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Thanks again!

School Psychology Questions or Comments

Benefits of MembershipJoanna Boey 10/23/13 2:26 PM CSTI would agree with Kim. NASP offers tremendous resources etc. I do think that having this Discussion Forum allows for more specific conversations about our local climate and state issues. Particularly with the many questions surrounding the new SLD criteria, I know I for one, am appreciative of this new resource.

Joanna Boey - East Troy Community School DistrictKatherine Ashley 10/20/13 8:52 AM CSTHi Kim.I think NASP provides excellent resources through their websites and materials; so, school psychs may not feel joining an additional organization is necessary. The school psychs around the state need to see the immediate benefits to membership such as this bulletin board!

Students join WSPA as a requirement. Maintaining a membership to WSPA involves a personal connection to other members, a desire to continue professional development, and/or a push to advocate for our profession.

As the PR chairperson, I have begun a Google Drive database of all school psychologists in the state by district of employment. Direct outreach to non-members may be helpful in the future. What do you think? Would you like to work on that database with me?K

Kimberly Knesting-Lund 10/14/13 11:17 AM CSTAs Membership Chair, I'm wondering what leads people to join WSPA and continue their membership year after year?  What benefits of membership are most important to you?  I'm also wondering what people's thoughts are as to why school psychologists in Wisconsin choose not to join WSPA.  Do you have ideas about how WSPA could better meet the needs of practitioners and encourage them to join?

Marketing School Psychology as a ProfessionBetty DeBoer 07/02/14 12:05 PM CSTI would also encourage every School Psych faculty member to talk to ONE class or organization  (e.g., psych club, psi chi, etc) each year at their own institution about school psychology.  Undergraduates are more likely to come talk to us about school psychology if they are personally invited to so so by our friendly faces.  At UWL, we coordinate efforts as

faculty to make sure we visit undergrad classes every semester and psych club / psi chi every year.

John Humphries 11/21/13 5:24 AM CSTWOW! That's great news! NASP has a resource at http://www.nasponline.org/resources/freepubs.aspx that would be a nice handout.

The article Jackie is referrring to can be found here: http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/school-psychologist

Let's fill our 7 training programs, and even add one more! I'm hearing that UW-Superior may ressurect their program.

Jacalyn Weissenburger 11/15/13 8:39 AM CSTI would like to encourage all practicing school psychologists in Wisconsin to consider asking their HS psychology and social studies teachers if they can spend 5-10 in their classrooms to talk about school psychology as a profession. According to the "top jobs" report by US News and World Report, school psychology is the number 1 social services career in 2013. Given the shortages we are witnessing in the state and nation, I believe we need to do a better job of promoting the profession through discussions with Wisconsin's high school students. Through our efforts, we can make a substantial difference in the statistics by 2020!

Resources from NASP Regional MeetingShyre Mann 12/10/14 1:33 PM CSTI would also like to thank you for the work that you put into these resources. They are certainly going to be put to good use!

Nicholas Westphal 11/08/14 5:51 PM CSTI find these resources extremely helpful. Collaboration with multiple departments outside of Special Education is becoming increasingly important to ensure school psychologists' expertise is recognized and supported. Thank you for all your work!

Tammy Stowers-Tonn 11/08/14 2:20 PM CSTHello WSPA and NCSP members. Many of you attend Dr. Burns Intervention workshop this summer. Well.....I am working on setting up monthly webinars via telepresence lab with Dr. Burns to discuss reading and math interventions. I will keep you posted! !

John Humphries 11/08/14 11:05 AM CSTThis is a place for documents and links from the NASP regional meeting.

NASPPracticeModelRevisedByWSPA.docxPsychologists Contribute to Agenda 2017 v2.docxPsychologists Contribute to Agenda 2017 v3.docx

 Practice_Model_Brochure.pdf

Adminstrator vs Teacher contactBetty DeBoer 07/02/14 12:13 PM CSTHi Kathy,

What did you find out about salary schedules and contracts?    We found that about half our interns were on administrative contracts last time I checked.

John Humphries 11/09/13 3:50 PM CST

Hi Kathy:

I don't think the survey will help you much because there wasn't anything asked about salary to my knowledge. However, you can look up the salaries of all school employees in the entire state on the DPI web site. The districts I know of that have psychs on an admin or admin support type of contract include Stevens Point and WI Rapids. However, from what I'm hearing, there's a ton of salary negotiation going on these days for psychologists. Others?

Kathleen Jensen 11/08/13 10:14 AM CSTDoes anyone have any data regarding salary schedules for school psychologists in WI and whether they are on the administrator or teacher contracts?  I will contact Katherine re: this issue and see if it was included in the latest survey, but didn't know if anyone had quick access to this information.   Thanks!

School Psych and EdEffectivenessAshley Baker 11/10/14 7:37 AM CSTIf you use the CESA 6 model, they have a Specialist handbook that we use in our district for the Psychs, counselors, and media specialists. The basic components are the same, but the standards look a bit different. I would be surprised if the DPI model doesn't follow suit.

Nicholas Westphal 11/08/14 5:57 PM CSTOur District decided Educator Effectiveness was to be completed by all licensed professionals in the District. Our Special Education department created a Department Improvement Plan and we attempted to align our SLOs and PPGs with the Department Goals.

Charles Dykstra 11/08/14 1:04 PM CSTHas anyone heard about DPI plans to develop an Educator Effectiveness-type evaluation system for School Psych's and other non-teacher education professionals?  I saw a posting for a CESA event on this topic but was unable to attend and am curious to hear what others are experiencing.

SLOsAmy Kohl 11/10/14 7:38 AM CSTWe are not doing SLO's per se, but we've been writing goals and steps to achieving those goals every year for at least the past 4, so hopefully this will make the actual SLO's "easier" when we actually have to do them for Educator Effectiveness.  We were told that pupil services folks do not have accounts in Teachscape....maybe that's not the case everywhere??

Nicholas Westphal 11/08/14 6:00 PM CSTYes. See ...

School Psych and EdEffectiveness 2 Charles

Dykstra11/08/2014

11/08/2014

Charles Dykstra 10/14/14 5:59 PM CSTMA - is your district requiring School Psych's to complete SLO's?  From the DPI website:

July 3, 2014 - Guidance for Unique Roles and Contexts ToolkitProvides guidance to WI educators serving in unique roles and contexts that are mandated for evaluation using the EE system (see flowchart).  It is not appropriate to impose the EE System (as designed) on educators that do not fit the definition of teacher (i.e. School Psychologists, School Counselors, Occupational Therapists, Physical Therapists,

Speech/Language Pathologists, and School Nurses).cd

MA 10/03/14 7:10 PM CSTCan you advise on how to approach SLOs, particularly those of us operating as sole practitioners in large school districts?

WSPA's Position on SB 1John Humphries 01/27/15 9:30 AM CSTHello:Attached please find WSPA's position on 2015 SB 1. Comments appreciated!John HumphriesPresident

 2015SB1WSPATestimony2.pdf

WI Internship?Rebekah Hulse 11/08/14 1:51 PM CSTJennifer,Thank you for sharing those links!  I'm in my first year of grad school, but have been wondering where I can look for job openings when the time comes!Rebekah

Jennifer Vogelsberg 02/06/14 1:35 PM CSTHi Jennifer! Glad to hear you will be joining the field!Checkout these two websites for job searching:WECAN: http://services.education.wisc.edu/wecan/  DPI Job Seeker: http://ww2.wisconsin.gov/state/employment/appGood luck!

Jennifer Quall 12/02/13 5:21 PM CSTHello all you fabulous school psychologists!  I am a former IL certified teacher turned EdS student at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology preparing to embark on the next phase of my journey. I will be looking for internships in southeastern WI (In or around Kenosha and Racine). I'm hoping to find answers to a few questions on this forum---thank you all in advance for your time

1--in addition to the School Psych Praxis exam, are there additional state firms a d tests that I will need to complete prior to applying for internships?  IL has a few different tests to take.

2--what are the best state resources for finding available internships (ie. a central website, the WSPA conference in Spring)?

3--any other recommendations?

Thank you again,Jennifer Quall

Special ed Personnel on Problem-Solving Teams ClarificationHeidi Horton 10/23/13 1:41 PM CSTHello,

I found this information related to your question on the DPI website and pasted the link below for access to the entire document.

http://rti.dpi.wi.gov/files/rti/pdf/rti-faq.pdf

What role can special education teachers play in the implementation of RtI?One benefit of school-wide RtI is that increased supports are systematically provided to students within the scope of general education. Special educators may provide consultation on effective techniques, but may not provide ongoing, individualized supports to non-disabled students. Proper referral, evaluation and placement procedures must be followed prior to academic or behavioral instruction or intervention by a special education teacher that reaches beyond the limits of incidental benefit.

Special education teachers may serve on problem-solving teams in a consultative role, offering suggestions for data collection and analysis, matching interventions to student need, adjusting those interventions, etc. They can also provide professional development to general educators who are implementing interventions and progress monitoring. Their role should not cross over into pre-referral activities such as observation, providing interventions, and individual student data collection and analysis.

What role can speech and language pathologists play in the implementation of RtI?One benefit of school-wide RtI is that increased supports are systematically provided to students within the scope of general education. Speech and language pathologists may provide consultation on effective techniques, but may not provide ongoing, individualized supports to non-disabled students. Proper referral, evaluation and placement procedures must be followed prior to any intervention by a speech and language pathologist that reaches beyond the limits of incidental benefit.

Speech and language pathologists may not be assigned as regular problem solving team members and may not attend meetings to discuss individual students. However a speech and language pathologist may serve on a problem-solving team in a consultative role when the team is looking for information at the universal level. They can also provide professional development to general educators who are implementing interventions and progress monitoring. Their role should not cross over into pre-referral activities or providing interventions to general education students.For more information, see http://www.dpi.wi.gov/sped/pdf/sb-gen-ed-pers.pdf.

Amy Jordan 10/21/13 7:38 PM CSTThanks, Andy.  Do you know how this applies to speech therapists?

Amy Jordan/SP/AppletonAndrew Kastner 10/21/13 10:50 AM CSTAmy,

It is my understanding that O/T's cannot participate on such teams. It was a surprise to me, but I believe in the O/T and PT Resource and Planning Guide that state that OTs (I think PTs as well) cannot participate on problem solving teams due to licensing issues. The guide states that they can support systems-level issues (i.e. new seating in classrooms, design of a playground etc), but cannot be a support to address needs of an individual, non-disabled, student.

