La Junta Middle School – An RtI Perspective
La Junta Middle School has about 280 students in grades 6-8. There are
approximately 1350 students in the entire district (East Otero Schools). We
are small, which means that we do not have any “extra” personnel devoted
to implementing RtI – it has to be done on the shoulders of existing
personnel. There are advantages to this, in that RtI will be an embedded
process for all of our staff, not a “special project” of an RtI director. The
biggest disadvantage – it takes a great deal of time to implement in phases
that can be absorbed by the staff, including the administration who must
play a leading role in RtI.
PHILOSOPHY
We have changed our focus from the “bar” that kids are supposed to be
clearing, to taking students “where they are and moving them.” Yes, we still
need to know what that curricular “bar” is, but more importantly we need to
know where the student is. It doesn’t do any good to teach calculus to a
math student who is functioning at the 5th grade level. The purpose of
formative assessments, pre-assessments, diagnostic assessments, probes,
etc. is to find out where the student is in his/her learning and focus your
instruction just above their level. Through scaffolding to higher levels you
can begin working on closing the gap between the student and their peers.
This philosophy applies to students and to staff. Administrators need to
take their staff “where they are” and help them grow. It isn’t fair to treat
them any differently than the way we expect them to treat students.
UNIVERSAL LEVEL
Make sure your Universal level (tier I) is working for 80% of your students.
If not, you need to make changes here so you don’t overload the other tiers.
LJMS has a split approach to literacy with a separate reading and writing
class. This creates a 5 core-class structure for all students with Reading,
Writing, Math, Science, & Social Studies. The writing class uses Writer’s
Workshop as a format, with grammar/mechanics instruction embedded into
the writing process. Writing curriculum pacing guides are based on units of
study that require students to study different genre, take their own piece
through the writing process and publish that genre. Our state test scores in
writing are substantially above the state average. The reading classes are
focused on 4 components: guided reading, shared reading, read-aloud, and
independent reading. A leveled guided reading library has been established
in order to instruct students in reading at levels appropriate to their skills.
Through the leveled reading groups students show significant growth and
move to higher lexile levels. Our students’ attitudes towards reading have
changed significantly; they now focus on what they are going to read, not if
they are going to read! Again, state test scores show us performing above
the state average with high growth on our annual School Accountability
Report.
LJMS is also in the first year of a 2 year trial approach to math that is similar
to our reading philosophy. Students with good numeracy skills are moving
through a rigorous curriculum that completes Algebra I in the 8th grade. (In
the past this curriculum was used for all students and about 25-30% of our
students were failing.) Those students who struggle with numeracy are
using a cyclical curriculum that gives them the repetitions and time they
need to cement these concepts into practice. After looking at recent NWEA
test results we believe that we are serving these students much better.
They may not “cover” as much content, but they will understand and be able
to use a substantially greater amount of mathematical skills as they continue
to close the gap on their peers. Some may think of this as an intervention;
we think of it as a “split universal level of instruction.”
INTERVENTIONS - TARGETED
Our district has focused on double-dosing for interventions in reading.
Initially only students scoring U (unsatisfactory) on the state test (CSAP)
were included in these double-dose classes. When we started in 2005 we
had two targeted reading teachers and we didn’t even have enough “seats”
for all of the unsatisfactory students. After 3 years we now have one
targeted reading teacher and seats for students all the way through the PPH
(partially proficient-high) range! This success has come from the discrete
reading instruction at the universal level coupled with a true double-dose
intervention for those who are significantly behind their peers. We have
come so far that we will now have to use a combination of double-dosing
and in-class support because students who score proficient on the state test
want to break free of their double-dose class and we want to support them
in their goal to progress.
Math is behind reading about 2 years, as we are just getting our doubledosing strategy worked out along with our split universal approach. It is
already showing great promise.
In both reading and math, we have had to quicken our pace of assessing
and changing student placements based on their needs (progress
monitoring). A double-dose class was originally for a year. Then we began
getting data that allowed us to make changes after a semester. We are still
not satisfied with our data gathering ability and next year we will try to make
it a “revolving door” process with MAPS testing (NWEA).
INTERVENTIONS – INTENSIVE
These interventions were commonly referred to as Special Education
classes in the past. We have stripped that title away and students are
placed in the intensive (and targeted) classes based on their skill level, not a
label. We have only had one parent who refused to have their student
placed in a class that was appropriate to their skill level.
