 Hi, my name is Kara Shores, and I'm just going to talk to you for a few minutes about response to intervention. Response to intervention, sometimes called responsive instruction, is a school improvement process that is used to raise the achievement of students who are struggling in grades K through 12. Response to intervention is not a program, it is a process put in place to help to identify students who are at risk early on. When we look at the process, we do look at all students within a school. We administer a universal screening tool that is a very brief assessment that identifies, as a red flag, students who are having difficulties in reading or math or behavior, and we look at the students who are not at an acceptable level, and then we provide highly effective instruction to those students through a variety of means and through a variety of tiers in our levels of instruction. We implement those strategies with fidelity and make sure that we are implementing them the way they were designed and the way they were researched, and then we use data to drive instruction for our students. Response to intervention is often shown as a tiered, a pyramid with multiple tiers. When we look at tier one, that is the base of the pyramid, and that represents our core instruction for all students within a school, whether it be academic instruction or instruction and supports for behavior. That core instruction is available to all students, and we use our universal screening tool, as I mentioned earlier, to identify which students are not making adequate progress with that core instruction. When a student is having difficulty in any area, they can receive tier two interventions in that specific area. For example, if the student is having difficulty with reading, and we find that it's a reading fluency deficit, then they can receive tier two interventions specifically targeted toward reading fluency and be provided that instruction in addition to the core instruction, not to take the place of the core, but in addition to. We also monitor progress more closely with our tier two interventions and evaluate if the intervention is working with that student and making a difference in their achievement. When students do not make progress with tier two, then we can put into place more intensive interventions in that area, and that is considered a tier three support. It is more intensive. It's often individualized, and our assessment is more intensive, often occurring as often as once a week or possibly more. A student does not receive a label as being a tier one, tier two, or tier three student. Instead, I might need tier two interventions for a reading problem. I might be doing well with tier one for math and my social studies and science, but I need some intensive instruction in behavior and be receiving tier three interventions for behavior. So a student can be at multiple points on the pyramid at any time. When we look at RTI, there are three things that are considered to be absolute essentials that must come into place in all three tiers and are really non-negotiables. The first is that our instruction on our interventions need to be research-based, need to have quality research behind them that shows that they do work with students with the particular difficulties that we're looking at. Secondly, we always use data to drive our instruction, and we're talking about data from our universal screening and progress monitoring as well as data from the classroom and any additional assessments that we give to students. And then we always implement our instruction and our interventions and our assessment with fidelity, and it's very important that we assure fidelity in everything that we're doing to show that the student did indeed receive appropriate instruction in whatever tier that they are receiving instruction and that it is not a lack of instruction that keeps the student from learning. As we look at the three tiers, once again, tier one is quality instruction to all students, it's our core, and we still provide interventions to students through differentiation, through a variety of teaching methods in tier one, but it is not something that is needed on an ongoing basis. When we look at students who are not being successful with tier one, then we provide a more consistent level of intervention through tier two. We provide them on an ongoing basis, and they are targeted to specific skill deficits that students have. We oftentimes provide these interventions in the regular classroom. We may provide them during group rotations, such as with a differentiated lesson plan, or they may be that we pull kids from various areas and provide small group settings where we cross grade level or cross class in the same grade level. Basically what we're looking at is an ability group where students are at the same area of deficit and the same functioning level and they receive those targeted interventions in that small group setting. And then we do progress monitor to make sure that the interventions are working. When a student is not successful with our secondary supports in tier two, then we can move on to tier three and provide a more intensive level of intervention. These are, again, in addition to tier one, sometimes because of the intensity of intervention that the student receives, then we have to look at providing more in-depth instruction in that way. But with both of these intervention tiers, tiers two and three, we are looking at instruction that is appropriate for the needs of the student and is at various levels of intensity. RTI has potential to be a great school improvement tool and really change the culture and the achievement of a school and the students within the school and is a research proven method of school improvement.