RTI and Eligibility: A Comprehensive Review of Best-Practices

1. RTI and Eligibility: A Comprehensive Review of Best-Practices 2011 ODE/COSA Fall Conference for Special Education Administrators

2. Introduction • Welcome & Introductions • Overview of the day • Comprehensive review of essential features (“Best practices “ approach; Checklist) • Session Etiquette

3. Big Ideas • little rti and BIG RTI, or “The Tail that Wagged the Dog” • RTI focuses directly on core requirements of ALL SLD evaluations, regardless of method • RTI & LD Eligibility: We are all members of the assessment team

4. Essential Requirements for LD Eligibility Regardless of Method • Low Skills • Appropriate core instruction • Has always been an exclusionary criteria • Progress Monitoring • Exclusionary Criteria • Student has an SLD AND Educational Need that Requires Specially Designed Instruction

5. The Historical Reality of SLD: Doing the Right Thing • “For more than 25 years, accumulated evidence has strongly suggested that most students labeled SLD are those students with severe educational needs, regardless of the stated eligibility criterion… What is unique about RTI is that educational need is a necessary but not sufficient requirement for SLD identification” (Shinn, 2007)

6. RTI Adds… Low Skills And Slow Progress And Need for specially designed instruction

7. RTI Also Provides… • Focus on core curriculum • Universal screening for early identification and intervention • Researched based interventions • Effective progress monitoring used to guide decision making • Systematic approach to determining Educational Need

8. Who is Using RTI? Zirkel & Thomas, Teaching Exceptional Children, 2010 • All but a handful of states explicitly Require or Recommend RTI • Degree to which components are clearly defined ranges wildly

9. SLD Rates (Education Week, Sept 8) • SLD rates declined from 6.1% in 2001-01 to 5.2% in 2007-08 (15% decline) (US Dept. of Ed. 2009 Digest of Ed. Statistics) • Not identifying for financial accountability? • Shift in eligibility categories? • Likely related to RTI , early intervention, improvement in instruction

10. Legal Implications* • Cases involving RTI are limited • No Supreme Court cases; only 1 Federal Circuit Court of Appeals • Most cases lower Federal courts or State Hearings Officers • Some favorable • Students are not Eligible for SPED if weaknesses are successfully addressed through Gen Ed • Most decisions against LEAs: • Child-find • Time before evaluation • No cases regarding lack of cognitive assessment *Yell, M. & Walker, D. (2010). Legal Basis Of RTI: Analysis and Implications. Exceptionality, 18: 124-137

11. Bottom Line • Comprehensive system of support that benefits all students • Early and sustained instructional support and intervention are integral components • Systematic approach that directly addresses eligibility criteria • By definition identifies students with demonstrated need for specially designed instruction

12. Framework Essential Features of an SLD eligibility system using Response to Intervention. • Screening • Core Instruction with fidelity • Interventions with fidelity • Progress Monitoring • Teaming/Data-Based Decision Making: Tier 2 or 3 Group Interventions • Teaming/Data-Based Decision Making: Individual Problem Solving • Special Ed Referral and Evaluation Report

14. 7. Special Ed Referral and Evaluation Report 6. Teaming/Data-Based Decision Making: Individual Problem Solving 5. Teaming/Data-Based Decision Making: Group Interventions 4. Progress Monitoring 3. Interventions with Fidelity 2. Core Instruction with Fidelity 1. Screening

15. 1. Screening

16. Universal Screening: Why • Required for all students • Determine sufficiency of core for evaluation questions • “Lack of appropriate instruction” checkbox • Standardizing the process

17. 1. Universal Screening • Research-based screener used with ALL students 3 times per year • Fidelity checks used to ensure validity of data • Who conducts fidelity checks? • How often? • How is that data used? • Refresher trainings for staff? • Retest some students?

18. 1. Universal Screening • Screening data used to evaluate core effectiveness • Do you have schoolwide meetings to systematically improve core instruction? • 80% proficient is the goal • Less than 80% proficient should not prevent you from determining a child’s academic deficits are due to lack of instruction. • Are you providing instruction in the Big 5? • What do observations of core instruction tell you?

19. 1. Universal Screening • Screening data used to identify at-risk students • Do you have decision rules? • Which students receive interventions? • How many receive interventions?

