Monthly Updates

September - October 2007 Central Dauphin School District September brought the start of school and the roll out of RTI in our two new schools, Lawnton, and Rutherford. Given all that we had learned while working with Phillips last year, and all the training and preparation that the teachers and staff at the schools put in last year and over the summer, implementation went very smoothly!  DIBELS testing was conducted in the first two weeks of school and data were entered into AIMSweb and analyzed by the data team.  In addition to Fall DIBELS data, teams also looked at DIBELS data from last year, MAZE, PSSA scores and 4Sight data.  All of this information was used to determine the most appropriate intervention group for each student.  Like last year, a core team met at each school to start the grouping process.  Input from the Data Team and Grade Level Teams was then provided to refine the groups. The DDM Teams for each school met in mid September.  This was the first opportunity the members of the team had to review the school wide data.  We spent time reviewing the results of benchmarking and identifying areas of concern within the school.  We then set goals at each grade level and brainstormed ways to improve core instruction to help meet those goals. As October began we were ready to begin intervention groups and progress monitoring!  Teachers at Phillips are “old pros” at intervention groups after a year of implementation so they were able to plan, prepare, and execute the start of groups with ease, needing minimal assistance from Lehigh.  The teachers at Lawnton and Rutherford also did an excellent job rolling out skills groups with the aid of the Lehigh Team.  When intervention groups began we saw the hard work and preparation that teachers put in!  We want to thank all the teachers at for working so hard to make these skill groups a success. As described above, the last two months have been filled with a great deal of change for the staff and students at Lawnton and Rutherford.  These changes did not come easily, but rather through the hard work of all teachers and staff.  We want to take this time to thank everyone involved in this process for all their hard work, patience, and understanding. Check back next month to learn more about our intervention groups and progress monitoring. Alex-Panahon, Ph.D . - Project Coordinator , Lehigh University Back to Monthly Updates Main Page