The Pride

The Special Education Administrative staff have just returned from a very thought-provoking conference at TanTarA.  The Missouri chapter of the Council for Administrators of Special Education sponsor an annual conference to address current and upcoming issues in special education.  Much of the focus of this year’s conference was on the topic of Response to Intervention (RTI).  This three-tiered model involves identifying appropriate scientifically-based interventions needed by at risk learners, the methodical implementation of those interventions, and rigorous record-keeping to determine if progress is being made. 

We were excited to acquire more information about RTI because it is a topic that our department has been exploring in conjunction with the elementary and intermediate administrators for some time now.  We have had two administrative team meetings to brainstorm, several members of our staff attended an RTI informational meeting put on by the Carthage School District, in addition to our recent conference in which we were able to attend multiple break-out sessions discussing different components to this new process.  Our next step is to bring in an RTI trainer to work with our district CARE teams.  It is very exciting to be on the cutting edge of a process that will help us to meet the needs of our ever-growing at risk and special needs population.  We would like to thank those administrators for taking such initiative to explore this new approach with us, and we look forward to seeing how this approach will impact student learning in our district.