RTI: An Update

My district decided to roll out RTI at all elementary schools this year for grades K-2. It decided to do this by having a 2 hours inservice with every k-2 teacher, elementary special education teacher elementary school psychologist, social worker and speech pathologist. It was a packed room with a bunch of confused people. There was too much information and not enough explanation on why RTI is a different concept. That's my main gripe: So far, only special ed people have been talking about RTI. Regular ed teachers haven't been talking about it. So when they sat in the inservice, most of them had no idea what the presenters were talking about. Each school should have had its own day to discuss this. The teachers need a new frame of reference. Many times I heard teachers still using terms as "referral" and "pre-referral" and they just didn't get it.

Unfortunately, my principal is to blame for the teachers from my school misunderstanding RTI. She erroneously told them that RTI was just like our broken pre-referral system. Therefore, the teachers didn't bother to pay attention. She is in denial, and we need her to get a grip and realize that this is a paradigm shift. The old way is dead. RTI is now.

The literacy specialists are inviting a teacher from a school that ran a pilot RTI program. We hope to learn how they adjusted and what role each person played. That's the main concern from the support staff: How do we fit into RTI? If our principal isn't taking the lead, then we need to be proactive and figure out how we fit before someone tries to use us as before.

BBC

Professional Development

Since today is Election Day, school was closed. But instead of a day off, I had to attend professional development with millions of other educators across the nation. My school isn't used as an election site because of the proximity of other schools, but nonetheless all schools were closed. My professional development was on writing better IEPs. This has to be the 4th or 5th time this has been the topic. There are a few things that I have learned each time, and the trainings have helped shape how I think about IEPs. The unfortunate thing is that many of my colleagues i.e., school psychologists, social workers, speech and language pathologists and special education teachers, have been writing IEPs for years and they don't like it when methods or philosophies change. Everything is electronic now and IEPs are rarely handwritten, except in the most Luddite school districts. My more seasoned colleagues mourn for the days they could write out their IEPs. I think they should get over it and move on. I'm glad that I never had to learn the antiquated way. I don't have anything to unlearn.

BBC