Creating a Systematic

Approach to Student
Intervention
Dr. Michelle Wiley, Principal
West Rockhill Elementary
Pennridge School District, Sellersville, PA
 Dr. Michelle Wiley

Positionality:
Public School Administrator
for 13 years
Urban & Suburban
Experiences
Elementary, Middle Level,
and High School
Administrative Positions
Pennridge School District

Total Enrollment: 7,300 Students

Location: Bucks County 30 miles
north of Philadelphia;
*surrounded by large
suburban districts
Pennridge School District

7 Elementary Schools
3 Middle Schools
1 High School
 A New Conductor
District leadership was changing,
as a new superintendent was
appointed after 18 years.
The former WRE principal retired.
Leadership changes create a
sense of uncertainty, a desire to
cling to the status quo.
Wise leadership approaches
change cautiously in these
circumstances.

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 Our Starting Point Elementary Economically
School
Performance
School Disadvantaged
Score - 2013
West Rockhill ranked the lowest in Bedminster 17% 94.9 (#1)
student performance in math and
reading of all the 7 elementary Guth 32%* 92.5 (#2)
schools in our district. Sellersville 24%* 91.6 (#3)

Deibler 17% 87.9 (#4)

Seylar 14% 85.4 (#5)

Grasse 22%* 82.8 (#6)

West Rockhill 26%* 81.5 (#7)

* = Title I School
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Steps We Took

Understanding the Needs

Establishing the Culture (Year 1)
Piloting the Strategies (Year 2)
Implementing the Vision (Year 3)

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Understanding the Needs
Summer 2014
Need For Improvement

No systematic interventions
Reading Specialist focused on K-3 only
IST target group: Non-proficient students
as per PSSAs (4th and 5thgraders)
No math support for struggling students
Students pass through the RtII process
quickly

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 Listening to the Orchestra
To effectively drive change, the
leader must understand both the
culture and the climate.
Surveys provided an effective
means to gather frank feedback
from the stakeholders.

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 Looking For Root Causes

Segmented philosophy of
interventions supports
were only available for
certain populations
Many well-intentioned
teachers working in pockets
None of the solutions
required collaboration
Systematic approach would
require a shift in mindset
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Reflect on Your Situation

What is a problem your school is facing that is within

your sphere of influence? Be as specific as possible.
What are some the things
that are being done about it?
What do you think are the
root causes of this problem?

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Establishing the Culture
Year 1 (2014/2015)
Driving Principles
1. Establish a data-informed culture
2. Systematic, collaborative support
process, instead of just responding
reactively to concerns
a. Instructional Support Reading/Math
b. Reading Specialists Reading
c. Guidance Counselor Behavior
3. MDE sought, after in-class instructional
supports were found to be ineffective.

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Plan Your First Step Intentionally

As you progress towards your goal, not

all of your steps will be even
Your first step should be:
Small enough to allow most of your
team to step with you
Large enough to allow progress to be
seen against your goal

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Create opportunities for teachers to review
and collaborate on student data

Learn with and from each other

Non-productive to focus on data in a vacuum; must utilize
other reference points
Combined experiences and varied perspectives provides
better analysis
Time needed to analyze data and plan response

Teaching can become an

individualized endeavor,
unless we intentionally make
time to plan, practice, and
work together
The teachers did not have
common planning times with
their grade level consistently
built into their schedule

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 Master Schedule Planning

Schedule created with grade levels having common prep time

each day to enable teams to meet/plan together.

