RTI2 and Multi-Tiered Behavior Support
Tie Hodack, Executive Director Instructional Programming
Alison Gauld, Behavior and Low Incidence Disabilities Coordinator
Special Populations
Our new accountability system has two overarching
objectives
Growth for all students, every year
and
Faster growth for those students who are furthest
behind
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Beliefs
 Every student can learn, demonstrate growth, and has the right to actively
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participate in high quality, research-based education that maximizes their
potential in the least restrictive environment.
Specialized education is a continuum of services, not a place.
Relationships with all stakeholders, based on respect and understanding
will result in making decisions in the best interest of ALL students.
Every staff member has the responsibility to teach, support and encourage
ALL students.
Strong leadership at every level is the foundation of a collaborative and
inclusive environment that supports ALL students.
High quality professional learning in conjunction with family and
community support, empowers all stakeholders to collaboratively build
capacity for the success of ALL students.
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Key Goals of Special Populations
Improving Student Outcomes
 Prevention
 Intervention
 Achievement
 Outcomes
Manage Performance
 Effective employees at every level of the organization with a focus on
improving student outcomes.
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Policy Change
• As of July 1, 2014, RTI² will be the framework used
by teams to identify a student with a Specific
Learning Disability.
• Final reading approval from State Board of Education
was June 21, 2013.
• Phase-In for middle schools by July 1, 2015 and for
high schools by July 1, 2016
PBIS in Tennessee
What do you currently know about the PBIS initiative within the state
of Tennessee or within your local school district?
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State PBIS Landscape
 Strengths:
• 7 PBIS Contracts supporting more than 140 schools across all three
grand regions
• Opportunities to improve quality and consistency
• Focus on data and data-driven decisions
 Areas To Improve
• Expertise varies from region to region, district to district
• Inconsistent training and support of the 7 contracts and their work
• No state framework or policy, (at this time).
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Using What We Already Have to Build PBIS In TN
 What do we have in place that can be used to build PBIS in
Tennessee?
Response to Instruction and Intervention
Framework
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What Is RTI2 and What It Is Not
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Response to Intervention Is:
 A set of processes for coordinating high quality service delivery in schools
 A multi-tiered, layered instructional approach that prevents problems
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first, and then brings increasingly intense interventions to students who
don’t respond
Making instructional decisions based on data
Integrating entitlement programs with general education
Providing relevant data for SLD identification
Primary goal: Improving academic (and behavioral) outcomes for all
students by eliminating discrepancies between actual and expected
performance.
Source: Fletcher, Jack (2013) Classifications and Definitions for the Identification of Learning Disabilities:
An Evaluation of the Research. Presentation for RTI²: A School Psychologist’s Guide to Implementation.
Murfreesboro, TN.
Response to Intervention is NOT:
Just a Special Education initiative
Only for students with disabilities
Only for beginning reading
A new way to identify students with SLD
A way of reducing costs or eliminating special education or the LD category
This year’s summer reform or a short-term implementation based on “RTI in a
Box”
 A way to fix schools with weak core instruction
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Source: Fletcher, Jack (2013) Classifications and Definitions for the Identification of Learning Disabilities:
An Evaluation of the Research. Presentation for RTI²: A School Psychologist’s Guide to Implementation.
Murfreesboro, TN.
Required Elements:
 Universal Screening: The Universal Screening tool will be skills-based and
provide national norms. It will be administered 3 times a year for grades K-8 and
is recommended for grades 9-12 (see Component 1.3 of the Implementation
Guide).
 Tier I: Core instruction will be provided to ALL students using grade-level
Common Core State Standards in ELA and Mathematics.
 Tier II and Tier III: Tiered interventions will be provided in addition to the core
instruction provided at Tier I. Interventions will be research-based and will
address a student’s area of deficit. They will be provided within the time frames
described in Components 3.2 and 4.2 of the RTI² Manual.
 Progress Monitoring: Progress monitoring will occur in the specific area of
deficit at the frequency described in Components 3.3 and 4.3 of the RTI² Manual.
