By Courtney McEachern

Early prevention at elementary schools seems to be a growing trend, said Debra Bitler, Jacksonwald Intervention Specialist.

And many school districts including, Exeter Township, incorporated an initiative to help younger students not fall behind. The program is called Response Intervention (RtI).

RtI is a preventative program focusing on Reading and Language Arts, and is designed to catch kids before they are having problems in school.

This program was discussed at the Exeter Township School District Parent Forum at Jacksonwald Elementary School on Thursday, Oct. 22.

“It is a framework that we embrace district wide. But Jacksonwald was kind enough to share their expertise on how they use it here,” said Don Cramer, Instructional Support Services Supervisor for Exeter Township School District.

Exeter Township School District adopted this model about two years ago.

“Last year was the first official year launching in the elementary buildings. But we did pilot it the year before,” said Bitler.

The district’s teachers trained for two years at the BCIU with other school district including Governor Mifflin, Oley and Wyomissing.

“It is something that is out there in all states, but you take it by the horns and make it your own in the district,” said Bitler.

The model is used in the district’s three elementary buildings and in the intermediate building.

“The intermediate building is a year behind us in terms of their implementation because at that point the kids have covered a lot more that what we have here and our focus is on Language Arts and Reading,” said Bitler.

The fairly new program, splits students into tiers, Tier 1, 2 and 3, based on the students’ universal screening scores.

Everyday time is set aside for “tier time,” as the students call it, said Bitler.

“We try to support everyone. We look for programs that have research and validation behind them so that we are not just making it up as we go along,” added Bitler.

When it is “tier time” all students go to their respected teachers who instruct a specific tier.

Tier 1 includes a majority of the students, 80 percent, who have met or exceeded district benchmarks for their grade.

At Jacksonwald, the large group gets an extra 30 minutes of the core curriculum.

Tier 2, which makes up around 15 percent of students in a grade, are children who need support to reach their grade-level benchmarks.

There is an increase of time and intensity the child is with the teacher.

Also different activities might be done with the student than are performed in Tier 1.

Tier 3, which makes up around 5 percent of the grade-level population, are students who need extensive support to reach benchmarks.

This is more one-on-one or two-to-one learning with a teacher.

Tier 1 students are assessed three times a year -. September, January and May. Tier 2 students are assessed every two to three weeks and Tier 3 are tested weekly.

School board member Carol Kutscher asked if English as a Second Language (ESL) students participate.

“They are with us. I have several ESL students in my Tier 2. If they don’t need support and they are ESL, they will get Tier 1,” responded Bitler.

Currently there is no RtI for Math but there is one for Behavioral Support. Exeter’s behavioral assistance model began three years ago.