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Grade-Level Data Meetings

Weekly Revised duty schedules

to provide time for grade-level
teachers time to meet weekly
with the principal
Informal In the first year, our
focus was on learning how to
come together and participate in
academic conversations
Goal-Driven Topics of discussion
were based upon meeting the
requirements of our SMART goals

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Building-Level Data Meetings

Bi-Monthly District-mandated
meetings focused
Vertical Focused efforts on
allowing time and space for grade
level teachers to contribute to
vertical conversations
Goal-Driven Reviewing PSSA and
district assessment data using
new database tool provided by
school district

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 Systemizing the Support Process

Goal: Need to look at student needs systematically,

identifying skill deficits and implementing
accommodations to ensure student success.
Steps:
1. Identify interventions & tools we can monitor
and measure at each tier of support process
2. Establish criteria for referral to support process
3. Educate teachers on available interventions
4. Data analysis identified common areas of need
to inform instruction

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Leverage Available Supports

Reading Support After-School Program

F&P Intervention Kits Peer Tutoring
Blast & Boost Fact Club (4th/5th)
Reading A-Z Online Practice & Tutorials
Math Study Island PSSA-style questions
Push-in (1x/week) (3-5)
Math Buddies (online) First in Math fact fluency (3-5)
Multi-Tier System of Supports (MTSS)

Educate the teachers on interventions for each tier.

Parent Engagement

Goal: Increase parent

involvement with an
academic focus on literacy.

Pastabilities!

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Reflect on Your Situation

What are the driving principles guiding your desired

improvements?
What is a reasonable first
step you could take?

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Year 1 Lessons Learned

Build up a tolerance for change

Help people find their comfort zone
Rally supporters to help make that change work for you

Systematic change requires relationships

Developing relationships takes time
People will follow your lead when they see you are committed

Do not lose sight of primary purpose CHILDREN

Decisions made to benefit district or staff may not benefit students
Effective leaders make welfare of children their priority
Keep Moving

Dont look for perfection

on the first time out
Success rarely happens on
the first step
Now that things are in
motion, approach your
next steps with boldness

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Piloting the Strategies
Year 2 (2015/2016)
Opening Night

Even though there is still

room for improvement, the
show must go on!

Building comfort with being

a work in progress, and
learning how to improve.

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Using tools to stay data-informed

Data Warehouse
Data Analysis & PSSA Style Practice
Reporting Tools Assessments
Online Test Design, Common Core math
Delivery, & Scoring and reading topics
PSSA Benchmark Built-in Lessons
Assessments Data analysis tools
Upload offline results
Collecting the right data

LinkIt benchmark
assessments were used
to collect data on
reading and math skills
Now, we are able to look
at meaningful data to
see where improvement
may be required,
horizontally and
vertically

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Grade-Level Data Meetings

Weekly Continued to meet

weekly with principal
More formal Teachers getting
more comfortable with discussing
data
Goal-Driven Topics now based
results of benchmarks and unit
assessments

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Pilot Math Intervention Models
Provide additional math
interventions to:
1. Improve classroom instruction
(Tier 1)
2. Provide support for students
struggling to make proficiency
(Tier 2)
Intervention models need to be
flexible to fit needs and available
resources
Targets struggling learners
Small # of students
Push In In-class 2-3x per week
Targets struggling learners
Medium # of students
Math Busters Flexible small groups
Targets whole grade
Support & enrichment
Power Hour Flexible grouping
Power Hour (1x/week during math class)

Whole grade intervention (Grades 1 & 2)

Flexible groups tailored to student needs:
Remediation (~10%) 7-10 per group
Enrich
Reinforcement (~75%) 10-15 per group
Enrichment (~15%) 8-10 per group Reinforce Reinforce
Duration: 6-8 week focus on core skill
Remediation: Classroom teachers Remediate Remediate Remediate Remediate

Enrichment: Gifted Support teacher

Progress monitoring was
Reinforcement lessons: Staff members informal, causing the groups
to change too frequently
 Math Busters (1x/week during recess)

Focused remediation for students near

proficiency; flexible membership,
based on data Grades 3-5
Total # of students based on available Group 1
staff
Small groups 4-5 students per teacher
Group 2
4-6 week focus on core skill
Lead teacher drives mini-lessons
Group 3
Handling Push Back

Change is a messy process

Celebrate the positive
results; address the
difficulties
Expect inertia to status quo
 Professional Development

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Building a sense of community within district

Professional development
led by curriculum directors
helped to establish
connection with teachers
Training on data analysis
tools
Parent Engagement

Goal: Increased parent

involvement with an
academic focus on math
supports at home
Pi Day!

