Katonah-Lewisboro School Board members got a preview Thursday of a state-mandated approach to identifying youngsters who fall behind in core instruction.

Called Response to Intervention, or RTI, it is a national program said to measure how well a student responds to scientific, research-based instruction. The State Education Department has given every school district until July 1, 2012 to add RTI principles to any evaluation of learning problems in grades K-4.

RTI principles, a committee of district educators told the board, include early identification of children at-risk followed by “interventions to close the skill or performance gap with peers.”

The committee—Katonah Elementary School Principal Jessica Godin; Andrew Galotti, assistant principal at Increase Miller Elementary School; Jennifer Fattore, a math support teacher; and Michael Weschler, the Increase Miller school psychologist—illustrated their separate talks with more than two dozen slides (posted with this story).

The slides included a three-tier, pyramid-style breakdown showing:

• In the broad base, assessments and interventions universally available to students who demonstrate a need for support.
• Tier 2 narrows down to youngsters with specific needs matched to targeted interventions.
• At the pyramid’s apex are the Tier 3 students who did not respond to interventions in the first two tiers.

Alice Cronin, the district’s assistant superintendent for instruction, introduced the RTI presentation and later pledged, “We’re really going to work with parents.”

Still, at least one mother—the board’s vice president, Janet Harckham—worried that an errant RTI assessment could needlessly “shove interventions down a kid’s throat.” She expressed concern that a student capable of reading at an appropriate grade level, but unmotivated to do so, might be erroneously deemed in need of the program’s help.

Galotti assured Harckham that the program will not make snap judgments. Likening the program’s assessment procedure to a doctor’s blood-pressure screening, he said it only provides educators with a metric. Like a BP reading, it’s just one measure among many that go into making a full diagnosis and subsequent decision on a course of action.

Cronin, in response to a question from board member Peter Breslin, said that no budget had been set for the RTI program and that funding would be discussed over the winter as the district’s 2012-13 spending plan takes shape.  

Katonah elementary students perform

The meeting was preceded by a choral performance by KES fourth and fifth grade singers. A photo is posted with this story.