Engaging Families in RTI

One way that a parent might become more involved in the RTI process within their district would be to talk to the principal at your child's school and ask them what opportunities exist for parent participation. If the district or school has a district wide committee, perhaps you could volunteer to represent the parent perspective. Perhaps you could help by spearheading building level parent involvement through parent trainings or support groups designed to help the school strengthen their approach to academic and behavior interventions. There are a number of ways to get involved-—if your district does not have organized structures, consider bringing this topic to the parent teacher organization to generate interest.

In my district, we invited parent representation to participate on our district wide advisory committee from the very beginning. As a result of this parent participation, we successfully supported our parents in the development of a parent friendly guide that was developed by parents, for parents so that they would know what to expect when participating in meetings at their child's school.

We also trained a small group of parents to serve as trainers for other parents during our district roll out. Parent guides were distributed to our families at each of our schools. We typically offer an annual parent school summit where we invite parents and school teams to jointly participate in trainings on relevant topics such as RTI. Our parents developed our Pyramid of Interventions Parent Guide to help parents to understand the process so that they could have meaningful participation in this initiative within their child's school.

The parent is critical to the development and support of meaningful interventions, both academic and behavioral. We often remind our staff and families that the parent is the first teacher that a child has in their life and as such, parents offer a wealth of knowledge about what motivates and inspires their children. I think that one of the best ways to maintain this balance is to make sure that the parents are openly welcomed in participating in all meetings and intervention plans on behalf of their children.

The teacher is key in that they are able to implement the interventions within the school setting, collect data to show the student's progress, and then actively engage the parent in collaborative decision making about what works while seeking visible signs of parental support. Another key is open, consistent and ongoing communication while remembering that every parent only wants the best for their child.

I think that if your district has some type of organized parent leadership group, they should be invited to participate on a building level leadership team that is charged with exploring and developing RTI activities. It might be nice to have someone from the school do a presentation to the entire parent committee and then ask for the participation of 1-2 parents (depending on the size of the school and committee).

Then, once you have identified some parents to participate, put them to work and listen to their points of view. Offer to provide them with the same type of training that is provided to your school staff so that you can get early buy-in and support. Once your parents understand that RTI is good for all students, they can be some of your best supporters and advocates. The earlier you have parent support, the better.

We successfully supported our parent committee members in training other parents- this was successful beyond our wildest imaginations! Also, make sure that you have parents that represent your student population and are in a position to bring along the support of other parents.

It is always best to engage the family as soon as you recognize that there are some academic and/or behavioral needs. Parents need to understand that they are equal partners in this process and that they have valuable information and perspectives that should be considered when designing classroom wide, small group or individual interventions across any of the three tiers.

Ideally, it would be great if all parents had the opportunity to hear about this RTI effort at one of the opening parent meetings for the school year so that it will be less threatening later on. In fact, it might be nice to do a brief overview presentation at the beginning of the school year so that parents know what to expect and have an understanding that they play a critical role throughout the entire process.

That's a hard question because you would hope that the school would recognize the benefits of this type of approach for all learners. Are there any teachers or staff members who are supportive of this type of effort? If so, I would begin by having some dialog with them or the principal to better understand their perspective on how best to support students who are in need of intervention support. If you are able to identify such staff members, perhaps you could enlist their support in how to proceed.

I don't think it is unrealistic to ask what their expectations are for parent involvement in RTI. Sometimes, I have found that school staff struggle with the implementation of RTI, yet don't want others to know that they might not have all of the answers. For sure, RTI is not easy and requires a lot more time, planning and organization than one might expect. Perhaps you could get your child's school to start small so that it does not feel so overwhelming.

Ann, I love your question as it gets right to the heart of what RtI is all about. If the school where your daughter is enrolled has a well developed RtI effort, then you should be participating in regular progress monitoring checks whereby you and her teachers routinely check to see if the intervention or interventions are working as planned.

