How can your I&RS team market your program, gain support for the process, and help I&RS become part of your school’s “culture”? Here are some ideas from research on best practice and from teams from across New Jersey:
- Present information at staff meetings.
- Make a newsletter.
- Make posters for the staff room.
- Make a brochure for parents.
- “Act out” an I&RS meeting for staff.
- Have staff practice writing specific observable behaviors.
- Present a mini-workshop on targeted interventions in academic and behavior areas.
- Play “I&RS Jeopardy” with staff.
- Develop tip sheets for staff to use when completing a Request for Assistance.
- Present a mini-workshop on various data collection techniques.
- Invite “ad-hoc” team members or standing team members to share their area of expertise with staff at a mini-workshop.
- Hold a meeting for parents or present I&RS at back-to-school night.
- Encourage your administrator to stress the importance of I&RS throughout the year.
- Quiz your staff and award small prizes.
- Enlist staff assistance in developing a community/district/school resource binder.
- Enlist staff assistance in brainstorming interventions for specific academic, behavior, or health issues to compile a building-specific resource binder.
- Develop a Tip of the Week/Month or FAQ and distribute to staff.
July 2010
Planning Ahead
School is out for the year. But September will be here before we know it. Now is the time to plan ahead for the upcoming year of I&RS. Utilize the Action Planning Workbook (link) to evaluate the components of your I&RS program. Once you have completed pages 2 and 3, decide which aspects of your program your team would like to address first. If you decide your I&RS program is in need of some major reconstruction, you don’t have to tackle every issue at once. Just as with a Request for Assistance, begin with a few issues and make an action plan to address each issue.
Now is also the time to work on your schedule for the upcoming year. Talk about schedules for meetings, team maintenance events, and professional development for team members. Also, make an action plan for educating your staff regarding the I&RS process. Make a list of topics about which you would like your staff to be knowledgeable—how to complete a Request for Assistance, specific observable behaviors, data collection, documenting interventions, expectations for the I&RS process, SMART objectives, action plans. Then decide how you can best market your program to your staff and parents.
When the school year starts, your team will be ready to take on the academic, behavior, and health issues at your school!
June 2010
Data and the I&RS Process:
Data collection should be an integral part of your I&RS program. Data is essential for:
- Accurately identifying learning, behavior, and health issues.
- Evaluating progress toward achieving goals.
- Developing an accurate picture of the educational environment of a school.
- Supporting recommendations to administration.
- Assessing I&RS team effectiveness in improving student outcomes.
- Providing pre-referral documentation and documentation for when the I&RS team truly believes the child would benefit from an IEP.
Data can provide the foundation for the I&RS team to understand the when, where, who, why, and what of the issue. Data collection should be an embedded part of the school culture, not extra work.
Each of the six phases of the I&RS process involves collecting, analyzing, or synthesizing data, both quantitative and qualitative. This data will provide a more comprehensive understanding of the issue, assist in establishing SMART objectives, and assist in monitoring progress and evaluating effectiveness of interventions. The more comprehensive picture you can get of the issue, the more targeted your intervention will be, and the more effective.
May 2010
Annual Review of the I&RS Program (N.J.A.C. 6A:16-8.2(a)11): Each building’s I&RS program is required to “At a minimum annually review the intervention and referral services action plans and the actions taken as a result of the building’s system of intervention and referral services…” The review should include an analysis of the data available to the I&RS team and the observations and conclusions drawn from the analysis.
While only an annual review is required to aid the team and the principal in understanding educational needs in the building and in considering improvements to school programs and services, a more frequent review can be an important factor in team success. There are no required standards for the annual review. However, suggested items for the annual review are provided below.
-Annual Review and Recommendations to the Principal PDF/DOC
April 2010
End of year reporting: The end of the school year is a perfect time to review your I&RS program. This process involves reviewing your cases, assessing the effectiveness of action plans and your I&RS process, and making recommendations for next year. N.J.A.C. 6A:16-8(a)10 and 11 require your team to “Review and assess the effectiveness of the provisions of each intervention and referral services action plan in achieving the outcomes identified in each action plan and modify each action plan to achieve the outcomes, as appropriate”… and, “At a minimum, annually review the intervention and referral services action plans and the actions taken as a result of the building’s system of intervention and referral services and make recommendations to the principal for improving school programs and services, as appropriate.”
This “annual report” provides your team with an opportunity to improve the I&RS process and to contribute ideas that can often improve programs and services in your building. Your team has unique insight into the culture and needs of your school. It also allows you to review the needs of your team members, plan for professional development, review the resources available to your team, update the forms used by the team — the possibilities are endless!
Review the number of total cases, number of cases broken down by type of issue (academic, health, or behavior), grade level, gender, ethnicity, teacher, etc… Analyze the data and look for patterns that may indicate an area of need in your staff, your environment, or your curriculum.
March 2010
Action Plans: A written action plan is a crucial component of the I&RS process. After your team completes the brainstorming step in the problem-solving process, the next step is to evaluate and refine possible intervention strategies for achieving the desired behavioral objective. The team, including the person who requested assistance, should discuss the feasibility and effectiveness of each strategy in achieving the objective, based on available resources, student strengths, and teacher skill. The person requesting assistance, with the help of the team, chooses the intervention strategies that he or she believes will be most successful in meeting the behavioral objective.
The action plan should list the chosen intervention strategies and also detail who will be responsible for implementation of each strategy, a timeline for implementation, and the person(s) responsible for supporting the implementers. Any staff who will be responsible for implementing the action plan should be included in the action planning process; however, the plan should not be imposed upon staff.