AndyAmy Jordan 10/21/13 8:41 AM CSTIn the current issue of the Sentinel John H. states the following:

"Special education personnel are allowed to be permanent, ongoing members of problem-solving teams even if those teams are discussingnondisabled students. This can be part of the child find responsibility of the district."

Does this apply to all special ed personnel, including those with "therapist" in their title instead of "teacher":  speech therapists, OTs, PTs, etc?  The therapists in our district are saying they cannot be members of problem-solving teams due to licensing issues.

I'd appreciated any clarification anyone can provide.

Thanks!

Amy Jordan/SP/Appleton Area School District

Favorite Office Games/ToysAmy Jordan 11/21/13 12:25 PM CSTHi everyone--

I just spent my lunch hour with three 3rd graders, who really got into a competitive game of checkers.  One of them had never played before, which kind of surprised me.  I've got a few "go-to" games and activities that I'd never be without, and thought it would be helpful (and fun) for us to share some of our favorites for bringing out a shy child, encouraging cooperation between students, observing problem-solving and persistence, etc.  Here are mine:

Jumbo checker game played with large pieces and a rug for a boardhttp://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002OKFA4/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Moon Sand.  Some kids enjoy building things, while others prefer just the sensory experience of squishing it http://www.amazon.com/Moon-Sand-White-Box-DS-130013/dp/B004V9D4PE/ref=sr_1_1?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1385057735&sr=1-1&keywords=Moon+sand

A marble run/maze.  It's a great tool tool for observing a student's out of the box thinking, planning, level of tolerance for frustration, and persistence  http://www.amazon.com/MindWare-Marble-Run-103-Piece-Set/dp/B002OFCW5A/ref=sr_1_14?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1385057862&sr=1-14&keywords=marble+maze

Rush Hour Junior.  Absolutely perfect for observing executive functioning skills, frustration tolerance, and mental flexibility.  There is an adult neuropsych in Milwaukee who uses this for informal observations in a game format.  It's compact, so would be great for those with small

offices.  It comes in other versions as well as adult (no--not that kind of adult  ) version as well http://www.amazon.com/Think-Fun-5040-ThinkFun-Rush/dp/B00004WJSN/ref=sr_1_1?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1385057929&sr=1-1&keywords=rush+hour+junior

Uno.  Oldie but goodie, and most kids have already played http://www.amazon.com/Mattel-42003-Uno-Card-Game/dp/B00004TZY8/ref=sr_1_1?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1385058107&sr=1-1&keywords=uno

What are your favorites, and why?

Amy Jordan/SP, Appleton Area School District

Consent and ObservationsJohn Humphries 10/30/13 9:23 PM CSTHi EP:

Consent is always a tricky area because you have to consider ethical issues as well as legal issues. As a psychologist, I want consent when I'm working individually with a student. However, you could add to your parent notifications about your RtI system that you may be assisting with data collection in intervention, and then I would not consider it to be a problem. You could also just get consent whenever students get into tier 2/3 interventions, and then you would be sure that parents knew how their child was going to be supported. Legally, as far as I know, there is no requirement for consent however.

The fidelity checks can be done by anyone who is not the interventionist.

Hope his helps.EP 10/24/13 11:58 AM CST1. Can school psychs and PSTs administer CBMs for Tier 2/3? If so, do we need parent consent?

2. Who typically does fidelity checks on interventionists and interventions? Can myself (school psych) and the PST do those fidelity checks?

This is all prior to referral of Special Ed. so we want to know in what capacity can the School Psych and PSTs be involved and where we would need consent. We want to help our interventionists. :)

"Compensatory Services"John Humphries 10/03/13 8:01 PM CSTHi Amy:

IDEA Regulations (§ 300.151 Adoption of State complaint procedures) state:

(b) Remedies for denial of appropriate services. In resolving a complaint in which the SEA has found a failure to provide appropriate services, an SEA, pursuant to its general supervisory authority under Part B of the Act, must address—

(1) The failure to provide appropriate services, including corrective action appropriate to address the needs of the child (such as compensatory services or monetary reimbursement);

and

(2) Appropriate future provision of services for all children with disabilities.

Wrightslaw provides this definition quoted from a court decision, "Compensatory education is 'a legal term used to describe future educational services' which courts award to a disabled student under the IDEA 'for the school district's failure to provide a FAPE in the past."

So, in the case of the DPI memo, they are saying that if the district does not have an adequate RtI System and a child is denied an evaluation or services because of that, the district could be liable to pay for compensatory services to remedy the situation. Further, the IDEA regulations state that the systems must then change to ensure that all future children have access to the remediated system. Make sense?

In other words, create the right system now, or risk paying for compensatory services later AND having to revise your system them anyway.

Hope this helps.

JHAmy Jordan 10/03/13 11:12 AM CST

This question is regarding John Humphries' article in the fall Sentinel. I am wondering about DPI’s definition of “compensatory services”, as referred to in point #1 of the article.

Can you give me some general ideas about what DPI intends this to mean?

WI NAEP: Terrible OutcomesKerry Franklin 01/10/14 9:59 AM CSTGood morning Scott.  Is it possible to share your list of "intensive interventions"?  As a district, we are beginning to look at this as well and your information would be most helpful.  Thank you.

Scott Moline 12/04/13 11:41 AM CSTChristine, I agree very much that the "reading wars" are the central issue here.  Unfortunately I don't have a great answer.  At times I think the school administration simply has to make some top-down decisions regarding what reading specialists/teachers do for interventions.  One thing that I found helpful in my district was to form a committee (with the participation of as many reading teachers as I could get) to look at what we considered to qualify as an official "intensive intervention" for use in initial SLD evaluations.  We now have a list of interventions that we all agree are truly intensive interventions.  To a person, my title teachers fundamentally disagree with the idea that they need to use a "program" and look at the program as keeping them from using their own professional judgment.  So we have generally agreed that they do whatever they want for tier level 2, but if/when that doesn't work, the tier level 3 interventions will be from our list of actual research/evidenced based programs.  Perhaps not ideal from either of our perspectives, but it is somewhat of a compromise anway.

Christine Peterson 11/10/13 12:31 PM CSTThis data is jarring, to say the least.  One of the things that has been the most confusing and confounding to me since moving here over 4 years ago, is how dramatic the so called

"reading wars" seem to be in this state.  Perhaps not productive to linger in the who what and whys of it, but somehow, SOMEHOW, we have to break through this culture of reading as an "owned commodity", and data driven practices as "anti-reading". We have to come together, all educational professionals, to maximize sound reading instruction, and timely response to struggling readers.

I'm really interested to hear from people in districts who feel they are "getting it right"... What has helped strengthen your district or buildings ability to teach and remediate reading using evidence based, proven practices??

John Humphries 11/09/13 2:55 PM CSTWow--have you seen the news on our statewide NAEP scores? Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and WI State Journal both ran stories on it this week. The news is pretty bad. Brad Carl, researcher at the UW Value-Added Research Center summarized it this way in the Capital Times: "I think, speaking only for myself, I would say I wasn’t surprised with the tone of the results, but was with the magnitude of the grimness. There are basically four areas, every time main NAEP results are released: fourth-grade reading and math, and eighth-grade reading and math. In past years, we’ve had the biggest achievement gaps in some of these. We’ve been at the bottom in one or two, but this is the first time we’ve been at the bottom of the heap in all of them. The other thing that’s really bad news: I think for the first time on at least some of those measures, our black students performed worse than some states that traditionally have the lowest achievement rates."

The news isn't contained to students of color, and isn't entirely bad. The NAEP showed Wisconsin students overall continue to do well in math; for 2013, the state ranked in the top one-third nationally. But reading scores overall were flat, sitting right at the national average — and virtually the same as they were more than 20 years ago.

I had to chuckle at the quote in the Journal Sentinel article from Steve Dykstra, a Milwaukee Psychologist who often comments on instructional practices and has a lot of background about reading instruction. Dykstra said, "the state needs to start imitating reforms in other states... In the past, Wisconsin students ranked as high as third in the nation in reading." "(But)...this isn't a surprise. The last time we did well in reading was when everyone sucked at reading," Dykstra said. "When some states started doing better, they very quickly left us behind." According to State Superintendent Tony Evers, the best way forward is "...continuing to implement our new, more rigorous academic standards and our work in reading instruction." So, CCSS and more of DPI's work on reading instruction approach. Which state has closed the gap the most? Florida! Land of MTSS, George Batsche, FCRR, and much, mouch, more.

What do you think WSPA members? How can Wisconsin begin to make progress?

Closing gap for low SES studentsAmy Jordan 10/21/13 9:26 AM CSTI attended a Ruby Payne training several years ago and acquired some general, useful information that I'm grateful for.  However, I need to remind myself that when consulting about an individual student from a low SES environment that I need to see the child as an individual.....and that viewing their needs only through the "poverty" lens is inadequate from a professional/ethical standpoint.  I provide these two resources (book link and attachment) not to turn this thread into a divisive discussion, but to remind all of us that it can be easy to lump "poor" children into a single, homogenous group in terms of their educational needs.  The "poor people can't think abstractly" example in the attachment is

one disturbing example. Just some food for thought on a Monday.

http://www.amazon.com/African-Centered-Response-Paynes-Poverty/dp/1934155004

Amy Jordan/SP/Appleton Area School District

 A Framework for Understanding Ruby Payne.pdfJohn Humphries 10/20/13 8:52 PM CSTThe best work on closing achievement gaps has taken place in Florida, where their RtI model is the envy of almost everyone in the nation. They've closed gaps faster than any other state using a rigorous MTSS/RtI/PBIS model. You can learn more at the Florida MTSS web site. I like the perspective I gained from Ruby Payne's work, and there are others with similar perspectives, but I think people who want to focus on cultural understanding miss the point that students of color and students from low-SES backgrounds can learn just as fast as anyone else once given the right types of instruction. Additional time with direct instruction has the best impact, far as I can tell. Next time George Batsche is around Wisconsin you can hear him talk all about their gains. Pretty amazing stuff.

Katherine Ashley 10/20/13 8:33 AM CSTHi Danielle.

Ruby Payne's work _Bridges Out of Poverty_ stands out to me. The training and text are excellent resources. Here is a pdf of suggestions for intervention.

http://www.ahaprocess.com/store/more/excerpts/workbook_BridgesOutofPoverty.pdf

The website also has a ton of information.

