By Guest Author Aaron LaMontagne.
Schools face many challenges as they attempt to implement Response to Intervention (RTI). Providing help to all the students that need it, finding the time to implement intervention blocks and enrichment periods; sometimes even getting buy-in from all interested parties can be difficult. However, in our work with schools across the country, one challenge comes up over and over again, “How do you schedule students, week after week, into intervention blocks and enrichment periods?” The challenge is especially tough in the middle school and high school setting.
Why Should RTI Scheduling be Such a Struggle?
Here are just a few reasons.
- The needs of the students can easily change from semester to semester. Realistically, their needs are likely changing from week to week. How do you go about setting up an ever changing schedule?
- Limited resources make the process difficult as well. How can you ensure that a teacher isn’t overwhelmed by placing too many students with a single teacher?
- There’s also the issue of input from the students. Most of the high schools we’ve worked with allow the students to have some say in where they need to be scheduled. How can a teacher best guide their students into making decisions on where their time is spent with the most benefit?
Any of these struggles sound familiar? Maybe you have discussed these exact questions with other teachers and administrators in the past.
So, what are some options for handling these scheduling challenges?
RTI Scheduling with Good Old Pencil and Paper
The simplest and most obvious option is paper and pencil! Simple to set up and, on the surface, it might look like it will be easy to work with. Until you think about trying to schedule 500 (or more!) students in a 20 minute block of time for the entire week. And how do you ensure that teachers aren’t being overbooked?
Breakout the Spreadsheet to Schedule Interventions
Setting up a spreadsheet might be more helpful. That has the advantage of being easier to edit than paper and pencil but it’s not always easy to share a spreadsheet with 50 or more teachers and administrators.
There has to be a better way!
When you look at the issues mentioned above, you quickly realize that a tool is required that will:
- Allow everyone to work from the same scheduling data
- Provide feedback as a particular course is filling up for a day
- Allow you to see student grades for a student so that you can help the student make informed decisions.
- Most importantly, allow you to quickly and easily set up student schedules.
“That is exactly what I need!” Have no fear. It’s available.
One Solution for Effective RTI Scheduling
In our ever evolving technological world, software companies are realizing that teachers and administrators need help in this regard. Many schools from around the United States have successfully set up a productive scheduling process using web based software available in the market place.
For example, a high school in Southwest New Hampshire had started a RTI program where every student was scheduled for a daily intervention block of 45 minutes. Students that needed additional help received it, students who were doing well were able to get additional enrichment or catch up on assignments. Some took online classes that were not available to them in the current curriculum. The school had purchased an “off the shelf” scheduling software that they were adapting to their needs. They ran into some major road blocks.
- The tool didn’t exactly fit their needs and it required a work-around to fit their process
- It was incredibly slow. Frustrated teachers had to spend their weekends scheduling students for the following week.
- Teacher morale suffered.
We set them up with Enriching Students, our web based RTI scheduling software. The work flow was designed by teachers and administrators so it fit their daily needs exactly. They are now able to schedule 900 students in 20-25 minute blocks on Monday morning. No more weekends! When a survey of teachers and students was taken at the end of the year, the results were really positive. The model is quite popular with 85% of students and 95% of faculty rating the experience as “very good” or “great”. To have great results you need to have a great process in place.
If you’re school is preparing to start using RTI, make sure that the scheduling process is an important part of the discussion! It’s critical to your RTI success.
Aaron LaMontagne is co-founder of Enriching Students, a provider of web-based RTI Scheduling Software for Middle and High Schools. To learn more about their scheduling solutions, visit www.enrichingstudents.com.
This article is posted here to address, in part, the challenges that campuses and districts face when scheduling Response to Intervention time within their areas of influence. Susan Fitzell, M.Ed., CSP and Aim Hi Educational Programs, LLC believe strongly in the use of technology tools that work to streamline and manage these processes. We do not, however, endorse or recommend Enriching Students’ solution over any other scheduling solution that may work for you. We are pleased, however that Mr. LaMontagne agreed to help us address the problem by offering an example of how his solution has worked, in actual practice.
For more information about how to implement Response to Intervention effectively, see Susan Fitzell’s book, RTI Strategies for Secondary Teachers.