Required Elements:
 District and School RTI² Teams: District and School RTI² Teams
will be established per the guidelines outlined in Component 1.2.
School teams will meet every 4.5 weeks at a minimum to make
data-based decisions that inform instruction/intervention.
 Fidelity of Implementation: Fidelity monitoring will occur as
described in Components 2.6, 3.6 and 4.6 of the RTI² Manual and
Implementation Guide.
 Parent Contact/Communication: Parents will be notified of
student progress as described in Component 1.6 of the RTI² Manual
and Implementation Guide.
 Highly trained personnel: Highly trained personnel will provide
interventions. Highly-trained personnel are those who are
adequately trained to deliver the selected intervention as intended
with fidelity.
Areas of Deficit: A Universal
Screener will explicitly measure…
 Basic Reading Skills (letters, letter sounds, phonological awareness,
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phonics)
Reading Comprehension
Reading fluency
Written expression
Math calculation (column addition, basic facts, complex computation,
decimals, fractions, conversions, percentages, etc.)
Math reasoning/problem solving (number and operations, base ten,
place value, measurement and length, fractions, geometry, algebra,
expressions, linear equations etc.)
What does your Universal Screener tell you?
Standards based
Skills based
 Intervene on a standard
 Tells you what to
 Intervene on skill deficit/need
 Warning system for your most at-
reteach/remediate (Tier 1)
 Adaptive. Task changes based
on student performance
 Does not consistently measure
the same skill over and over to
determine if intervention is
working
risk students and identifies
discrete skill deficit(s)
 Not adaptive. Task does not
change based on student
performance
 Consistently measures same skill
 Independent of grade level
standard
What is the difference?
 What is reteaching?
 What is intervention?
Reteaching VS. Intervention
Reteaching
Tier I-Common Core Standards
 Goal is to reteach standards
that students are struggling with
rather than specific skill deficits.
These are your “bubble kids”.
Intervention
Tier II/III/Special Education
Intervention
 Goal is provide research based
interventions aligned to specific
skill deficit(s) as identified by a
universal screener.
Skills Based Assessment:
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Standards Based
Assessment:
 Benchmark Assessment
 Summative Assessment
 Formative Assessment
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Skills based universal screener aligned
to area(s) of deficit
Skills based Progress Monitoring
specific to area(s) of deficit
Formative assessment
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Behavior related to RTI2 in Tier I - CORE
Positive Behavior Intervention and Support (PBIS) follow the same format
and principles of RTI2
RTI2 is mandatory as of July 1, 2014
PBIS is a voluntary initiative and is customized and designed for an
individual school
Tier 1 = Primary Prevention: clear school-wide behavior guidelines stated in
the positive and as observable behavior
Meeting expectations or exceeding expectations is recognized school-wide
Reinforcement, not punitive
Tier 1 PBIS cont.
 Universal Screener = analysis of behavior data for:
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repeat offences (the behavior, not the individual)
areas within the school that are trouble locations for many students,
Unstructured vs. structured settings
Clear, reasonable expectations
Clear, consistent reinforcement of behaviors
Teacher “buy-in”
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Tier II Interventions
 A change in intervention will be considered within each tier before
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moving to the next tier of intervention.
8-10 data points (if progress monitoring every other week) OR 1015 data points (if progress monitoring weekly) are needed to make a
sound data based decision.
Number of data points reflects empirical research required to make an
informed data based decision.
The intervention must have empirical evidence supporting its use in
remediating the area of suspected disability (i.e., Basic Reading Skills).
A skills based progress monitoring tool must be able to provide
evidence that the student did not make a sufficient amount of progress in
the area of deficit.
Behavior related to RTI2 in Tier II
Tier II = Secondary Prevention
Small groups of students working on skills related to behavior including
social skills, managing emotions, problem solving, impulse control,
making and keeping friends
This may occur outside the classroom
Who is available in your school to support students in secondary
prevention? Counselors? Teachers? Mental health professionals?