Hope this is helpful,

KatieDanielle Brown 10/17/13 3:13 PM CSTAnyone have any ideas/strategies/ professional growth opportunities to learn how to effectively help our low socio-economic students made additional academic progress?  I am looking for additional ways to help this subpopulation in our school. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance

School Climate and MTSSJohn Humphries 08/17/14 5:55 PM CST

Hello:

I want to share an article from today's Milwaukee Journal about a teacher who resigned from his English position in the school district. Since being posted last night, the article has had over 400 responses. Interestingly absent are comments from parents of students in the districts.Weat Allis-West Milwaukee has been a leading district in RtI and PBIS in our state, and has hosted many visits of school teams in the suburban Milwaukee area. If memory serves, they have won awards for PBIS and academic RtI

implementation. Their Superintendent retired suddenly at the end of July after the School Board received a number of letters from frustrated staff members. This is a difficult time for educators in Wisconsin, and I wonder about how we can be more systematic in our support, training, and public information about our work in school and district improvement?

School Psychologists Providing Mental Health ServicesMichael Lackas 12/27/13 8:53 AM CSTWSPA has been monitoring the activity of a Madison based group that is looking to expand school-based mental health services in Wisconsin.  The group is being called the Coalition for Advancing School-Based Mental Health in Wisconsin.  This is proposed as a state-wide initiative.  Danielle Brown (a past WSPA president) attended the first meeting in November and  Linda Servais and myself attended the second meeting on December 13.  We are being asked to continue to work with this group and monitor their goals and activities for our membership.  Please understand that this group would like to expand school-based mental health services beyond the task force recommendation of clinic co-location in schools.

At the December 13 th meeting the group's "purpose " or "mission" statement was created along with two basic goals.  The purpose is

"to advance and support a statewide system of integrated mental health services within the school setting through school, home, and community partnerships."

The goals deal with regulatory and policy barriers and creating a portal to collect and disseminate information statewide.

That afternoon this group met with two state legislators, Sandy Pasch and Debra Kolste, in order to introduce the group and state their purpose.  The legislators warned the group that mental health legislation would move quickly in the next session which is over before the end of February.

I am sharing this information because previous posts contain a number of good ideas and concerns.  WSPA wants to monitor this discussion carefully and create an avenue that is a position of strenghth for school psychologists and a means of meeting our goals relative to the mental health of our students.  To that end, we need to keep this conversation alive.  Please post your ideas, concerns, questions that will guide discussion.  WSPA needs to know where membership stands on this issue.  Please let us know very soon.

Katherine Ashley 10/20/13 9:39 AM CSTHi John.

I'm sorry for the belated reply. I've just recently joined the bullentin board. My concerns may have already been stated by folks who have responded; but, I wanted to jot down mine before reading other posts.

By recommending community agencies form clinics within local school buildings, the governor's task force, although I'm sure well-meaning, ignores critical school-based logistical issues and tacitly undermines mental health providers in the schools.

Concerns

1. Many rural school districts do not have associations with community providers, nor will they

be likely to have those connections.

2. Students with major mental health concerns often require distance from and time away from the school building in order to feel comfortable disclosing and/or working with their therapists. Who wants to go to third period after a therapist appointment with one's mascara running down one's face?

3. Students may limit their communication with therapists if they view the therapists as staff people within the building.

4. Therapists may face conflicts of interest based upon student disclosure. Although mandatory reporters, community personnel and school mental health professionals work within very different frameworks. Also, the logistics of parent involvement, hospital transport, etc. are very different.

5. School psychologists, school counselors, and school social workers often present as much, if not more, training than community mental health providers. Why would a district consider paying private consultants significantly more to provide the care their employees provide?

6. Added bureacracy naturally increases costs - facilities, maintenance, insurance, etc.

7. Many schools already enjoy collaborative working relationships with mental health providers. Housing an agency within a school will not increase collaboration. Staff will be required to develop special systems of communication with therapists. Are they invited to school team meetings? Do we pay them to attend?

8. When will the private clinics be on site? Daily? All day? Weekends? Will they make emergency visits to the district if they are not there daily? The on-site school mental health provider is readily available for student needs and works in concert with staff and parents to ensure continuity of care.

9. Is the legislature fully aware of the training and expertise of school psychologists, school counselors, and school social workers?

10. What about resources to families? So a private clinic is housed at DeForest Area High School...will they then provide supports to families? EAP for teachers?

11. What about supervision of the skills of the community providers?

12. Schools are communities. Students often form their closest bonds to mental health providers in the school building. An agency coming in to provide care from another location will naturally be removed from the special community of the school thereby lowering one of the few resiliency factors many students find within the school environment - connectedness to a trusted adult.

13. Will private clinic personnel take direction from school staff in crisis situations?

Thanks for asking for everyone's thoughts on this subject.

KatieAnne K. (Katie) Johnson 10/08/13 10:37 AM CSTI think you brought all the issues together well Gregory.  I think it is a great topic for us to be

discussing.

 I guess my question is whether schools are the right place for these types of services?  I agree there is a limit to what we can provide within the school setting.  So is the school the right place for outside mental health services?  Maybe it is - that's where kids are, and it certainly lessens some access barriers.  But then again, maybe mental health services that are needed for significant mental health problems should be treated in community settings. I'm concerned about treating kids for significant mental heath needs without the parents as part of the equation.  I know this isn't always the case, but I like the idea of parents or other caregivers bringing kids to sessions.  I'm concerned about kids' having significant therapy sessions, and then just joining the regular school day,l rather than being released to a parent or guardian or home setting.  I know we've had some kids break down and require a significant amount of staff time after having sessions with mental health providers.  I'm worried about having providers who can see some kids, but not others due to insurance/HMO issues.  I'm worried about providers fighting for space in schools and expecting school staff to act as major referral sources to keep them in business (I say this from our experience in the past as well).  I'm conflicted.  I want to do all we can to allow kids to access services, I just want to make sure we go about it in the right way.

I hope it's not a "turf war" type of issue.  I hope it's about what's right for kids.Gregory Jenks 10/05/13 11:40 AM CSTFascinating topic!  CI suspect there's going to be a great diversity of opinion on this from our membership.  For me the issue comes down to whether I really can honestly provide the same or better level of mental health service as compared to those provided by private agencies. "Mental health services" includes a wide range of activities, many of which yes-I think I am competent to handle quite well.  However, my training has not prepared me to be therapist skilled enough to handle any mental health issue that walks through my door, which is why in those cases I often refer out to those with more expertise.  I can agree with Michael in that we may indeed be the mental health experts in the schools but I don't think all of us are truly capable of providing top notch mental health services to all kids with any DSM-V diagnosis.

Don's example suggests that ideally, a collaboration with a mental health provider can be successful.  Katie's comment about her experience with a provider not wanting to collaborate with the school illustrates one of the many potential pitfalls that entering into a relationship like this can result in.  There was a time many years ago when WSPA fought hard against anything and everything associated with "private contracting" of services that school psychologist could provide.  I believe that the threat centered primarily on districts hiring psychometricians to come into schools and provide cheaper testing and assessment services; a skill that clearly we all were highly trained in.  This issue is different and I wouldn't want to immediately rule it out solely as a concern over our job security.  I agree with past posts that the issues of "wanting to", having the time to do so, along with the RTI demands that administrator are placing on us are other factors that need to be listened to.

Anne K. (Katie) Johnson 10/04/13 1:16 PM CSTI'm concerned about mental health providers practicing in the schools.  These providers are not trained in the same way as school providers and many do not work from a systems theory.  Some providers that contacted us indicated they would not be collaborating with school staff in any way, nor would they provide any information to parents outside of a "good session" text.  In the school we believe that changing systems is the way to meet students' needs.  School psychologists evolved to fill a need that could not be met by outisde providers. I know many districts want us to be used only in an RTI role, but that is because we have allowed our roles to be narrowly defined.  I think we have so many skills in so many areas and I hope we are using them to benefit the kids in our districts.

Kathryn Bush 10/04/13 11:30 AM CSTThere are roughly two conditions when community based  mental health providers may

legally offer services in schools.  (1) when employed by or contracted by the district, they must have a DPI license.  That is usually as a school counselor, psychologist or social worker.  It is very difficult for those licensed by the Department of Safety and Professional Services (formerly DRL) to get a school psychology license in Wisconsin, as they have to have a degree from a school psychology training program, pass the praxis, etc.  One exception to this is for Independent Educational Evaluations paid for through IDEA based on parent request, and approved by the Director.  The evaluator conducting the IEE need not have a school psychologist's DPI license.

(2) the clinician's mental health clinic establishes a mental health clinic satellite, contracted and agreed to by DHS and  also by the school district.  When a district contracts for space by a satelite clinic, they usually have a contract specifying limits of liability, confidentiality, etc.  On occassion districts allow an informal situation between one parent/clinician and one principal.  From a liability issue, this should be a very rare circumstance.

When school board members call me to ask about this issue, this is what I tell them. Kathryn Bush, DPI school psychology consultant kathryn.bush@dpi.wi.gov

Don Juve 10/03/13 12:39 PM CSTI worked in a building last year where a mental health provider came to the school to work with students.  This was paid for and arranged by the parent (or parent's insurance).  In one situation, the mental health provider was helpful by encouraging a parent to allow his son to participate in a special eudcation evaluation.  The student's needs were met by the parents, mental health provider and school working together.  Collaboration appears to be the key in this situation.  If the private mental health provider did not work together with the school and parents, I would question the effectiveness of this practice.

Linda Servais 10/03/13 10:18 AM CSTI just talked with another school psychologist yesterday who will not be coming to our fall convention because she did not think it had enough academic topics related to RTI.  She does not feel we should be so heavy into mental health at our conventions.  She likes having some mental health, and is aware of the mental health certificate, but would still like to have some diversity and much more academics/interventions to bring back to her practice.  The reason I bring this up is because you can see this psychologist is not so heavy into being a mental health provider in her school district.  Now, this is just one person, but there are others' like her in the state. I feel there needs to be a balance between assisting with RTI and providing mental health services.  My district has invited community therapists into our school through a grant and it has worked out beautifully.  There are many needy children in our schools and I believe we can work alongside the community providers to make sure there are services offered not only for the students, but also for their families.