20. LD Checklist: Screening

21. Talk Time • Does your district use a universal screening tool to: • Systematically identify students who will receive interventions? • Evaluate the health of the core?

22. 2. Core Instruction with Fidelity 1. Screening

23. Core Instruction: Why • Required for all students • Determine sufficiency of core for evaluation questions • “Lack of appropriate instruction” checkbox • Standardizing the process

24. 2. Core Instruction… • 90 minute core block (reading) • Research-based core program • Explicit, effective instructional practices trained and used • Instruction is more important than curriculum • How do you provide training on effective instruction, active engagement, and behavior management?

25. 2. …with Fidelity • Process for ensuring fidelity of core program implementation • Process for ensuring effective instructional practices in classrooms • What is “fidelity”?

26. Fidelity to… • The BIG 5 of Reading • The scope and sequence • State standards

27. Worksheets Fidelity

28. 2. …with Fidelity • Process for ensuring fidelity of core program implementation • Process for ensuring effective instructional practices in classrooms • Who ensures fidelity? • What standards/criteria do you set for fidelity?

29. LD Checklist: Core Instruction with Fidelity

30. Talk Time • Has your district defined “fidelity to the core” and does your staff have a clear understanding of what that is?

31. 3. Interventions with Fidelity 2. Core Instruction with Fidelity 1. Screening

32. Interventions: Why • “Research-based” interventions are required • Defining an “intervention” • Puts the “intervention” in “Response-to-Intervention” • Ensures all students are getting targeted instruction • It helps you know “what works” for struggling students • Helps demonstrate the need for specially designed instruction

33. 3. Interventions • Interventions are research-based • Implemented interventions are chosen from district protocol • Interventions occur outside of 90 minute core instruction • Interventionists have appropriate training • Process for ensuring fidelity of intervention implementation

34. Resources for Evaluating Interventions • Florida Center for Reading Research • http://www.fcrr.org/fcrrreports/LReports.aspx • What Works Clearinghouse • http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/reports/

35. LD Checklist: Interventions with Fidelity

36. Talk Time • Has your district/school established a protocol with clearly defined interventions?

37. 4. Progress Monitoring 3. Interventions with Fidelity 2. Core Instruction with Fidelity 1. Screening

38. Progress Monitoring: Why • Under any SLD identification model, “frequent monitoring” is the law • Helps objectively evaluate a student’s “response-to-intervention”

39. 4. Progress Monitoring • Research-based progress monitoring measures used • Frequency of monitoring is appropriate (i.e. at least 2x monthly for students receiving intensive support and 1x monthly for students receiving strategic support) • Progress monitoring data is graphed • Staff member(s) identified who is/are responsible for organizing and storing the progress monitoring data

40. LD Checklist: Progress Monitoring

41. Talk Time • Has your district/school established guidelines for the frequency of progress monitoring? • Is data graphed?

42. 5. Teaming/Data-Based Decision Making: Group Interventions 4. Progress Monitoring 3. Interventions with Fidelity 2. Core Instruction with Fidelity 1. Screening

43. Teaming/Data-Based Decision Making: Why • Ensures appropriate interventions provided prior to or during evaluation • Standardizes the process • Decision making as a team

44. 5. Teaming/Data-Based Decision Making: Group Interventions • System for matching interventions to student need based on multiple data sources • CBM’s: DIBELS, AIMSWEB, easyCBM • In-program assessments: weekly tests, unit tests, checkouts, mastery tests • Informal diagnostics: phonics screener, DRA, QRI, CORE assessments, Curriculum-Based Evaluation • Systematic teacher observational data

45. 5. Teaming/Data-Based Decision Making: Group Interventions • Grade level teams meet to review progress data regularly (e.g. every 4-8 weeks) • Decision Rules created AND followed around: • When to change interventions • What qualifies as an “intervention change” • Intervention plan or tracking form used to document interventions and intervention changes for all student in interventions

47. LD Checklist: Teaming/Data-Based Decision Making: Group Interventions

48. Talk Time • Do you have clear decision rules and does staff understand how and when to use them?

49. 6. Teaming/Data-Based Decision Making: Individual Problem Solving 5. Teaming/Data-Based Decision Making: Group Interventions 4. Progress Monitoring 3. Interventions with Fidelity 2. Core Instruction with Fidelity 1. Screening

50. Problem Solving Non-Example