sufficiently meet the needs of approximately 80% of students. 100% of students should be receiving this core instruction. Tier 2 is aimed at providing focused intervention to assist students not fully responding to the core instruction. It is anticipated that 15% of students will need and adequately respond to this level of small to moderate sized group instruction designed to supplement the core. Tier 3 is the most intensive level of instructional intervention. Approximately 5% of students may need this level of individual or small group intensive intervention in order to be successful. This tier of service often involves special education services.

District 301 uses a variety of assessment data to identify students’ instructional levels. Grade level teams meet to review data collected through curriculum based measurements (AIMSweb CBMs), the Illinois Snapshot of Early Literacy (ISEL), and the Measure of Academic Progress (MAP). These data teams identify students who may be in need of intervention or enrichment, and place students in instructional groups or interventions as appropriate to meet each one’s unique needs. When a child begins to exhibit concerns affecting his/her school progress, the team of educators will create an intervention plan in the classroom designed to improve the student’s performance.

Based on current data, including the above assessment scores and classroom performance, students may be placed by school personnel in an appropriate tiered intervention. If the child continues to have difficulty, the teacher will meet with a team of other staff members to discuss the child’s needs, consider other interventions, and outline a method to carefully monitor the child’s progress**. The child’s progress is measured over time. If he/she makes acceptable progress, the interventions may be discontinued (if sufficient progress is made) or continued (if the team feels the interventions are needed to help the student succeed). If the child continues to struggle, then more intensive interventions may be tried.

Through screening, in-depth assessment, and progress monitoring, data collection becomes an on-going part of a student’s educational experience, and this data is continuously used to make educational decisions.

**This team – referred to as the "Problem Solving Team" or PST – uses the insight and expertise of several different school staff members. PST members contribute in different ways to the RTI process: offering suggestions, gathering data, and communicating with other staff and/or parents. The PST meets when needed to discuss individual student concerns. Parents are an integral part of an individual child’s Problem Solving Team. For additional information, refer to the PST/RTI parent brochure.

Parents have an important role throughout the RTI process. Teachers will communicate concerns regarding their student and invite parent participation in telephone conversations and/or team meetings regarding their child. Parents provide insight into a child’s learning and development to understand the problem and why it occurs, plan and implement an intervention plan, and measure and evaluate the plan’s effectiveness. Parents should contact their child’s teacher with any concerns regarding academics or behavior.

While the goal of RTI and the problem solving process is not to ultimately refer students for special education services, students who are shown to be non-responsive to tiered interventions may indeed be referred for a special education evaluation. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA) and aligned state regulations offer greater flexibility to school teams by eliminating the requirement that students must exhibit a "severe discrepancy" between intellectual ability and achievement in order to be found eligible for special education and related services as a student with a learning disability. RTI is now the alternative method to the traditional ability/achievement discrepancy comparisons.