Michael Lackas 10/03/13 8:50 AM CSTHello,

In response to John's question I think it would be great if we could agree that we want to be the mental health experts in the schools and handle these issues without clinic asistance or leadership.  However, I believe there is a faction of school psychologists and probably other pupil services staff who are fine with clinical staff taking the lead in mental health issues.  This faction feels their administration is expecting them to lead in the RTI process and they have their hands full with this process and role change.  They are not necessaarily viewed as leaders in the school on mental health and right now they are ok with that.  So I don't believe we can assume that because we are trained to do this work we all WANT to do it.  I had a conversation recently with two experienced school psychologists who felt WSPA needs to lead in interventions and RTI info right now and not spend as much time on mental health at this point in the whole role change process.  They indicated that their administrators preferred to get mental health services from outside and right now they were pleased with that approach. One went on to say that WSPAy better get on board with this and focus on member needs (RTI) or we will lose more members.

Are these isolated opinions or do others see/feel the same?Benjamin Burns 10/03/13 8:44 AM CSTIn my district we are just starting to have outside mental health providers provide services in the school setting, so my input is admittedly based upon a very small sample size of experiences, but I have found that this practice greatly improves our ability to collaborate and coordinate services.  I think this is especially helpful for our students that really need the consistency of support across settings.

In the past we have had several situations where parent follow through, either in scheduling appointments or actually being able to bring the student to the appointments, has been inconsistent at best.  Many parents may be uncomfortable navigating the 'system' to be able to schedule the appointments, or may get into power struggles if students don't want to go.  If these services were to be provided during the school day, on school grounds, it could eliminate some of these concerns, as well as reduce some of the pressure currently on the parents.

John Humphries 10/02/13 9:01 PM CSTHello:

The WSPA Mental Health Committee would like your feedback. Numerous possible laws are being discussed at the Capitol that would allow a stronger presence of clinical mental health staff in schools. How do you feel about this? Would you like to defer some of the more serious mental health situations to a clinical provider in your school? This would be someone employed by another agency, not the district. Or, would you rather keep clinics at arms-length, as they are now, and do your best to collaborate with them while you work to meet the needs of your students directly?

Thanks!

Crisis Intervention/PreparationCharles Dykstra 11/10/14 9:37 PM CSTI'm wondering about definitions here.  In my district we developed individual student crisis plans that were designed to address issues such as suicidal ideation, personal safety, self-injurious behavior, anger management, etc.  Our school wide crisis plans involved building responses to situations which might involve lock-downs or evacuiaton, which in some cases tied to IEP's if certain safety measures needed to be taken into account (access to an inhaler, insulin, evacuation plan, etc.)

So I think defining the meaning of the term "crisis plan" may be helpful.Nicholas Westphal 11/08/14 6:02 PM CSTI am also interested in more discussion around this topic. In a conversation recently in our District, the question was posed about whether individual student crisis plans would be needed if a comprehensive and practiced school-wide crisis team was in plan. Thoughts?

Sara Borchardt 11/08/14 5:43 PM CSTHi Everyone,

I'm a school psychology graduate student at UW-Whitewater. I'm researching the crisis intervention methods that school psychologists use and whether or not you feel well-prepared in the event of a school crisis. Please let me know your thoughts about this issue as any advice or information would be beneficial for me to hear!

PREPaRE workshop follow-upScott Woitaszewski 10/25/13 6:18 PM CSTThere has been lots of discussion in Wisconsin about approaches to deter school intruders. While I agree - schools should consider a variety of vulnerabilities, including school shooters/intruders -  I believe the following anecdote from a PREPaRE trainer in Kansas is particularly enlightening. I hope you'll forgive the reposting...I just couldn't say it any better myself!

I ran a PREPaRE training recently and the issue of the active school shooter came up as a key focus.  I may be in the minority in my take on this, but here's how I responded:

I first relayed a discussion I had with my daughter last year, who was in sixth grade at the time, about run, hide, fight.  During school they'd had a lengthy discussion of active shooter procedures with them, including explicit discussion of the means they might use to fight if needed.  She said they were told to pick up chairs and, as a group, to charge the shooter pushing their way into the classroom.

I then relayed how a few weeks before this PREPaRE training, I had been on an internship visit in a large, wealthy midwestern school district.  I met with administration and supervisors in a large, beautiful, nearly new middle school.  When I inquired about the construction zone at the front of this nearly-new building, with pride they described how the school board had recently allocated nearly one million dollars to renovate the front to make it more secure against shooters.

Then I relayed this:  Just last year in my daughter's building, there was a suicide of a parent.  She'd been a long-time volunteer, helped run a scouting group, and so on... very emotionally close to many of the children in that building, and the school did NOTHING.  My offer to assist the school in better handling the crisis was rejected:  I was essentially told that by doing something, they might create a crisis.  And in the aforementioned wealthy school district dropping a million bucks to put bulletproof glass and other measures around the entrance of their middle school, they had NO suicide prevention program.  They had a passive referral process, well, in some years anyway... that's it.

So what I conveyed in the training is this:  Violent incidents have declined in the past twenty years.  For instance, in the 2010-11 school year, 11 students died at school from homicide, out of a total school student population of 55 million.  Yet in my state, approximately 20 school aged children die by suicide each YEAR, yet most buildings have no suicide prevention programs.

So while I can appreciate the intent of school officials having my daughter do drills on what to do should somebody burst into her building and try to shoot her, statistically I think she'd be better off if school personnel would focus on proactive mental health programs which build resilience and screen for anxiety, depression, and suicidal behavior.

-------------------------------------------James Persinger NCSPProfessorEmporia State UniversityEmporia KS-------------------------------------------

Scott Woitaszewski 10/25/13 6:09 PM CSTAt the PREPaRE Workshop 1 in Eau Claire, an audience member asked about the typical "profile" of an active school shooter. I was unable to provide the data at the time but would like to report some information here:

There is no consistent profile of attackers who become active shooters. Shooters vary significantly in demographic and other characterstics Between 2008 and 2013, 85 school shootings took place across 29 states. About half of the attackers (2008-2013) were students of the school. The other half

were unaffiliated. The majority of "known" motives involved avenging a perceived wrong or a way to

end pain/suffering through suicide.

The above information was gleanded from the attachment.

I hope that helps.

Scott

 School Shootings - 5-year analysis.pdfScott Woitaszewski 10/25/13 6:01 PM CSTAs a PREPaRE presenter in our state, I welcome the opportunity to continue to communicate with workshop participants after workshops have ended. Often times there is not enough time to address every question or extend good discussions. Please feel free to post your comments/questions here. I will check back periodically.

PREPaRE TrainingBetty DeBoer 07/02/14 12:09 PM CSTTo follow up on Scott's post below..... Who is using ALICE?  I thought the Green Bay Area Schools were training staff in this area.  If you are from Green Bay or anothe school with ALICE, how is it going?  What are your thoughts?  Reactions of parents/ teachers/ administrators/ pupil services staff?  Any comments would be appreciated.

Scott Woitaszewski 10/25/13 5:56 PM CSTI am interested in honest opinions from individuals working in schools using ALICE or some other "Fight/Flee" approach. It seems to be gainining in popularity in our state. Has your school been trained? What are your views on it? What about the views of your non-mental health colleagues?

Katherine Ashley 10/20/13 8:29 AM CSTKim ahd Kathryn just provided the Levvel 1 PREPaRE training to the DeForest Area School District's school counselors, school social worker, and school psychologists. I thought the training was outstanding and the information a valuable tool to support what our district has been doing. Our Director of Student Services, David Perrodin, is working on his Ph.D. in the subject of crisis response; so, our district safety steering committee has been up-to-speed for quite some time on best practice. PREPaRE fully aligns with what we've been developing. ALICE, on the other hand, would most likely not be something we would move forward with, given the component of active staff invovlement in the confrontation of intruders. I'll need more information. I suspect we may have our entire district steering committee trained in PREPaRE in the future. Looking forward to the Level 2 training.

Betty DeBoer 09/30/13 7:29 PM CSTDPI wants to endorse the PREPaRE model but they are also considering the ALICE model as an add on.  I'll be talking to DPI about my thoughts on the ALICE model, now that I have been trained on it.  Is anyone else trained on the ALICE model or in a school that is using it?  The

Green Bay Area Schools are gearing up for it.Betty DeBoer 09/30/13 6:04 PM CSTWhere are your schools in terms of PREPaRE training?  Are any schools also looking at other crisis prevention and/or intervention approaches?

Physicians and SPEDJohn Humphries 08/10/14 8:40 PM CSTHere's the link to DPI's document.

http://sped.dpi.wi.gov/files/sped/pdf/sld-plain-language.pdfJohn Humphries 07/31/14 5:58 PM CSTMany of you have seen the new resource from DPI about physician roles in special education. Attached is a draft of a letter we're planning to send to local docs to update them on these issues. Have a look, post a comment!

JH

Letter to Docs.docx

testing for early entrance into 4KMarlene Howe 03/25/15 9:49 AM CSTOur district allows early entrance into 4K. An IQ test is part of the criteria. However, don't you think that should be given at the beginning of the school year, or a few days before school begins. This is still 6 months away; so to test now instead of then? These are babies...3.6 yrs. old or younger right now. What are your thoughts?

Early entrance into 4KStephanie Nohr 10/02/14 10:05 AM CSTWe do not allow early entrance to 4k in our district.  The student must be 4 years old by the start of the school year.

Marlene Howe 09/22/14 11:43 AM CSTOk, nevermind the early entrance into 4K.  Thanks anyways.

Marlene Howe 09/19/14 10:30 PM CSTWould love to know what your district's policy is regarding early entrance into 4K.  The district I'm in right now does not have a policy, where some, I know, won't even consider early entrance at all.  We want to develop a policy, and would appreciate if you could e-mail me a copy of yours. We have a 3.9 year old that is being considered 3 weeks after school started???  Thanks so much!! Howem@turnerschools.org

AIMSweb 2.0Sheri Pease 02/04/15 2:16 PM CSTPlease share your experiences migrating from AIMSweb 1.0 to AIMSweb 2.0.  We planned to make the switch at the beginning of the school year but encountered too many problems with the process.  Has anyone gone through migration successfully.  Are you pleased with 2.0?  Thanks!