For example, if your daughter's school has appropriately engaged in conducting reading screenings at the beginning of the school year, I would expect that there would be data talks or data reviews that show how much progress your daughter is making based on the specific intervention that is in place to strengthen her reading skills. She should continue to receive core instruction on grade level along with the other children. If she needs more support to be successful, then I might expect her to receive small group pull out intervention support in the area of reading 2 or 3 times per week for approximately 30 minutes each session (this is just an estimate and would need to be tailored to meet your daughter's unique needs).

As a result of this level of frequency, I would expect the school to be collecting data on a weekly or biweekly basis, and charting it in a graph so that you can see pretty quickly if the intervention is working. Many researchers and practitioners might suggest doing this intervention for approximately 8-10 weeks. The outcome of the progress will influence whether you continue with the intervention, change the intervention or stop the intervention. I realize your concern with not wanting to wait too long and risk her falling further behind.

If done properly, the data that is collected can be used to determine if there is a suspected disability or if the intervention is effective. The biggest thing to do is to keep looking at the data and making changes accordingly. Ideally, RtI should allow you and the school team to find out how much support or intensive intervention is necessary in order for your daughter to succeed. Hope this helps a little bit!

If a parent has a concern regarding their child's academic or behavioral performance, I would suggest that you immediately schedule a conference with the teacher to discuss the issue. During the conference, I would be sure to describe the manner in which you see the concern being demonstrated and ask the teacher to reflect on his/her observations and/or assessments in the classroom. It might be helpful to invite other professionals or specialists into the meeting as they might be able to assist in addressing your concerns. By all means, if you have documentation from an outside source, please consider sharing this information with the school staff so that they can review this information and find the best ways to support your child.

I like the focus of this question as it begins to address the unique learning needs of our twice exceptional population. I believe that RTI, if done well and with fidelity, can be very beneficial for all learners because of its focus on ensuring that all children are continuing to receive the core curriculum as the foundation for their instruction. This would apply especially well to twice exceptional learners. At the first tier, Tier 1, the emphasis must be on ensuring that the district has a strong curriculum and that all students have meaningful access to the content, regardless of their learning strengths or weaknesses.

Most students should perform with this level of instruction alone (approximately 80-90%). If a school or district conducts universal screenings in core content areas, they should be able to identify students who might need more support. For those students who continue to exhibit difficulties and require support beyond the core, then a more targeted approach might be helpful. In the instance of a twice exceptional learner, the same principles and approaches to problem solving should be considered.

Again, I think that one of the biggest considerations is making sure that the school has a good curriculum, that all students have access according to their learning needs, and that the curriculum is been implemented with integrity while being responsive to the types of scaffolding that a child might need (e.g., accommodations needed to help the learner comprehend the material).

This is an excellent question as it is often misunderstood by some parents and educators alike. To my knowledge, there is no hard and fast rule as to how long a child might receive supports at each of the various tiers. There are, however, some general guidelines that are commonly considered from district to district. For example, all students should receive Tier 1 supports regardless of their level of need as this will ensure access to the core curriculum, and thus, participation in grade level content. At the second tier, we try to have school teams ensure that Tier 1 continues to be provided while supplemental supports are added in for a period of time ranging from 8-12 weeks.

The key thing to remember is that data should be collected on how well the student responds to the intervention that is in place. Sometimes, you might know early on that the selected intervention is not effective, say after 4-5 weeks. At that point in time, the team needs to come back together and decide how to modify the intervention while making a plan to continue to progress monitor. You might decide to continue this second intervention for 4-6 more weeks while seeing significant progress.

In some instances, I have heard of school teams doing Tier 2 and 3 interventions for months and months across multiple school years and I do not believe that is the best way to implement RtI. Instead, I think that it is appropriate to have some general guidelines as a district while finding ways to support school teams in making good decisions without having unnecessary delays. All told, I would suggest that the school team allow the data that is being collected on the student's progress guide the length of time that a child should continue to receive supplemental supports.

I am not personally aware of any specific funding sources that have been specially earmarked for response to intervention activities at the building or district level. However, I believe that the flexibility that exists within Title programs lend themselves quite well to supporting these types of efforts because of their focus on strengthening the academic skills of students. I know that the federal legislation that addresses the needs of students with disabilities (IDEIA) has language in it that is supportive of this type of framework.