Tier II and PBIS
 Progress Monitoring and Intervention=analysis of behavior data for:
• Individuals with repeat offences
– Unstructured vs. structured settings
– Clear, reasonable expectations
– Clear, consistent reinforcement of behaviors
– Clear, consistent redirection of behaviors
– Introduction of replacement behaviors or compensatory strategies
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Tier III Interventions
 A change in intervention will be considered within each tier before
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moving to the next tier of intervention.
8-10 data points (if progress monitoring every other week) OR
10-15 data points (if progress monitoring weekly) are needed to
make a sound data based decision.
Number of data points reflects empirical research required to make
an informed data based decision.
The intervention must be more intense than the intervention
provided at Tier II.
A skills based progress monitoring tool must be able to provide
evidence that the student did not make a sufficient amount of
progress in the area of deficit.
Tier II, Tier III or Sped Intervention: Core
Instruction Plus A skill specific intervention
Tier III
Sped
Intervention
Tier II
Core
Instruction
Multi-Tiered PBIS Supports
Tier II—small
group, or by
setting
Tier III—
individualized
with a behavior
plan
School-wide
expectations
Sped
Intervention—
most intensive
behavior support
and intervention
Core instruction plus Intervention (Tier II, Tier III
or Sp.Ed)
Core Instruction Plus Sp.Ed
Intervention (More Intensive
than Tier III)
Core Instruction Plus Tier III
(45-60 minutes daily)
Core Instruction Plus Tier II
(30 minutes daily)
Behavior related to RTI2 in Tier III
Tier II = Tertiary Prevention
Individual students working on discrete skills related to behavior
including social skills, managing emotions, problem solving, impulse
control, making and keeping friends
This plan will involve each adult the student interacts with daily
A behavior plan should be developed with protocols for recognizing
positive behavior, redirecting, frequent check-ins, clear cause and
effect, communication between environments
Tier III and PBIS
 Progress Monitoring and Intervention=analysis of behavior data for:
• Individuals with repeat offences
– Throughout various settings
– Clear, reasonable expectations
– Clear, consistent reinforcement of behaviors including replacement
behaviors
– Individualized behavior plan (formal BIP, or non-special education
Behavior Plan)
– Intensive behavior intervention including discrete skills identified by
the team as deficits
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Exclusionary Factors
 There are many functions of behavior, however, it is critical for
teams to determine that none of the following exclusionary factors
are the leading cause of the behavior concerns:
• Vision, hearing, motor deficits
• Intellectual disability
• Cultural factors
• Limited English proficiency
• Economical or environmental disadvantage
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Consider this…Special Education is not a place! It is
the most Intensive Intervention!
Special Education Interventions:
• The student will remain in core, differentiated instruction (Tier I)
within the general education curriculum to the greatest extent
possible.
• The same problem solving approach used in the general
education RTI² framework will be used in special education.
• Interventions will be tailored to the student in the area of
identified disability, and progress toward their IEP goals will be
monitored weekly or every other week.
• If students fail to respond to interventions provided through
special education, an IEP team meeting will be reconvened.
Consider this…Special Education is not a place! It is
the most Intensive Intervention!
 After the team determines an area of deficit, the student will receive a
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research based intervention in his or her specific area of need.
Students will receive progress monitoring in the area of deficit and
parents will be notified.
Students receiving special education intervention will receive their
intervention outside of core instruction to the greatest extent
possible.
Special education intervention will be the most intensive interventions
provided.
Students may receive intervention from special education and general
education at the same time. Focus on the data!
EA’s are used to help children access the core instruction. They
are not the intervention.
Implementation Guide
Response to Instruction &
Intervention
Implementation Guide
Implementation Guide
 Resources
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Example schedules
Sample forms
Universal Screener and Intervention Rubrics
Guidance for data based decision making
Gap analysis and Rate of Improvement
Future Goals
 One common state-wide vision and implementation model for all
Tennessee schools
 Common vocabulary
 Accessible resources and supports
 Culture of meeting all students’ needs proactively
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Contact Information
Tie Hodack
Tie.Hodack@tn.gov
@HodackTie
Alison Gauld
Alison.Gauld@tn.gov
@AlisonAGauld