Senior evaluationsKatherine Menden 05/29/14 2:46 PM CSTThe high school psychologists in my district are trying to get a better understanding of what other districts are doing for graduating seniors who are going on to some form of post-secondary education.  Currently, we have been doing testing and writing reports for seniors that ask for a psychologist’s report to take to a disabilities office or to provide to colleges.  We are having a difficult time keeping up with workloads, however, and want to know what other districts are doing based on legal and ethical guidelines.  Are psychologists doing comprehensive testing and reports with just a written consent from parent or 18-year-old student?  Are they referring students to private testing?  Are they opening up a full reevaluation within a year of graduation?  Any input would be greatly appreciated!

waiving re-evalsAmy Jordan 12/18/13 10:16 AM CSTHolly--email me directly at jordanamy@aasd.k12.wi.us

I can forward you the guidelines that have recently been put in place by special ed administration in my district.

Amy Jordan, SP/Appleton Area School DistrictHolly Besting 12/10/13 2:15 PM CSTHello,

I'm wondering what, if any, critieria districts are using for deciding to waive re-evaluations for students?  We are looking to establish some guidelines for waiving re-evaluations at the elementary level.

Thanks!

IES Study on RtI EffectivenessJohn Humphries 11/15/15 1:05 PM CSTI invite members to share perspectives on the IES study of RtI effectiveness here. Speaking as someone who has been given a lot of latitude and support for RtI implementation in multiple schools, I can honestly say it is quite a challenge to design and implement an effective system. I continue to think that we need articulated models to work from, and that once we have the basics down, that we can build from there. We are often told in effect "there is no one right way to do this." While I am sure that is true, I know there is a way to "do" RtI that works--it's the model articulated in research. Identifying those models and practices should be our focus.

Guided Reading PlusChris Christofferson 03/15/16 8:50 AM CSTI'm wondering if any districts are using Guided Reading Plus as a Tier 2 intervention, or as a SRBI towards an SLD referral?

Assessing reading for an initial SLD evaluation

Gregory Jenks 03/05/14 12:47 PM CSTWe switched from the WJ/GORT to the WIAT about two years ago and feel it is a better instrument for our uses.  Part of the problem was the age of the WJ so will be interesting to see what the new one looks like.  WIAT has an Oral Reading Fluency piece so it's nice to not have to administer that as well.  We also add the Oral and Written Language Scales (OWLS)-like it as a measure of written language and as a 2nd measure of reading comprehension.

Tracy Simonson 01/10/14 9:17 AM CSTI would also be interested in hearing what other districts are using.  We currently use the WJ-Achievement Tests and supplement with the GORT to get a better look at reading fluency.   Since the WJ Achievement Tests are being revised soon, we thought it would be a good time to take a closer look at what we use. We are considering changing to the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test battery.  Does anyone have any experience with the WIAT?

Tracey Kelz 12/04/13 1:22 PM CSTI was hoping I could get some feedback on what other districts are using to assess basic reading, reading fluency, and reading comprehension as part of an intiial SLD evaluation. We currently use the WJ-ACH and have added the GORT.  If anyone could comment on what they use and the pros/cons, I would appreciate it.

Thank you

Parent Guide to SLD/RtI EvalsJohn Humphries 08/02/14 6:05 AM CSTHere's a link to a document for parents from DPI using the DPI logo, which is a nice way to give parents reassurance that your evaluations using RtI are following state requirements.

http://sped.dpi.wi.gov/files/sped/pdf/sld-plain-language.pdf

John Humphries 05/02/14 12:26 PM CSTDoes anyone have a link to a nice guide to SLD evaluations and RtI for parents? Please post.

Thanks,

JH

Parent Referral for SLD in RtIKatherine Ashley 10/20/13 10:23 AM CSTWe are able to make an eligibility determination if the student presents adequate classroom achievement based upon the universal screener, etc. We would send home the notice of referral, the "no additional assessment needed" form, invite, and then hold the meeting, determining the student does not demonstrate SLD. I think some districts believe they can stop the process from moving forward vis-a-vis the referral, meeting, and determination pieces. We would want to honor the parent's request; however, we do not need to conduct needless intensive interventions.

John Humphries 10/02/13 8:57 PM CSTCheck out the DPI FAQ on SLD and RtI @ http://sped.dpi.wi.gov/files/sped/pdf/sld-faq.pdf

The response to question #7 includes this statement:

"Pursuant to Wis. Stats.§115.782, if, upon the review of existing evaluation data, the IEP team determines the student demonstrates adequate classroom achievement or sufficient progress needed to meet age or state-approved grade-level standards, the IEP team may make an eligibility decision."

I think that's pretty direct and clear. It leaves you with a situation where parents can refer as often as they want and as long as the student is making good progress, you would be fine not going farther with the evaluation.

John Humphries for Andy 10/02/13 8:51 PM CSTWhat happens when a parent requests an evaluation due to academic concerns, however, based on the student's performance on universal screening measures and classroom performance, is not provided additional intervention? Does the student then have to be put into an academic intervention for the referral to be processed? Given the structure of the new criteria, how could an IEP team answer an eligiblity question when the student's skill level does not warrant additional intervention?

I understand that school teams can be pro-active with parents in communicating how their child is doing to help ward off some of these types of situations. However, it has and will happen going forward. Any thoughts on how to address such a situation?

Question regarding I.Q. Testing and new SLD criteriaKatherine Ashley 10/20/13 8:45 AM CSTHi Scott.Here are my thoughts...

The new criteria rather specifically requires:

"1. Inadequate Classroom Achievement. The student does not achieve adequately for his/her age/grade after intensive intervention in one of the areas.

2. Insufficient response to intensive scientific, research-based or evidence based intervention. The student does not make sufficient progress to meet age or grade-level standards following at least two intensive scientific, research or evidence based interventions implemented with adequate fidelity and closely aligned to individual student needs."

3. Exclusionary factors are not the primary cause of the student's learning delays.

I see traditional testing as providing documentation that intensive interventions were closely aligned to student need. That said, traditional intellectual assessment will not be required.

Regarding your second question,

As you know, a reevaluation requires the following documentation:1. Exclusionary factors not primary cause of learning problems.2. "The student was previously found eligible as having the impairment of SLD."3. "The student does not meet general education expectations due to needs resulting from SLD. When determining ifthe student does not meet general education expectations, the IEP team should review existing classroom achievement and IEPprogress data. Such data is an important source of information from which the IEP team determines whether the student has a

continuing need for special education. The IEP team determines if additional assessment is needed to complete the reevaluation."Standardized assessment may or may not be necessary to determine #3. The student does not need to meet the -1.25 cut score to demontrate inadequate classroom achievement.4. "The student continues to need special education to address needs resulting from the impairment of SLD."

I see the school psychologist facilitating progress monitoring and conducting more achievement testing, taking that burden off of case managers. I also see case managers needing to increase their skill sets related to baseline documentation, goal setting, interventions, and progress monitoring. What do you think?

Scott Ford 10/16/13 7:13 PM CSTHi everybody, and sorry I'm late (went am I not right??)

        Ok, so one of our SPED teachers approached me with a couple of interesting questions that I thought would make for thoughtful discussion among my learned colleages. She first asked about the new SLD criteria and whether or not we would continue to test students as we had before. I responded that yes, we can test if the information is something we feel will add to our understanding of the student in order to make a more informed decision on their behalf; we are just no longer able to make an LD placement based in large part on a discrepancy between cognitive ability and one or more areas of academic achievement. She then inquired as to what happens if testing is completed and scores identify the student as working at their ability level, but that level is below average in comparison to their same-age peers. Do we then go ahead and identify that child as LD based upon their performance with RTI alone since that would not have been the case prior to the change? She then went on to ask about reevaluations and students already identified as LD before the SLD rule change. Since we can no longer use the discrepancy method, what then do we rely upon as evidence in determining the child's ongoing eligibility for LD placement? I hope this is all making sense as this has been one heck of a long day, and I really didn't have answers for her at the time.Scott F.

Intensive InterventionsJohn Humphries 02/05/14 8:59 PM CSTI would agree that SSR is questionable, at best, as an intervention. Check out Kathryn Bush's article in the Sentinel about careful consumption of research. She doesn't go so far as to say it, but I think she might argue that LLI is not an SRBI...th7ayr

Jennifer Vogelsberg 02/05/14 9:07 AM CSTIn my disrict the school psychs, district reading specialist, pupil service/sped director, and administrators are working together to select/determine "intensive interventions", with the school psychs taking the lead. We are utilizing resources such as What Works Clearninghouse, National Center on Response to Intervention, WI RtI Center, and DPI SLD guidance materials to help us make decisions.

Heidi Horton 01/24/14 10:30 AM CSTAs your districts are building their RTI frameworks, how are you selecting or designing interventions that meet the "intensive intervention" guidelines specified in the WI SLD Rule technical guide. I am curious as to how these decisions are being made across districts. For example, is this being left to one person (an administrator, reading specialist school psychologist, etc.)? Is the decision made by small teams at the building level? At the district level? Which stake holders are included? In talking with local districts, it seems this is quite variable.

Also, have you had any disagreement on what constitutes an "intensive intervention" in your districts? I recently learned that one of the grade levels in my district is implementing daily SSR as a reading intervention for struggling adolescent readers with conferencing occuring

every two days.  I have not found research to support SSR as an intervention for struggling adolescent readers, nor do I believe it fits the definition of "intensive intervention" in the DPI guide. It seems to be more of an instructional practice that is good for the majority of readers at the core curriculum level.  What are your thoughts? Please share any research you have that would either support or not support this practice. Thank you!

Another fidelity questionJessie Stevenson 02/13/14 2:27 PM CSTHas anybody found third party research on Do the Math and Do the Math, Now?  If so, could you please post a link?  Thank you.8

Kathleen Jensen 12/13/13 12:44 PM CSTJohn, thank you for sharing information regarding Dodgeville on this topic at our recent  CESA 6 meeting.   I have shared the two math interventions presented with our district but we have not been able to find any third party evaluation or any documentation indicating these are research /evidence based interventions.  Can you refer us to any research supporting either the "Number Worlds" or "Do the Math?"

Thanks!John Humphries 11/23/13 5:52 AM CSTI'm not familiar with that particular intervention, but I wonder whether the teacher's guide or manual says anthing about it? The other option is to then refer to the research studies that got it onto the official RtI Center list to see how much time it was being used for in that study and use that as your benchmark. You then just log when the student goes to the intervention and for how long. Have kids sign in and out. The IEP team just makes a simple comparison then as to what got results (research), and what the student actually received (log).