The intensive classes differ from targeted in that the reading classes have a
higher teacher/student ratio, making them more intensive. The math
classes are also staffed in the more intensive ratio and are not a doubledose. These classes are for students who are 3 or more grade levels
behind their peers, and in the case of mathematics we have chosen to make
this the student’s primary level of instruction.
GIFTED/TALENTED
With the advent of the ALP (advanced learning plan) in Colorado, we are
beginning to create some targeted and intensive opportunities for students
who need to be challenged beyond the universal classroom. These include
alternate curricula, compacting of curriculum, and choices for students on
how to demonstrate their mastery of a topic.
BEHAVIOR
When searching for information on RtI it seems that the behavior side of the
pyramid gets slighted a little. In my opinion this may be one of the best
areas for a school to begin analyzing themselves if they are just getting
started using RtI concepts. The reason is that inappropriate behaviors
require intervention, so a school likely has some tiers of common practice in
place already. By identifying these practices and communicating the
structure to all players uniformity will increase. It will also show the
beginning school where they are lacking support for students. Perhaps all
your behavior interventions occur after a student has been removed from a
classroom. Then you have a “hole” in your universal behavior supports.
When you see this hole you can begin to research how to fill it. Much of our
behavior support at LJMS is planned in what we call Student Support Team
meetings, or SSTs.
STUDENT SUPPORT TEAMS
I feel that the SSTs are a critical element that keeps us from overloading the
Problem Solving Team (PST). The SSTs are grade level meetings that are
scheduled once a week. Teachers will discuss students who are having
difficulty with either academics or behavior. The SSTs are led by our school
counselor and she keeps a constant “pressure” on the team to suggest
ideas and solutions. As the “gate-keeper” to the targeted level, the
counselor challenges teachers to try academic and behavior solutions in
their classrooms before a case is passed up to the PST. Students also
know her role as the gate-keeper and they realize in a behavior situation
that if they have been referred to her, the next step will be to an
administrator. They often are willing to put forth some effort and solve the
problem without escalating it to the targeted level.
PROBLEM SOLVING TEAMS
One of the key factors in the implementation of RtI is the involvement of
parents and the home. The ability of our clientele to make it to a PST
meeting is similar to our free/reduced lunch percentage. We often deal with
single parent homes and they can’t afford to take off work to meet with us.
My advice is not to get locked-up in your PST meetings because a parent
can’t come. It works well for us to piecemeal the meetings in these
situations. We get input from teachers, intervention specialists and the
student first. Then we contact the parents asking for their input and sharing
some ideas with them for supporting their student. We then report back to
the student and staff and begin the interventions. This process has worked
well for us whenever we aren’t able to gather all the stakeholders around a
table at the same time.
OUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS
As mentioned previously, our limited staff of targeted instructors (1 for
reading, 1 for math) are reaching farther and farther “up the scale” when
looking at CSAP test results. We must now give birth to a new approach for
part of the reading teacher’s day because we have reached into the
proficient range of students (a nice problem to have).
We have also grown our readers’ abilities so much that we have “outlexiled” our library – meaning we need to buy more books that are at the
1200+ level to keep our students challenged (another nice problem).
Our growth rate as measured by CSAP and reported by the state is HIGH
and we hope that our weighted index score (a calculation of all students’
CSAP tests in all subjects) will increase enough to have our achievement
rating be HIGH also.
In math we only have one round of NWEA test data that shows us we’re
headed in the right direction. On a more subjective level, it is truly amazing
to me to see students in targeted math classes and split universal math
classes who actually get engaged with math because it now seems
possible that they will have some success. These were the students who
used to sit in the back rows and spent more time counting ceiling tiles than
doing math. Now they play the math “game” with us and actually get work
done.
We have been designated as the 2009 School to Watch for Colorado!
WHAT’S NEXT
We need to do more work on serving our GT students. We need to get
better at our documentation in SST and PST meetings. We need to
continue to encourage a culture that doesn’t support “kicking a kid out” of
the classroom, but engages the teacher as part of the solution. We need to
get better tools to do progress monitoring, and we need to adopt the
revolving-door philosophy of providing interventions to students in a fluid
fashion. RtI is a BIG ELEPHANT to eat. It is the right elephant, so take it
one bite at a time!
Paul A. Jebe has been a 6-8 principal in Colorado for 4 years. He has a background in business and
manufacturing and uses the systems approaches of Dr. W. Edwards Deming to improve La Junta
Middle School. He serves on the Colorado Association of Secondary School Principals (CASSP)
Board and the Colorado Association of Middle Level Educators (CAMLE) Board.