Joint Effort Trains ESU 10 Districts in RtI

Submitted by Kim Jonas
Professional Dev. Coordinator
ESU 10

ESU 10 is in the business of assisting schools with educating all students. The following quote clarifies our focus.  “The practice of providing high-quality instruction and interventions matched to student need, monitoring progress frequently to make decisions about changes in instruction or goals and applying child response data to important educational decisions.” (NASDSE, 2005)

ESU 10 has chosen to train schools in Response to Intervention (RtI) for the purpose of improving learning for all students.

RtI Is…

• An initiative that supports general education school improvement goals
• Intended to help as many students as possible meet proficiency standards without special education
• A method to unify general and special education in order to benefit students through greater continuity of services
• Focused primarily on effective instruction to enhance student growth

Response to Intervention is a problem-solving model that identifies students who may be experiencing difficulty learning. The process provides guidilines for the selection of appropriate interventions which can be implemented before student academic failure occurs.

ESU 10’s Special Education and Professional Development Departments joined together to design and implement the Response to Intervention Leadership Academy.  Day 1 of RtI Leadership Academy was held on September 25th with 89 participants representing 17 ESU 10 districts and 4 non-ESU 10 districts. Day 2 was held November 1st at ESU 10 and Burwell with a total of 87 participating at the two sites. Day 3 is scheduled for February 5, 2008.

This three-day academy has been designed to:

• Deepen the district leadership team's understanding of RtI
• Integrate RtI with the continuous school improvement model through the analysis and multiple uses of data
• Develop a district-wide RtI plan that includes vision, goals and implementation steps

Through the use of the “Train-the-Trainer” model, each participating district brings a representative school team. This team will receive the initial training with the hope that they will return to their district and train remaining staff members.

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