Also included in the action plan is a provision for data collection, to document progress toward the desired behavioral objective. What data will be collected for progress monitoring? Who will be responsible for collecting the data? What is the timeline for data collection? The case coordinator should ensure that each person involved in the implementation of each strategy in the action plan has the skills and support necessary for implementation.
February 2010
Brainstorming is an essential, and often overlooked, part of the action planning process. When teams feel that they lack ideas for intervention strategies, it may be a matter of exploring their resources and getting creative!
Keep these guidelines in mind when your team is brainstorming possible interventions:
- Set a time limit (6‐8 minutes) and choose a time keeper before you begin. The time period is important for participants to be able to adjust to a more creative thought process, allow ideas to form, and give time for ideas to “piggyback” on one another.
- Go for quantity of ideas, not quality of ideas during this time— a free flow of ideas is more likely to produce creative solutions.
- Record all ideas for everyone to see (e.g., use newsprint and markers).
- No evaluation, discussion or comments on ideas during this time.
- No “side” conversations during the brainstorming session.
- Creative and unique ideas are encouraged; after all, the traditional ideas
haven’t been working!
- Save the brainstormed ideas in an “idea notebook” for future use.
If your team members need ideas for evidence-based interventions, check out the “Best Practices” section of our website. There are many websites and print resources that provide interventions for learning, behavior, and health issues.
Take time throughout the year to review the programs and people you can access in your school, district, and community; to review interventions that have been suggested during brainstorming; and to review the success of interventions in action plans. Share this information with your staff to build their capacity for addressing issues within the classroom.
January 2010
Case coordinators are in a pivotal position for ensuring the success of the I&RS process for assigned I&RS cases. All I&RS team members should serve turns as case coordinators, on a rotating, pre-determined basis, e.g., by grade level, or alphabetically. The case coordinator is the primary contact with the person requesting assistance. The case coordinator’s job is to lead the requestor through the I&RS process, provide support, help them feel at ease, and to provide technical assistance to all individuals responsible for implementing the action plan. It is important to remember that the case coordinator’s role is not to mentor the student, but to facilitate the I&RS process, support the requestor and manage the paperwork for the case. Case coordinators perform the following tasks and functions:
- Distributing all information collection forms.
- Overseeing the completion of all information collection forms.
- Collecting all completed information collection forms .
- Compiling and summarizing all of the behaviorally specific information on the issue.
- Interviewing the person requesting assistance.
- Conducting or arranging for observations of the issue, where possible.
- Analyzing trends and patterns of documented behavior.
- Presenting the compiled information and perceived trends at the pre-scheduled meeting.
- Overseeing implementation of each component of the action plan.
- Providing or arranging support to those responsible for carrying out the action plan.
- Coordinating communications and plans for actively involving parents.
- Providing insight into decisions for either maintaining the current action plan, developing a new plan, terminating the plan, or referring the case to the Child Study Team for further evaluation, as appropriate.
Utilize time at the beginning of the school year or at scheduled team maintenance meetings to discuss the case coordinator’s role and to practice compiling and presenting information. Also, team members can practice their interview skills by interviewing each other as the person requesting assistance. Remember, during the first interview the role of the case coordinator is to engage and support the requestor and obtain the person’s view of the situation, not problem solve!
November 2009
I&RS is an outcome‐oriented program. During the I&RS process the team examines behavior, determines specific, measurable objectives, and plans interventions to effect change and increase student success. In order to measure the effectiveness of action plans, teams must collect and analyze data regarding the behavior they are trying to change in order to know if the plan has achieved the objectives.
Even before developing or implementing an intervention strategy, teams should first collect baseline data regarding the behavior or learning issue. Using specific, observable description of the targeted behavior, choose a method to best measure the behavior, i.e., classroom products, event recording, duration recording, interval recording, time sampling, latency recording, or a functional behavior assessment (FBA). Also, decide who will collect and analyze the data and be sure to make this a part of the action plan.
Once the intervention has begun, monitor progress at the intervals identified in the action plan and analyze the data. For definitions of these tools, and more information on data‐driven decision‐making, go to the Resources page of our website and refer to the Resource Manual for Intervention and Referral Services.
October 2009
Work to develop a strong relationship between your I&RS team and your Child Study Team. CST members can be involved with I&RS as team members or consultants. Also discuss their expectations regarding referrals for evaluation—the types of interventions and data they are looking for, as well as their definition of an “appropriate” referral to CST. This will help your I&RS team make appropriate decisions regarding students in the I&RS program.
September 2009
Educate your staff regarding the I&RS process and the contents of an effective Request for Assistance. Help staff learn how to describe behavior in specific observable and quantifiable terms and explain how this will help your team to focus on the behaviors, choose SMART objectives, and select appropriate intervention strategies.
August 2009
Data-based decision-making is the cornerstone of effective action planning. Your I&RS team can learn more about data collection and analysis, and about how to utilize data to maximize your I&RS team’s effectiveness. Please check the “Resources” tab for information about data-based decision-making, or contact the I&RS Technical Assistance Project for guidance.
July 2009
According to N.J.A.C. 6A:16-8, parents must be “actively involved” in the I&RS process. Clarify the following issues within your school/district’s I&RS program: parent notification, obtaining information from parents, including parents in action planning meetings, and supporting parents in the I&RS process. A telephone call or in-person interview with parents is most effective because questions, fears and anxiety can be addressed immediately.