Veronica Milling 11/07/13 9:00 AM CSTIn order to obtain fidelity, how do you determine amount of time,  days a week, etc. to implement an intervention when the protocol is not listed?  For example, our district has Growing with Math as a viable intervention --its on the WI RTI Center Intensive Intervention list and we already have it in the district.  There is no information on WI RTI Center or BEE's website that initially vetted it as to a protocol.  I have come across some information from Fuchs on the RTI Action Network that lists Tier 3 in general as 1-2 students, 5 days a week, 45 minutes per session.  Barring no other information available, would this be a standard to adopt then?  or if someone is using Growing with Math and has found information on its protocol for intervention, that would also be helpful.  Thanks!

fidelity checklistsVeronica Milling 01/30/14 1:16 PM CSTCurious how other districts are planning to document intervention fidelity.   Our district has an intervention log to track that the intervention was implemented at least 80%of the designated time (sufficiency).  We also are in process of delineating a checkllist or checklists for "critical observable components" (pg 39-40 of the SLD guide).  The school psych will use this checklist ehen oberving to document that the intervention was implemented  in a manner highly consistent with its design.

Could one generic checklist suffice to document fidelity itegrity-that lists critical components of intensive interventions generally based on research e.g. high level of corrective feedback, consistent use of odr's)

 or is a critical components checklist specific to each  each program/intervention the district

uses (e.g. one specific to LLI, one specific to Words their Way, one specific to Corrective Reading, etc)  needed?

Fidelity checks for intensive interventionsVeronica Milling 11/06/13 1:59 PM CSTIn order to obtain fidelity, how do you determine amount of time,  etc. to implement an intervention when the protocol is not listed?  For example, our district has Growing with Math as a viable intervention --its on the WI RTI Center Intensive Intervention list and we already have it in the district.  There is no information on WI RTI Center or BEE's website that initially vetted it as to a protocol.  I have come across some information from Fuchs on the RTI Action Network that lists Tier 3 in general as 1-2 students, 5 days a week, 45 minutes per session. Barring no other information available, would this be a standard to adopt then?  Thanks!

Holly Besting 10/30/13 7:53 PM CSTIn our district, the core of our fidelity monitoring is through an intervention log; documenting the dates of the intervention, length of time of each session, and a brief description of the lesson (lesson #, lesson focus, etc.).  In addition, we are completing one implementation fidelity check per intervention, using a format similar to the link you referenced.  We found that many of the packaged interventions include a checklist of essential components that we based our implementation fidelity checks on.  The fidelity checks are being completed by our lead reading teacher, myself, the director of pupil services, or the director of curriculum/instruction.  The implementation of interventions and our problem solving process has been a collaborative process including the interventionist and the four people who are completing fidelity checks.  Although there was some apprehension about an evaluative component, as our conversations have centered on how we can get better at implementing interventions as a school, the concerns have dissipated quite a bit.

Scott Moline 10/29/13 12:44 PM CSTMy big question at the moment is fidelity checks.  Specifically, who does them and does that person do?  I don't want to do them, as I'm a peer, but my teachers would prefer me (i.e. school psych.) rather than an administrator bc they don't want to runn the risk of the fidelity check being used for teacher evaluation purposes.  Also, it seems there are several different ways to do fidelity checks. http://rtinetwork.org/getstarted/evaluate/treatment-integrity-protocols has a lot of protocols for different interventions.  Is having your principal use these protocols every couple of weeks the best way to go?  Any other ideas or suggestions?

Are completed probes considered protocols?Amy Jordan 05/08/14 2:31 PM CSTHi--we need some guidance in my district regarding what to do with progress-monitoring probes that have been written on by either the evaluator (ex: oral reading fluency probes), or the student (ex: math and writing probes).

Can they be shredded?.......or are they considered protocols?

How are other districts handling the decision about what to keep and what to shred?

Any advice would be appreciated!

Amy Jordan/SP

Appleton Area School District

Tier 3 Observation RequirementsJennifer Vogelsberg 02/05/14 9:32 AM CSTGood questions Amy. #46 in the Frequently Asked Q and A's does that that only one observation during intensive intervention needs to be conducted. However, I am wondering if this means one observation for each area of concern. So, if there is only one area of concern, only one observation needs to be done, but if there are two areas of concern, would two observations need to be done?

Tracey Kelz 12/04/13 1:39 PM CSTHi Amy,

We are going to require observations for any student with a Tier 3 intervention since there is always a possibility that you may end up with a referral.  If you do end up with a referral, then you have your intervention observation documented.  If it doesn't end up as a referral, then it still doesn't hurt for someone to be observing the intervention fidelity for those students who are having significant difficulties. Now, if you have a large number of students in Tier 3, then this could be time-consuming. However, if a large number of students are in Tier 3, I would be looking at my Tier 1 and Tier 2 curriculum and interventions to see if they are effective for most students. We also use an intervention log (the person providing the intervention completes) in conjunction with the observation so that we have two documents for the 80% fidelity component.  We require the intervention logs to be completed for all Tier 3 students as well. Hope this helps!

TraceyAmy Jordan 11/20/13 10:32 AM CST

Hi everyone: My colleagues and I need some clarification about Tier 3 observations. It was our thinking that to ensure a Tier 3 intervention “counted” (if it were to go on to a special education referral) a fidelity check /observation would be needed (along with all of the other requirements, including weekly PMing) for bothintensive interventions. On pg. 14 of the Frequently Asked Questions About SLD Eligibility Decisions document, it indicates that only one observation is needed between the two intensive interventions. If that is the case, it is our thought that we wouldn’t need to do observations of Tier 3 interventions outside of special education referrals. How do you all understand this?Amy Jordan/SP, Appleton Area School District

Setting BaselineScott Moline 05/05/14 12:54 PM CSTNo offence to anybody, but Aimsweb has a little more experience in this area than DPI does!  : )  For what it is worth, doing the base-line setting at one time works just fine for me.  Also, doing the three probes all at the same time works just fine when doing the tri-annual screening, so it should also work just fine for base-line setting.

Lynda Lacina 05/02/14 2:28 PM CSTThanks for your response John.  So baseline should be set with the median of three probes. AIMSweb states that all three benchmark probes need to be given back to back.  DPI is saying that it is not best practice to give all three probes on the same day.  Please advise...

John Humphries 05/02/14 12:25 PM CSTHi Linda:

Nine probes sounds like a real mess. Even if the student is having a bad day, that doesn't mean that their trend line will forever be anchored to that low spot where they started. The regression line should adjust after they show better skills on subsequent assessments. Hope this helps.

JHLynda Lacina 04/10/14 4:07 PM CSTI have been getting a lot of conflicting information regarding setting baseline data.  At the DPI workshop I attended last week, the presenters stated that it is not best practice to give all three probes on the same day (because the student may be having a particularly bad day). We contacted AIMSweb regarding this, and they said all three probes for R-CBM need to be given in one sitting back to back.  So does this mean you are actually giving 9 probes to set the baseline for R-CBM (thre probes one day, three probes the second day, and three probes the third day) and then plotting the median of each of those three probes?

Tier 2 DecisionsJohn Humphries 03/19/14 4:40 PM CSTSee attached for an excellent article about Tier 2 decision-making from the RtI Action Network. This is yet another reason why highly reliable data are necessary in an RtI system: Tier 2 decisions are high-stakes.

Comments?

What process do you use for Tier 2 decision-making? Are your teams avoiding bias? Are you part of the decision?

Enjoy!

JH

 Tier2Decisions.pdf

SondayScott Moline 04/09/14 1:35 PM CSTI actually don't have good research on it, but for whatever reason, it was the only "program" that my district had around and that title 1 was familiar with.  As such, we've been using it as our first tier level 3 "go to" and it has been very effective.  Both Sonday 1 (grades K-3) and Sonday 2 (grades 4-12) have kept several kids in my district out of spec. ed already this year.  It turns out Sonday is a version of Orton-Gillingham.  So the Orton-Gillingham research should generally apply to the Sonday System.  I know it isn't on the What Works Clearinghouse, but from my experience it is one of the most effective tier 3 (or tier 2 for that mater) interventions we have in my district.

Jennifer Vogelsberg 02/26/14 8:46 AM CSTAre any of you familiar with the Sonday Reading System? I have staff wondering if this can be used for intensive intervention purposes and I have not been able to find much information on it. I did find that it is prescribed for 40 minutes daily for 4-5 days per week for intensive intervention. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Leveled Literacy Intervention - Tier 3?John Humphries 03/01/14 12:23 PM CSTGreat thoughts both of you!

I talked with Kathryn Bush from DPI last week about LLI and a few other things. Here are a couple of issues. We talked about the effect sizes reported on the site Scott mentions, and there seem to be acceptable ranges for reading in grades K-1 for a pretty limited sample size in one study. With that in mind, it puts a lot of pressure on us to be careful whether we consider this to be one of the interventions for SLD. As I mentioned at the fall conference, our core curriculum is actually an intervention (Reading Mastery), so using LLI seems to help a lot of our students. I consider it a Tier 2 standard protocol intervention, and the folks who I have talked about with this from DPI seem to concur. Kathryn is suggesting that LLI is not an intensive SRBI for SLD...

Scott Moline 02/14/14 7:54 AM CSTThe National Center of Intensive Interventions reviews 1 study on LLI and actually reports that it has a good effect size.  Seehttp://www.intensiveintervention.org/chart/instructional-intervention-tools.  You'll have to click on the "effect size" tab to see the effect size.  That said, I'm not a fan as my title teachers also use LLI for pretty much everything without necessary having a lot of success.  Since it is their first approach, my district is considering LLI to be a tier 2.  Maybe you can convince your reading teachers to use it as tier 2 since they are doing so already?  And then you can argue that tier 3 actually needs to be something different than tier 2.  Something for you to consider is that the likliehood of your LLI being implemented with fidelity is pretty low.  So that will need to somehow be verified before you can count it as an intensive intervention.  Since your teachers aren't using actual progress monitoring tools however, I think the intervention simply doesn't matter for SLD purposes.  Maybe just show your teachers the SLD graphing tool at sped.dpi. wi .gov/files/sped/xls/ sld - data - graphing - tool .xls  and ask them to give a running record 3 times so you can establish a baseline and then do it once/week so you can chart the results.  Possibly then they would see this can't be done.  Good luck!  : )

Kelly Korn 02/10/14 12:27 PM CST

At the fall Wisconsin School Psychologist Conference in Eau Claire it was presented to us in a session about the new SLD rule presented by John Humphries and Jackie Weissenburger that Leveled Literacy Intervention is considered a Tier 2 intervention. It should not be used as a Tier 3 intervention. They explained LLI is a comprehensive reading intervention that encompasses reading fluency, comprehension, writing, vocabulary etc. Therefore, since it does not target a specific discrete skill it can not be considered a Tier 3 intervention when considering a student for a Specific Learning Disability.

