I participated in a Twitter chat today; been wanting to try
that since joining the Twitter world.
The topic of the chat was education.
In the course of answering questions I made mention of some “creative
scheduling” that allows our Title I team to provide maximum support to
struggling students. Several requests
for an explanation of said schedule followed my statement. Explaining our Title I structure in 140
Twitter characters seemed impossible – blogging about it seems logical.
At Fairview Elementary in Mora, MN, we use an Integrated
Services Delivery Model (ISDM) to support our at-risk K-2 students in reading
and math. ISDM is a concise way of
saying our Title I and Special Education teachers and paraprofessionals work
alongside classroom teachers in
classrooms to provide academic support to students who are at high risk or
some risk for academic struggle according to fall, winter, and spring benchmark
assessments. In short (which is kind of
a given after the previous unending sentence) we push-in to classrooms to give
kids help rather than pull kids out of rooms.
What we do in rooms varies between classrooms and grade levels, but most
often the class is divided into Guided Reading groups, Daily 5 stations, math
centers, or some other system of arranging the whole into parts. While the majority of our day is spent with
kids in classrooms, we do have a 30 minute block of pull-out time for each
grade level (called WIN time) for reading, and a 20 minute block of pull-out
for math in grades 1 and 2. We have used
this model for approximately five years in our building.
In the months leading up to my transition to Title I Lead Teacher two years ago I had some ideas about how to improve efficiency and execution of intervention delivery, but I didn't want to radically change a program that was already working quite well. Through collaboration with grade level teams, administrators, the existing paraprofessional team, and colleagues whom I trust to give me honest and well-thought input, I was able to get a feel for the Title I likes, dislikes, hopes, and dreams that were pulsing through our building. I didn't want the program to be "my" program; I wanted, and still want, it to be our school's program, our staff's program, and ultimately, our students' program. Through conversation with stakeholders and analysis of responses a slightly new Title I program was born.
In the months leading up to my transition to Title I Lead Teacher two years ago I had some ideas about how to improve efficiency and execution of intervention delivery, but I didn't want to radically change a program that was already working quite well. Through collaboration with grade level teams, administrators, the existing paraprofessional team, and colleagues whom I trust to give me honest and well-thought input, I was able to get a feel for the Title I likes, dislikes, hopes, and dreams that were pulsing through our building. I didn't want the program to be "my" program; I wanted, and still want, it to be our school's program, our staff's program, and ultimately, our students' program. Through conversation with stakeholders and analysis of responses a slightly new Title I program was born.
The first change made to our model was scheduling our
support staff to grade levels. Rather
than move Title and SPED teachers and paras between grade levels we created a
schedule that allows for a teacher/para team to work exclusively within one
grade level. This allows us to
become very intimate with the grade level curriculum, cuts down on planning
time so our lessons can be planned more carefully, and, most importantly, we
have become experts in the developmental abilities of the kids we constantly
work with. This schedule works perfectly
for reading and almost perfectly for math – we do end up having to jump between
grade levels a little bit to provide math support for all. This innovation has been popular
with classroom teachers who see us as co-teachers rather than helpers.
Our ISDM model provides support to all grade levels but it
does not provide equal support to all. Our staff philosophy encourages proactive thinking vs. reactive thinking; we want to solve problems before they become problems. While working through the task of scheduling
grade level specific interventionists we made sure our youngest students got the
most support. Our K students get far
more support, in both minutes and bodies, than do our grade two students. This is only year two but we already see signs
of success – the current group of high-risk first graders is fewer and less
at-risk than last year’s first graders. We are hopeful and confident we will see a strong group of second graders
next fall...because if we don’t the second grade teachers are going to be
slightly miffed after listening to two years of promises that less help for
them now would lead to less needs later. Our second grade teachers deserve much respect for sacrificing support minutes in the name of vision and teamwork.
So how do we provide all of this grade level specific, front
loaded support? First, we have a superb network of classroom teachers, department teachers, and paraprofessionals who work their tails off every single day to support students at all levels. Next, we put the right people
in the right places as efficiently as possible.
Last year we used two Title teachers, one SPED teacher, and three Title
paras to provide ISDM support. This year we turned a Title teacher into two paras (yes, we do know magic...and we're pretty darn good at it), so we have one Title teacher, two SPED
teachers, and five Title paras delivering ISDM interventions. We also
have an hour of support from our specialist teachers (art, library, etc.) every
day; these folks all work with K students as a part of our early intervention
focus. We squeeze every last minute out
of our day by scheduling classroom sequence by locale so transitions between
rooms are minimized. By not pulling kids
out of rooms we save dozens of minutes of travel time every day. Our Title preps are at the very beginning and
end of each day when classroom instruction in reading or math is minimal. We are in classrooms up until the first
minute of our lunch break or prep and we return immediately after the final
minute of each.
As mentioned earlier, we do have some 20 or 30 minute
pull-out sessions during the day called What I Need (WIN) Time. Kindergarten WIN time occurs in the
classroom; one support teacher or para goes into every room while one of our
specialists takes a small group of students (on a rotating basis) out of every
room for some extra time at their specialist classroom. Kids in the room are working in a small group
with a teacher or para on reading or math skills or enjoying some
developmentally appropriate free-choice time.
Reading WIN Time for grades one and two is a bit different. For each, the Tier 3 (high-risk) kids and the
top achievers leave the classroom for instruction at their level while the bulk
of the class stays with the classroom teacher for leveled instruction. Math WIN time for these grades sees only the
high-risk kids leaving the room; as much as we’d like to we just haven’t been
able to swing extra math instruction for our highest mathematicians.
So, that’s the structure of our support model….but
structures don’t get kids reading or counting.
It’s what goes on within this structure that is a marvel to behold. It can't be said enough - the success we've seen from our ISDM model is the result of teamwork by the people invested in the success of our students. Luckily for our students the people on our building's team are talented, dedicated, and effective. Come read again and find out how we help
students WIN their battle against reading, how much growth our students have shown
with a little help from their PALS, and what really does go on in the room
known as Mudville. Thanks for reading.