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Identify and Celebrate Success

Be watching for successes,

even small ones
Celebrating success
provides everyone with a
sense of accomplishment
Change is hard and
requires sacrifice, but
positive results help to
ease the cost

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Support the evolving culture

Support aspiring leaders with

innovative ideas
Teachers began to see trends
in the data and propose their
own initiatives
PSSA Close Reading & Text-
Dependent Analysis
Math Enrichment (Math
Olympiad)
Integrating Technology
 Econ. Academic Academic
Elementary
The Results To Date Disadv. Score 2013 Score 2016

West Rockhill 26%* 81.5 (#7) 85.6 (#1)

West Rockhill has

Grasse 22%* 82.8 (#6) 82.8 (#2)
moved from worst to
first academically in the
Deibler 17% 87.9 (#4) 82.1 (#3)
district
Bedminster 17% 94.9 (#1) 81.3 (#4)
Note: Academic Profile
scoring changed Guth 32%* 92.5 (#2) 78.3 (#5)
(decreased) in 2014/2015
Seylar 14% 85.4 (#5) 78.3 (#6)

Sellersville 24%* 91.6 (#3) 73.0 (#7)

* = Title I school
Reflect on Your Situation

What will success look like for you?

Identify ways large and

small which will indicate
you are making progress.

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Year 2 Lessons Learned

Weather the storm

Hold true to your convictions
Trust the vision

Success breeds a willingness to take risks

Resistance wanes with success
Willing to push envelope when seeing positive results

Consistent modeling
Professional integrity, compassion, high standards
Were all in this together!
Implementing the Vision
Year 3 (2016/2017)
Once everyone is watching

Attention to
detail must
improve
We must learn
from mistakes to
implement more
effective
interventions

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Grade-Level Data Meetings

Weekly Continue to meet

weekly with principal
Formal Focus on interventions
being provided and
recommended improvements
Goal-Driven Teachers able to
come prepared with data analysis
on their classes and grades

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 Larger percentage of class
LinkIt Math Fall 2016 Benchmark not reaching proficiency

Grade 5

Grade 4

Grade 3

Grade 2

Grade 1

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Below (0-39) Basic (40-59) Prof (60-79) Adv (80-100)
Power Hour (1x/week during math class)

Whole grade intervention (incl. learning support)

Flexible small groups based on needs:
Enrich
Remediation (~10%) 4-5 per group
Reinforcement (~75%) 10 per group
Reinforce Reinforce
Enrichment (~15%) 10-15 per group
4-6 week focus on core skill/strategy Remediate Remediate Remediate Remediate

Classroom teachers work on remediation

Gifted Support teacher provides enrichment Progress monitoring is still
a challenge, but we are
Reinforcement lessons planned by grade-level maintaining more
consistency with groups
teachers for additional staffing
Math Busters (1x/week during recess)

Focused remediation for students struggling

to make proficiency; flexible membership, Group 1
based on data
Total # of students based on available staffing Group 2
Small groups 4-5 students per teacher
4-6 week focus on core skill/strategy
Lead teacher drives mini-lesson before
Group 3
guided practice
Progress measured with pre/post-
assessments
Meeting Students Where They Are

New research-based tools

Tailorable to meet needs
Diagnostic
Proven effectiveness
Able to customize
interventions to meet
individual student needs
Challenge: Finding time to
students to use all of these
additional intervention tools

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LinkIt Math Fall 2016 Benchmark

Grade 5

Grade 4

Grade 3

Grade 2

Grade 1

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Below (0-39) Basic (40-59) Prof (60-79) Adv (80-100)
LinkIt Math Winter 2017 Benchmark

Grade 5

Grade 4

Grade 3

Grade 2

Grade 1

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Below (0-39) Basic (40-59) Prof (60-79) Adv (80-100)
Leaders strive for continual improvement

Consistent Grading
Grades should reflect
skill development

Validity and Credibility

Find ways to connect
results back to practices

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We need to find what
the child needs, not
whats good but
whats best for that
child.
Tailor our instruction and interventions to an
individuals needs
Q&A