My question is - Does anyone know if there is written documentation of this that I could provide my district? Our reading interventionists continue to use LLI as a Tier 3 based on their comfort level and their belief that LLI meets the needs of all students who struggle with reading and writing. Another concern is they are not using AIMSweb or any CBM to progress monitor. They only look at Fountas and Pinnell running record (given 3 times a year) to

determine if the student continues to need LLI. We have some students who have received 2+ years of LLI without any progress monitoring data. Since LLI has been in our district for 10 years this is a major road block to successful implementation of RtI. If anyone has their thoughts or can help clarify it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Math InterventionsChris Christofferson 10/29/13 12:43 PM CSTHi John,

Our math folks are interested in this as well, and it seems to align with our core instructional philosophies nicely.  I just reviewed a transfer file for a student who participated in this intervention last year (WI district).  The student had an aimsweb chart attached and showed significant progress over the course of the intervention.

We are likely going to pilot this in Rice Lake, so to be continued.Katherine Ashley 10/20/13 8:56 AM CSTHaven't heard of this program John. Will look into it.

John Humphries 10/03/13 8:27 PM CSTWe are considering the purchase of "Do the Math" from Scholastic by Marilyn Burns. Math folks are excited about it, but as far as I can see there are few outcome studies. I would have to say this the program is research-based but not evidence-based. One study took place in Miami-Dade and one in New York. The Miami study used their statewide test as the outcome measure, and showed strong gains. I don't know much about the NYC study.

From what we have seen the modules follow a progression that flows concrete-representational-abstract learning towards fluency, lessons also follow the gradual release of responsibility protocols: I do, We do, You do with a partner, You do independently. It's pretty scripted; many of our elementary educators do not have training geared specifically to math instruction and best practices. The lessons have embedded both the Content Standards as well as the Standards for Mathematical Practice.  There are formative assessment tools for the teacher.  We would be using AIMSweb PM tools to monitor progress.

Anyone know more? Anyone using this with AIMSweb? Results?

Thanks

Progress Monitoring ToolsVeronica Milling 01/23/14 11:43 AM CSTMy district is using Aimsweb for Progress Monitoring.  Since Aimsweb uses least squares regression for charting, the same as the DPI SLD charting program, will we need to also use the DPI SLD charting program to chart the slope of progress?  I ask since Aimsweb  requires 3 probes for determining baseline for Oral Reading only, not for any of the other reading or math areas.  The DPI SLD charting program has a spot for three baseline probes.  Also, the guide does not specify the timing of the three baseline probes, do these have to be done on

different days.  My understanding is they can be done on the same day, back to back.Jacalyn Weissenburger 11/15/13 8:49 AM CSTI do not know what the frustration is due to regarding written expression CBMs, but I know scoring can be cumbersome. Elementary students can be progress monitored using 3 minute probes and scored for correct word sequences (good reliability and validity evidence here). However, AIMSweb uses 3 minute probes in written expression for both middle and high school students. This is a BAD idea, as the reliability and validity evidence indicates that the written expression probes need to be at least 7 minutes long. I have normative data on CBMs of written expression from 3 districts in Wisconsin for 4th, 8th, and 10th graders for 3-, 5-, and 10-minute probes. I can send this info to you upon request.

Districts need to train their scorers if you decide to use correct word sequences (CWS) at any level.

Amy Jordan 11/07/13 10:11 AM CSTGeneral question for those using AIMSWEB:  Are there norms for the skill-specific math computation probes?

Thanks,

AmyAndrew Kastner 10/28/13 8:05 AM CSTHeidi,

We are going to use it for the high school level as well.  We haven't actually started PM yet with those students so I can't comment on how well it is or isn't going.

Can I ask how you are using AIMSweb at the lower levels for progress monitoring? Do you find the R-CBM to be a good PM measure for primarily grades 2-5 and the MAZE better at middle school? How has your district used AIMSweb for PM?

AndyHeidi Horton 10/23/13 1:48 PM CSTWe are using AIMSweb for reading and math grades K-8 (screening and progress monitoring). Our elementary school began using the AIMSweb writing prompts for benchmarking last year. Our high school is considering the use of AIMSweb probes to progress monitor for select intervention groups as there are norms for 9-12.  Is anyone else using this at the high school level?

Katherine Ashley 10/20/13 10:33 AM CSTWe'll be using STAR Enterprise for Reading and Math. The specificity of skills is fair for initial diagnostics. Not sure what I will think about the information provided with progress monitoring. We haven't narrowed down the other areas at this point. CBM measure certainly. Not sure what we will do about written language. Since we aren't doing AIMSWeb, we can't have access to their spelling/written language system seperately.

Has anyone even thought about listening comprehension, etc.?Gregory Jenks 10/02/13 6:10 PM CSTWe too are using AIMS in Franklin and are generally pleased.  One issue is that we have some upper elementary students that are fine oral readers but struggle with comprehension.  My experience is that Mazes really does not do any better at getting at that comprehenison concern as performance on those probes tends to mirror ORF.  Spelling seems to lend itself pretty well to be assessed by CBM's but I've been very disappointed with written

expression . . . reflects the frustration of trying to find a good standardized written language test.  The Computation and Concepts & Applications are good but it would be nice if the shorter 2-minute probes were normed . . .doing 2-8 minute probes each week is proving cumbersome.

John Humphries 10/01/13 7:56 PM CSTWhat are people using for progress monitoring tools? In my district we use AIMSweb, and quite pleased, though it would be nice to have version 2.0 out. We think the new functionality, using evidence for rate of progress, will be really meaningful for our teachers.

WSPA's Letter on CCSS 2-19-14Christine Peterson 03/04/14 10:45 PM CSTThank you for making time to attend this important session. It is unbelievable to me that this legislation could be so quickly proposed and voted on, with minimipal input from stakeholders. So to have our voice represented at the one opportunity to do so is critical. Thanks, again!

John Humphries 03/04/14 8:34 PM CST

February 19, 2014

Esteemed Legislators, Governor Walker, State Superintendent Evers:

On October 23rd 2013, the Wisconsin School Psychologists Association provided testimony to a legislative task force regarding implementation of the Common Core State Standards. At that time, we called for a number of important measures. These included:

Use the Common Core as a baseline of expectations. Provide more explicit definitions and clarify assumptions of the standards. Identify those areas of the Common Core that can be improved and provide more

information on how best to implement the new standards. Develop a task force to identify areas of needed improvement, along with resources to

support high-level implementation of the CCSS. These might be called "The Wisconsin CCSS Extension Standards." This would clearly identify those areas where our state wants Wisconsin students to excel beyond the national standards. Such a task force should include a broad and inclusive group of stakeholders, but also include national experts in reading and math skill acquisition who can guide Wisconsin as we move forward.

WSPA is very concerned with the proposed legislation being considered tomorrow in the Assembly Education Committee. The proposal does not begin with a baseline of the Common Core, and instead develops new standards from scratch, a challenge that Wisconsin has historically struggled with. The proposal does not include a broad and inclusive group of stakeholders. Expanding upon standards will require the involvement of

experts with a breadth and depth of training and experience that may be lacking in Wisconsin. We call upon the legislature to define and expand the work group participants for more complete representation and again, to include national experts.

Developing the Common Core State Standards took an enormous amount of work. Our professionals across the state are not yet fully versed in the new standards. How would we possibly expect them to create new, high-quality standards in a year? Ultimately, an excellent product comes from reasoned, thoughtful discussion. WSPA calls upon the legislature to extend the time period for creation of additional standards.

WSPA is concerned with the appropriate role of the state superintendent. The Wisconsin Constitution, Article X, states, “The supervision of public instruction shall be vested in a state superintendent and such other officers as the legislature shall direct.”  The delegate Lorenzo Bevans summarized his comments about the proposed office of state superintend by stating, “…who alone can give uniformity, energy, and efficiency to the system?” [Journal of the Convention of 1846, reprinted in the Attainment of Statehood 568 (Milo M. Quaife, ed., 1928)]

WSPA is very interested in supporting “uniformity, energy, and efficiency” in our system of state schools, as envisioned by the framers of our state constitution. We believe that adoption of the Common Core does precisely this, and that this is one reason why many groups including Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce have publicly given their support. What is the purpose of Wisconsin Standards if they are not aligned to nationally-normed tests or directly comparable to other state's standards? The future of the global marketplace involves competition on a grand scale. Wisconsin students should not be held apart from an opportunity to compete on the same playing field as students from other states. There is no reasonable rationale for taking Wisconsin out of the national conversation on educational outcomes.

Finally, as experts in assessment, we are very concerned with the possibility of the development of a replacement statewide assessment. It is inconceivable that an assessment developed for our state would be as comprehensive and meaningful as the Smarter Balanced Assessment. Furthermore, having one consistent assessment that is used across the nation gives us an excellent way to measure our student’s progress. This issue is one that should cause significant concern to all who are interested in moving our schools forward in

a uniform and efficient manner.

In summary, Wisconsin deserves higher standards, not replacement standards that could very easily be less rigorous than the Common Core. The proposal inserts politics into a process that should be focused on educational expertise. We again call upon you to use the Common Core as a baseline and add more clarity, rigor, and support for implementation.

Thank you again for your time and focus on these important educational issues.

/s/                                                         /s/                                                         /s/

John Humphries, NCSP                      Katie Ashley                                       Betty DeBoer, Ph. D.

President-Elect                                    Co-Chair, Legislative Committee       President

Co-Chair, Legislative Committee

johnhumphriesncsp@gmail.com

(608) 438-6109

WSPA's CCSS Testimony 10-23-13John Humphries 03/04/14 8:31 PM CST

Testimony on Common Core State Standards

October 23, 2013

Esteemed Legislators, State Superintendent Evers, Concerned Citizens, and Educators:

Thank you for this opportunity to provide comments on the Common Core State Standards. My name is John Humphries, and I am here to offer solutions

that respect the many positions on the important issues facing us today. I will be sharing the views of the Wisconsin School Psychologists Association, which I serve as President-Elect. I am also a former staff member of DPI, having served as the School Psychology consultant for 7 years before returning to the schools in 2011. I am a Nationally Certified and DPI-Licensed School Psychologist and Director of Special Education and Pupil Services. I currently work in that capacity in the Dodgeville, WI School District.

