Humphreys County Schools Richard C. Rawlings Director of Schools

Response to Instruction and Intervention (RTI2)

Universal Screener For the 2015-16 and 2016-17 school years, the students in grades K-8 are using the I-Ready program, a diagnostic program which provides a universal screener experience, prescriptive instruction and progress monitoring. The universal screener is given three times yearly to track student progress in Reading and Math. The testing windows are determined by the district RTI team to provide continuity throughout the district. As the students progress through the year, teachers use the instructional components of I-Ready as interventions to work on student skill deficits and develop benchmarks for progress monitoring. At the high school level, students are screened first with an “early warning” screen consisting of academic and non-academic indicators including past test scores on state mandated tests, ACT and pre-ACT data, attendance and discipline records. After this initial early warning screening, a program called Pathdriver is used as the universal screener to drill down to specific skill deficits. Once identified in Tier 2 or 3, students make use of, in addition to teacher made interventions, Academy of Math and Academy of Reading instructional programs to provide benchmarks for progress monitoring. If student skill deficits are successfully remediated, students may move up to Tier 2 or Tier 1. If the remediation at Tier 2 is not successful, the student will be moved to the more intensive interventions provided in Tier 3. Should these Tier 3 interventions not adequately address the student skill deficit, in rare cases, a referral may be made to the Special Education Department for the most intensive interventions available to help the student succeed.

Scheduling Due to the different schedule and grade configurations at all schools in the district, scheduling is the responsibility of the individual schools’ principal. Schools have a designated time for Tier 2 and Tier 3 instruction. As data is acquired from the universal screener and progress monitoring, schedules will be studied by data teams to see if adjustments could be made to enhance progress. One school found last year that intervention toward the end of the day was not nearly as effective as earlier in the day and made changes to the schedule to insure student success.

District/School Teams The district team consists of the RTI facilitator, instructional supervisors, director of schools, data analyst, special education supervisor, district school psychologist, school administrators and teacher leaders. The district team meets to ensure the RTI program is being implemented with fidelity throughout the district and to review progress and address problems. All school teams consist of an administrator and teachers involved in Tier 1, 2 and 3 instruction, and district school psychologist when available. The school teams meet monthly to discuss movement of students between tiers, to make sure the system for informing parents of student progress is implemented, and to insure fidelity of implementation of the program throughout the school. The district RTI facilitator and other district team members will meet periodically with school teams to check for fidelity and to look for strengths to pass to other schools.