The Cheney School District Student Support Services have made it a goal to develop a system of academic and behavioral support for all learners in the district. One of those is the development of the P-5 Intervention Framework, which is a five-step process that will help address the academic and behavioral needs of students.
Kristi Thurston, director of Student Support Services for the district, said the process began in background in 2010. The department wanted to be more interventional in supporting students. Staff began researching effective intervention systems and framework. In 2012 the district formed a task force from the elementary schools, which led to the creation of the intervention framework.
The intervention framework uses multiple sources of data via problem-solving with integration of academic and behavioral interventions. A student’s needs are determined by an academic and behavioral screening team’s discussions and progress monitoring.
The tier model is broken up into four parts. At Tier 1 are 80-90 percent of all students, whose needs are met through core classroom instruction.
Tier 2, (5-10 percent) are students who are identified as high risk, high efficiency and rapid response.
“Staff works with these students in hopes of getting them back down to Tier 1,” Thurston said.
Tier 3 (1-5 percent) are individual students whose needs are intensive and assessment based, and Tier 4 is special education.
All Tiers use the Collaborative Strategic Planning Process developed as part of the ASIST (All School Intervention and Support Team) groups in each building. The first two steps of the process are defining and analyzing the concerns. Step three is setting student’s goals and the fourth step is implementation of an action plan.
The final step is evaluating the plan. When staff is evaluating the plan, they ask how do they know if the plan is working, what evidence is there to show students have made growth — if there is any growth — and what the next steps are?
To help teachers and strengthen the intervention framework, Student Support Services added three TOSAs (Teacher on Special Assignment). Tonya Leija, was hired last year as a PK-4 (pre-kindergarten through fourth-grade) Literacy TOSA; Ann Ottmar, PK-5 Math TOSA and Cathleen Schlotter, intervention and re-engagement TOSA.
Leija looks at each school and works with teachers to prioritize effective literacy learning models. Ottmar uses test scores, teacher and parent feedback to assess student needs in math.
“We recently implemented a new math system and as we get that in place, Ann (Ottmar) is looking for gaps and using data to build an in-class program,” Thurston said.
Schlotter tries to support teachers with school intervention models that are beneficial to students.
“We know that students who struggle emotionally, most of the time struggle to reach their potential,” Schlotter said.
Thurston said the intervention model will focus on the elementary level and eventually see how the practices could be used at the middle school and high school. As staff conducts more research, they can look at the strengths and weaknesses of the framework.
“If we want efficient change, we need to take our time,” Thurston said. “We’ll be looking at the building’s progress. There’s always going to be a flux and change with any learning system. With this system, we are trying to provide a solid foundation.”
Some ways staff will monitor the framework’s effectiveness is by teacher satisfaction surveys, as well as collecting and looking at data for growth.
“If it’s one kid who has grown and improved, that’s great,” Thurston said. “Did that student have fewer behavioral referrals in a certain time frame? If someone wasn’t a leader in class before and they are becoming one, it’s a success.”
Al Stover can be reached at al@cheneyfreepress.com.
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