The primary purposes of WSPA are to serve the mental health and educational needs of all children and youth, and to facilitate and support the effective practice of school psychology. School psychologists are scientists in the field of education. We know and understand research-based practices that use student-level and system-level data to improve student outcomes. Wisconsin School Psychologists are required to hold at least an Educational Specialist level of training, with over 30 credit hours of Post-Master’s Degree, supervised practice. As opposed to some states, school psychologists in Wisconsin are eligible for private practice licensure through our Department of Safety and Professional Services. There are about 1,000 licensed school psychologists in our state. WSPA provides today’s comments with a unique perspective about the Common Core State Standards based on our backgrounds as scientist-practitioners. We agree with both the State Superintendent and with the Governor, and we have a recommendation for moving forward that takes both of perspectives into account.

First, we believe that the Common Core State Standards are a major step forward. Wisconsin’s history with the development of standards for our state was messy at best, and never resulted in the types of high standards that resulted in improved outcomes for our students. As Governor Walked cited in his 2010 Budget Request and again in 2013, “Looking at National Assessment of Educational Standards data historically shows that Wisconsin has not been in the top 10 states for 4th grade reading since 1998. In fact, a recent Harvard study measuring states' progress in both reading and math shows Wisconsin ranks 38th out of 41 states with complete data between 1992 and 2011.”

Very simply, if we want to improve outcomes for our students, we need higher, better, standards. WSPA believes that the Common Core does exactly that. Raising the academic bar through the Common Core will establish meaningful targets to get Wisconsin’s students back to being among the best in the nation. The Common Core was developed with the strong involvement of business and education leaders, Governors, and many teachers. There is broad

agreement on the positive impact they have had already. I have seen firsthand the significant, positive impact these new standards have had on our work in schools. The Common Core has required us to refocus our efforts. In Dodgeville for example, our staff spent hundreds of hours this summer re-working our curricula in order to align with the new, higher standards. We allocated tens of thousands of dollars toward this effort, and already our Board has been thrilled to see the excellent work of our staff. We felt it was important for our students to have a full year of Core-aligned instruction before they are assessed using the new Smarter Balanced Assessments. And WSPA believes that implementation of the Common Core State Standards should proceed as quickly as possible to maximize the impact of higher expectations. There is truly no time to waste.

With regard to the Smarter Balanced Assessments, WSPA would like to refute any concerns about privacy, utility, and scope of these assessments. The Smarter Balanced Assessments themselves are remarkably better than the current WKCE tests, yet the data are treated in very similar ways. These new assessment tools allow us to measure real-world educational skills rather than paper-pencil, rote learning.

Many students around Wisconsin have already taken the beta version of these tests, and in the process they have shown administrators, teachers, and parents the utility of advanced assessment tools. The assessments are focused on meaningful academic skills, and any concerns about testing outside of this scope are clearly unfounded. And finally, after the assessments are completed, the data are quickly used by educators to make important instructional decisions. All educators take our roles as data custodians very seriously, and WSPA would ask this committee to be very cautious about restricting the use of Smarter Balanced Assessments that align with the Common Core on the basis of unfounded concerns.

And, while teachers and students across the state are reaching higher with improved standards and assessments that align with them, WSPA believes we can do better. The Common Core should be a baseline of expectations. The standards identify end goals, but there are places where more explicit definitions could be provided and where some of the assumptions of the document should be clarified. Dr. Louisa Moats, one of the participants in the group who created the Common Core Reading Standards recently spoke in Wisconsin, elucidating several key assumptions that Wisconsin would be wise to clarify. These include the assumption that foundational (reading) skills are

relatively easy to teach and acquire; the assumption that the field should be directed away from ineffective practices of the past toward better teaching of text comprehension; and finally the assumption that the use of more complex, informational texts to teach reading will result in better readers in all grades. While there are numerous significant problems with the Common Core, frankly, Wisconsin can and has done much worse in the past.

Our recommendation therefore is to identify those areas of the Common Core that can be improved and to provide more information to Wisconsin districts about how best to implement the new standards. We advocate the development of a task force to identify those areas, along with resources to support high-level implementation of the CCSS. These might be called "The Wisconsin CCSS Extension Standards." This would clearly identify those areas where our state wants Wisconsin students to excel beyond the national standards. Such a task force should include a broad and inclusive group of stakeholders, but also include national experts in reading and math skill acquisition who can guide Wisconsin as we move forward. Dr. Moats would both provide a critical opinion such as this.

In summary, Wisconsin can do better. Let's identify those areas where we want our students to excel, provide resources to do so, use data wisely, and help our students once again have world-class academic skills.

Thank you again for your time and focus on these important educational issues.

Contact information:John Humphries, NCSPPresident-ElectWisconsin School Psychologists Associationjohnhumphriesncsp@gmail.com(608) 438-6109

CCSS and RtI: Where's Focus?Amy Jordan 12/16/13 9:35 AM CSTNASP members can obtain the following research commentary, in the most recent SPR available on the NASP website:  "The Common Core State Standards and Evidence-Based Educational Practices:  The Case of Writing"

Amy Jordan/AASD School Psych.Amy Jordan 12/11/13 8:13 AM CST

While I haven't viewed this yet myself, I thought I'd pass to info on to WSPA members.  Here is an archived webinar from the RtI Network website, titled "Implementing the Common Core State Standards for Students with Learning Disabilities".  Louisa Moats is one of the presenters, along with George Batsche and Margaret McLaughlin.

http://www.rtinetwork.org/professional/forums-and-webinars/forums/rti-webinar-implementing-common-core-state-standards-students-learning-disabilities

John Humphries 11/21/13 5:31 AM CSTHello:

How do you see CCSS and RtI fitting together? Does the CCSS focus on higher-order thinking skills cause your district to reduce the emphasis on the basic skills necessary to read or do math? Is your RtI implementation effort running into problems because of CCSS?

Let's discuss. What have been your experiences?

In my district, our data have been the key. I try to keep the focus on our screening data and then interventions and progress monitoring allow us to avoid conflicts with the areas of CCSS. However, there are issues with this.

I have attached an excellent article by one of the CCSS developers who is very concerned with this issue.

 moats reconciling standards.pdf

New SLD Criteria for Dec. 1 2014Andrew Kastner 10/21/13 11:06 AM CSTThanks John. So if I am reading your post correctly, the way that I had proposed our plan in my first post would not be appropriate? I too have read and heard that RCBM is a better indicator than MAZE, but as you get into middle school it is my understanding that MAZE starts to take the lead with producing better data. Would this then mean that if an intervention has both a focus on basic reading and reading comprehension skills, that two different progress monitoring measures would be required to collect data on each area? I'm hearing some frustration with staff already with having to do one measurement with one tool weekly, if we needed to add a second I'm sure there would be more frustration.

I guess I'm not quite understanding why, as a general indicator of reading, one type of probe (i.e. MAZE at middle school for example), could not be used for a reading intervention that may not necessarily be only focused on comprehension.  If general outcome measures do not measure specific skills, but rather are a measure that provides reliable and valid indications of a student's overall reading proficiency, couldn't it be used to measure insufficient progress as part of the criteria?

Thanks again!John Humphries 10/17/13 8:33 PM CSTGood question Andy. First, you should progress monitor in the area of intervention (see DPI guidance and the rule). What's interesting is that RCBM is actually a better indicator of comprehension than Maze. So we plan to collect data in both areas and let the IEP team have some discussion.

Andrew Kastner 10/07/13 10:15 AM CSTThanks John!

I have another question related to progress monitoring data and SLD. Our district will be using AIMSweb for progress monitoring. Does the specific probe need to be directly related to the area of SLD that is being addressed through intervention? Specifically I am thinking about an intervention that may be more comprehension-based. As a general outcome measure, the AIMSweb probes act as general indicators of reading (or math) "health", correct? If so, would it be appropriate then to use R-CBM as the progress monitoring tool in the example I mentioned about the comprehension intervention? Let's assume the grade-level is 2nd or 3rd.

I understand the lack of face validity of doing it this way, but if the intervention is closely aligned to the student's need (i.e. comprehension), and the R-CBM data indicated that rate of progress was less than same-age peers, could the IEP team still determine that the student meets the Insufficient Progress criteria in the area of Reading Comprehension?

For reading specifically, our tentative plan would be to use Test of Early Literacy for K-1, R-CBM for 2-5, and MAZE for 6 and up for students that are receiving reading intervention. Does it make sense to do it this way?

Any thoughts? I appreciate having this forum to bounce these questions off of others around the state!

John Humphries 10/02/13 8:48 PM CSTAndy--let's create another topic on that. I'll start it.

Andy Kastner 10/02/13 3:06 PM CSTWe will likely use the AIMsWeb written expression probes for written expression. However, the intervention part is not something we have solid yet.

I have a separate question. What happens when a parent requests an evaluation due to academic concerns, however, based on the student's performance on universal screening measures and classroom performance, is not provided additional intervention? Does the student then have to be put into an academic intervention for the referral to be processed? Given the structure of the new criteria, how could an IEP team answer an eligiblity question when the student's skill level does not warrant additional intervention?

I understand that school teams can be pro-active with parents in communicating how their child is doing to help ward off some of these types of situations. However, it has and will happen going forward. Any thoughts on how to address such a situation?

John Humphries 10/01/13 7:58 PM CSTWith written expression, you can use correct word sequences and then look at interventions on the WI RtI Center web site. In the other areas we just try to include a Speech Path.

Kathleen Alexander 10/01/13 3:23 PM CSTMy district is concerned about providing interventions and progress monitoring in the areas of written expression, listening comp, and oral expression. What are other districts doing for these areas?

WSPA Board 09/30/13 3:39 PM CSTWhat questions and concerns do WSPA members have for the new SLD criteria for Dec. 1 2013.

Exit Decision RulesJessie Stevenson 02/13/14 3:16 PM CSTI would like to hear what other high schools are using for their Exit/Decision rules.  Did you

develop a standard protocol? We are doing Corrective Reading (daily) and Do the Math Now (daily) with identified 9th and 10th grade students.  We use AIMSweb reading and math benchmarks (all 9th and 10th graders) and progress monitoring.  If you exit mid-semester what are you doing about scheduling and earning credits? (we are a small, rural school)