Welcome to Florida s brief overview of the problem-solving process - - PDF document

Welcome to Floridaʼs brief overview of the problem-solving process and the Response to Instruction/Intervention framework, which is usually called RtI. RtI is a change in our way or work, focused on achieving better outcomes for all students. The purpose of this

• verview is to increase the mutual understanding between parents, community

members, and schools because we have one thing in common: we all want the students to be successful in school and in life. We, at the Florida Department of Education, believe that parents and educators have great power to help students when we are working in harmony with each other toward the same goal…learning!

All parents are entitled to information on their children's progress so they can partner with teachers to help children succeed. For children who may be struggling academically or behaviorally, this feedback and involvement is even more important and may need to happen for frequently. If your child is having trouble meeting grade- level learning expectations and is enrolled in a Florida public school, you should get information and be invited to participate in meetings about what interventions will be provided to help your child. You will be a part of decision-making when the type of help for your child increases or decreases based on how your child responds to the instruction and interventions that the school provides. Depending on how often your childʼs responses are measured, you will get information, often drawn on a graph, about how your child is doing. This will help you understand whether the instruction and interventions are helping or not. If they are helping, the school will continue to check up

• n how your child is doing. If they are not helping, the teachers and specialists will

invite you to work with them as they use the problem-solving process to improve the instruction and the interventions.

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So, a new way of thinking and working is being used by schools throughout Florida and the United States. It is often called RtI. RtI stands for Response to Instruction/

• Intervention. This approach refers to a set of ideas focused on how to help all children

be successful in school. It focuses on student needs/outcomes. This means teachers and other educators are always asking themselves and each other, “How well are the students responding to this instruction and how can we make it better for them?” It is not a program, strategy, or trend. Instead, it is a way of thinking and problem-solving in

• rder to figure out what kind of instruction each student responds to best. If the

instruction a student is getting is not helping the student to learn, RtI is a way of measuring progress and then making decisions about how to improve the instruction and add interventions that will help the student.

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The problem-solving process involves four questions that help you, the teachers, and specialists find solutions to both academic and behavioral difficulties. The first question is, “What is the problem, exactly?” This question is important because we must be sure that we are working on the true problem. The second question is, “Why is this happening?” This question is important because we must understand the problem in

• rder to design solutions that are more likely to work. The third question is, “What are

we going to do about it?” This question is important because we must plan what needs to be taught and how it will be taught. In this step, we are designing and then doing the

• intervention. Sometimes the teacher or specialist doing the intervention will need help,

such as extra training, new materials, or reinforcement from the childʼs home. The fourth question is “How well is it working?” This step is the RtI step, because we must measure how your child responds to the intervention in order to know if it is helping or

• not. These four questions should guide the meetings you will attend with the school.

The problem-solving process is used while working within three types or levels of instruction or intervention. These levels are often described as “tiers.” The purpose of the tiers is to help the school provide effective teaching and an effective classroom environment so that all of the students are able to meet grade level standards. Thinking about three tiers helps the school provide help to students who are having difficulty in addition to what everyone gets, rather than replacing it with something different and disconnected from what all the other students are getting. Most importantly, a school that is set up to provide help to students that can vary across different levels, or tiers, based on what students really need helps students sooner, as an on-going part of education.

When we talk about three tiers, we have to be careful to remember that they are not categories of students or stepping stones toward a special education category. There are not fixed rules about each tier, instead there are basic guidelines to help us understand the schoolʼs framework for meeting all the studentʼs needs. Tier 1 describes the high quality teaching and school support for positive behavior that all students in the school receive. If what the school provides at the tier one level is working, most students in the school will be successful without needing additional help. Tier 2 describes the additional interventions that smaller groups of students might get if they need extra help to learn specific skills. Tier 3 describes interventions that are designed to help individual students who need the most extra help on specific skills. Students who are receiving tier three level help might need this level of help for a short time or for a longer period of time to be able to catch up. Any student in the school may, at some point, need tier two or tier three help in order to learn all the necessary skills of their grade level. The goal of the problem-solving team will always be to provide whatever the student needs and responds positively to, so that they are successful in the general education classroom as much as possible. It is important to remember that the three tiers donʼt have rules because they are meant to describe different levels of help that students may get when they need it and that the levels of help will change as the needs

• f the student change.

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As a parent involved in your childʼs education, you are encouraged to attend and be an active member of teams that include teachers and specialists who are finding solutions by answering the four questions that we discussed earlier. Teachers and specialists value and rely on your input because you are your childʼs most knowledgeable expert. You have more knowledge and experience with your child than anyone else, which means you have important information and insight to contribute to the solution-finding

• process. One way you can contribute is by asking key questions to help guide the

conversations and keep the focus on improving your childʼs learning. Some key questions are, “Is my child successful? How do I know? If not, why and what can we do differently? If needed, how is additional help going to be provided? By whom? How

• ften? For how long? What can I do to help with interventions for my child? and How

will I know if interventions are working?” The answers to these questions will need to be discussed and worked out by using the problem-solving process.

If your child is struggling (such as a child falling behind because he reads more slowly than his peers), has trouble staying focused, or uses his hands on peers, or at any time you wonder how things are going at school, you are encouraged to: talk with your childʼs teacher asking the problem-solving questions; ask for progress reports on how your child is responding to the instruction that he or she is getting in the area of difficulty; suggest strategies that are working at home or elsewhere to further engage the partnership; celebrate when it is working and ask more questions when it is not working as well as you expected; and make a list of specific questions to ask about your childʼs progress when you meet with the teachers and specialists.

Some people think that RtI is something for students with disabilities. The truth is, RtI is a way of thinking and working for schools that benefits every student in the school. For some students who need the most intensive and individualized help to maintain progress, special education resources may be accessed by the school. Whether the special education resources are accessed by the school or not, every child will continue to benefit from the problem-solving that happens in a schoolʼs RtI system.

So, problem-solving and RtI exists and continues for all students from kindergarten through graduation whether the school accesses special education resources or not. This is good news because it means that help for your child does not depend only on whether special education is an option. However, if information about your child is being evaluated in order to determine if special education resources can be accessed by the school, the information that is gained through on-going problem-solving and RtI about what your child really needs to be successful will help the school make a good decision about special education

• resources. It is most desirable to be able to meet your childʼs individual needs so that

he or she can be successful, without unnecessarily labeling him or her as a student with a disability. It is also important to understand that the same process of problem-solving and RtI is continued, even if your child receives help through special education resources.

You may want more information about problem-solving and response to intervention. The Florida Department of Education has a Web site you can visit at www.florida-rti.org. A parent brochure is available at that Web site, as well as many other resources such as a free on-line course about RtI. If you need help accessing any of these resources or you have additional questions, you may contact your childʼs principal. Thank you for supporting your childʼs school and your child, as we work together toward making sure that your childʼs educational needs are met.

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