• Response to Intervention (RtI) 

      rti triangle

    Purpose of RtI

    In recent years, Congress has added new provisions to our nation’s federal education laws — the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA2004) and the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) — that are designed to encourage school districts to provide additional support for struggling students within general education. This support should be provided as early as possible — when students show the earliest signs of difficulty. While schools have attempted many ways to help struggling students, including those with disabilities, the current focus is on an improved, research-based process known as Response to Intervention(RtI).

    Definition & Benefits

    Response to Intervention is a multi-step model that promotes a well-integrated system connecting general, compensatory, gifted, and special education in providing high-quality, standards-based instruction and intervention matched to students’ academic and behavioral needs. A continuum of intervention tiers with increasing levels of intensity and duration is central to RtI. Collaborative educational decisions are based on data derived from frequent monitoring of student progress and rate of learning.
     
    The RtI process has the potential to limit the amount of academicfailure that any student experiences and to increase the accuracy of special education evaluations. Its use could also reduce the number of children who are mistakenly identified as having learning or behavioral disabilities. Information and data gathered by an RTI process can lead to earlier identification of children who have true disabilities and are in need of entitlement services (i.e., 504 or Special Education).

    What RtI Is and What RtI Is Not

    RtI IS…

    •  An  initiative that  supports  general education  school improvement goals

    •  Intended to  help as  many students as  possible  meet proficiencystandards without special education

    •  A method to unify general and special education in order to benefit students through greater continuity of services

    •  Focused primarily on effective instruction to enhance student growth

    •  A process where decisions are made based upon bench- marking and progress monitoring data
     

    Rt    I IS NOT…

    •   A stand alone special education initiative

    •  A method for increasing or decreasing special education numbers

    •  Focused primarily on disability determination and documentation through a checklist

     

    Helpful Links
     
    PfISD Response to Intervention (RtI) Process Overview