Analyzing RtI: RtI meetings

After realizing our RtI model wasn't really working for us or our students, the teachers in my building decided to analyze the different components of our RtI model.  This blog series will go in depth with how we scrutinized each of the following parts of the model:

An overview
High Quality Instruction
Universal Screening
Research Based Interventions
Continuous Progress Monitoring
Fidelity
RtI meetings
Professional Development

 

I have been really excited about this post of the series because it the area that we really needed to grow in.  Last year we focused a lot of attention on interventions, progress monitoring, storing data, and fidelity.  At the end of the school year we came with A PLAN for our RtI meetings.

This post from Conversations in Literacy was super helpful to us.  It helped us to form our thinking about how we wanted to structure the meetings.

Here's what we came up with: 

At the end of each intervention cycle (7-8 weeks long), my team and I will make sure we have all the intervention data for Tier II and Tier III students.  This includes the intervention progress monitoring and a DRA progress monitoring.  We want to analyze their progress on a skill based level (interventions) but also on the "big picture" level (DRA).  Once we have all of this, we will meet as an RtI team to discuss the interventions that stay the same, need to be intensified, or need to completely change.  These are the decision rules that we will be using this year:

Each person at the meeting will have an RtI folder within it that contains the decision rules, our grade level benchmarks, and a list of the interventions that are available to our students.

We will be sending home information to the parents to inform them about the interventions that their child will be receiving and how they can support those skills at home.  If the interventions must intensify or progress is not being made, then we will be scheduling additional meetings to meet with the parents.

Our goal is that meetings will be more fluid.  There will not be any questions about when they will occur.  They are already on the calendar and every Tier II and Tier III student will be discussed based on the data.  Our goal is that we will be better serving our students because decisions will be made and changes will be made in a timely manner.  This is our hope...and goodness...I really want it to work!

One question that we have had....What if we get a new student that is not in a Tier yet?  And what if a student all of sudden takes a turn and needs an intervention before our next RtI meeting?  These are important concerns.  So we created a consultation form that can be used anytime a teacher would like to meet with us about a student prior to our pre-scheduled RtI meetings. Then we can work together to come up with a plan for that student.

It will be really interesting to see how this plan turns out in action this year.  Next up...how do we all stay on the same page when it comes to RtI?  What professional development do we need?

Em