You Can't Intervene Your Way Out

Hi.

Welcome to The EDU Files, bringing education insights, stories, and vibes to your inbox every Tuesday.

This weekend was soccer, soccer, and more soccer. Got to watch my son take on the competition in his soccer tournament. It was incredibly hot out there this past weekend. It was worth melting in the heat as my kiddo brought home the championship. 🏆

But enough about my soccer dad life.

Now, let’s get kickin’?

Deep Dive 🤿

You Can’t Intervene Your Way Out of Tier 1 Teaching and Learning Problems.

Are you trying to intervene your way out of Tier 1 teaching and learning issues? If you’re not sure, you definitely need to read this week’s content.

As a principal, my focus was always locked in. It had to be. But, one of the most important leadership lessons that I learned early on was that no matter how focused I was - if my focus was on the wrong things - then it served no purpose.

I think back to my leadership of a school where 51% of freshmen students came to us reading below grade level. Reviewing our multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS), my MTSS team was frustrated, and rightfully so. Half of our school was identified as needing additional intervention and support.

It was far too many students to manage. The system did not meet the needs of our school, teachers, and students where we were at that moment in time. So, we completely blew the system up.

For so many schools, this is a common scenario.

It may not be as magnified as my experience, but it generates similar frustrations. Early on in my time there, our school learned that in order to stop the need for tier two and tier three interventions, we had to focus on tier one (the foundational teaching and learning systems).

We had been trying to tier two and tier three our way out of problems that were being created - not on purpose - in our teaching and learning design, our tier one.

Our focus was in the wrong place.

What did we do? We changed our focus.

The reality is that we would never be able to serve the students who needed the depth of support in tiers two and three. The number of students was just too high, and the leading cause of this churn was that our teaching and learning model needed significant attention.

For the next year, our focus shifted to our tier one teaching and learning systems with a laser focus. We set up supports within these systems that were flexible enough to provide additional support in the classrooms - led by our teachers in tier one.

We supported highly engaging teaching and learning pedagogy. We supported behavior management plans in every classroom. We supported attendance incentives. We supported teachers through meaningful and actionable feedback during classroom visits. We supported students who needed additional support outside the classroom - remediation and enrichment.

We completely overhauled our teaching and learning model - our tier one.

This transformation had a tremendous impact on our school culture, but more importantly, it lowered the number of students who needed (and were not getting under our previous system) additional attention and support.

So… where is your focus?

Track of the Week 💿

Turn on, tune in, and check out…

Click the iPod to listen to the track I've been playing on repeat this week. Check out The EDU Files playlist for tunes to keep you rockin’ throughout the week.

Surfing the Web 🌊

Here is my favorite EDU content from the web this week.

• Good Math Education is a Civil Right by Jose Vilson

• 5 Ways to Recruit a Diverse Team of Teachers by Amir Taron Ayres

• The Trouble with Equitable Grading by Rick Hess

• 8 Steps to Revolutionize Education by Michael Fullen

Be sure to check these out…

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See ya next Tuesday! 🍏

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