Similarly, we fully expect to see comparable language in the reauthorization of ESEA (Title I) that will also support RtI. These two funding sources could serve as a nice way to creatively and flexibly support the development of district structures, professional development, and delivery of intervention supports within a high-quality core curriculum. We have also seen great opportunities in using Title III (English Language Learners) funds to support this type of effort.

I think that it is especially important for educators that serve Title I schools to be even more proactive in developing the foundations for an effective RtI model. Why? Because these students are often the most at risk and disenfranchised. As a result, we need to do a better job of making sure that they are receiving quality core instruction within grade level curriculum that is being delivered with an eye to differentiation and best instructional practices. The most successful RtI model is not the one that has well developed Tier 2 and Tier 3 strategies. The most successful RtI model is one in which a school can demonstrate that more than 80% of their student population is making academic gains due simply to the fact that the daily core instruction they receive is from a well-designed curriculum that is delivered with all learners in mind.

This type of an approach makes certain that the wrong kids are not being referred for intervention simply because they have not been taught. In other words, the most successful RtI models are those that fully invest in Tier 1—to the point that only a small percentage of students will even require Tiers 2 or 3. Title I administrators should figure out how they can pool resources and beef up Tier 1 as it will benefit all learners (e.g., gifted, disabled, English Language Learners, at-risk, etc.).

Thank you for this question. We were very intentional in not including any reference to IDEA or special education in our parent guide because we do not want to give the false impression that one necessarily or automatically implies the other. There are many in our field who believe that RtI is a special education initiative when, in fact, it's not. RtI is actually a general education initiative because of its emphasis on strengthening core instruction through high-quality curriculum and instructional practices.

Although RtI has many roots in the field of special education, it is still a general education framework. In our district, parents are engaged at the very beginning and are part of the decision making as to when, or even if, the conversation needs to shift to a suspected disability. At any point in time in our process, the school team is able to indicate if they suspect a disability and then they would proceed accordingly.

As a district, we have made a commitment to an RtI model and have made efforts to move away from the discrepancy formula. So, in all honesty, we have embraced RtI and continue to provide the necessary professional development so that all of our staff acquire the skills necessary to use curriculum-based data and other types of data to guide our decision making based on how our students perform within district curriculum.

We have a couple of structures within our district that involve parents. One, we have a district wide advisory team that has parent representation at the table. Second, there is a collaborative effort whereby several of our parents have received training on this initiative so that they in turn can train other parents. This parent leadership group has been led by our district Parent Mentor. In addition, each school team has an LSDMC (Local School Decision Making Committee) that includes parents and their role is to oversee the operation of the school and the implementation of district initiatives.

Train parents to provide training to other parents! We did it and they were more receptive than I had ever seen them. The parent trainers made the training, fun, relevant and inviting. It also helped that the parent guide was developed and disseminated by our parents. Also, we had to be okay with stepping outside of our comfort zone by being willing to meet parents where they were comfortable—even if that meant leaving the central office for meetings or having informal dialogue sessions.

Actively engaging parents in a meaningful way that they find relevant isnt easy, especially given the demands of today's society with work, child care, unemployment, etc. Have you considered asking parents what would interest or motivate them enough to want to be involved? What about enlisting the help of some of your most visible parents in helping you recruit parents to work on district projects? Our district has a parent leadership academy that has been very well received by the community and we often go there as our first point of contact when we want to get more parental involvement. Also, in this day and age of technology, our district has recently joined the Facebook, Twitter, and other social media outlets to better engage our families. The verdict is still out, but we are eager to see how our families respond to our social media efforts.

Our district has a partnership with a local parent group called Parents for Public Schools. Through this group, 2-3 parents were identified to serve as the parent voice on our committee. Our parent mentor worked with several other volunteer parents in helping us to design our parent guide. Once they were trained in the core messages of our Pyramid of Interventions, they in turn trained other parents. Many of the parent invitations were by word of mouth or personal contact. We need to revisit this issue and find additional ways to recruit more parents in the future.