Pyramid of Interventions

1. Pyramid of Interventions PLC Workshop Mike Mattos San Diego, CA Presented by Linda Young

2. Mike Mattos • 18 year veteran educator. • Led tremendous impact on at-risk Hispanic student population. • 500+ students – 82% Hispanic Minority. • Not a presenter by profession!

3. Overview of Process • Personal “Heart and Soul” check • Cultural Shifts in a PLC • Breaking the Status Quo Using the “F” Word • Characteristics of Effective Intervention Program • Learning CPR. • Building your campus Pyramid

4. “We can, whenever and wherever we choose, successfully teach all children whose schooling is of interest to us. We already know more than we need to do that. Whether or not we do it, must finally depend on how we feel about the fact that we haven’t so far.” Ron Edmonds

5. Powerful Thoughts…. • No longer a question of what we do. • Do we care enough to do it? • Failure to implement PLC is equal to educational malpractice.

6. In A Perfect World… Our Teachers are keeping up practicing best practices. The Truth: Many are not….that’s why campus Pyramid is vital.

7. Do you really believe in… Doing whatever it takes? Most of us use this every day with our staff or quotes to the newspaper or TV. Is it what we want everyone to hear or do we really live it? Our students and staff will know the difference.

8. “Don’t tell me you believe ‘all kids can learn’, tell me what you’re doing about the kids who aren’t learning.” Rick DeFour

9. Heart and Soul Check Does your campus truly believe and practice “all students can learn?” Do you as the Leader take responsibility to assure all students will learn? If a stranger walked onto your campus how would they know your staff believes all students can learn?

10. Typical School Response • No systematic response. • Intervention is left to the discretion of individual teachers. • Teachers respond in very different ways. • Worst case is no response at all….and we have some teachers who make this their choice.

11. Message We Send to Students You can choose to learn or not learn, complete work or not complete work, become involved in the life of the school or not become involved. We are detached. We will make little effort to connect with you. We will simply give you an opportunity to learn, and then hold you accountable for your choices.

12. Major School Culture Shifts

13. Shifts in Response When Students Don’t Learn

14. School Focus Shifts

15. Shift in the Work of Teachers

16. And Most Important Shift…. From an assumption that “these are my kids, those are your kids”….. To an assumption that “these are our kids.” Relationship is the key and must be established by anyone the student will respond to. Teachers can not take this personally.

17. “F” Word FOCUS on Learning FOCUS on Failures FOCUS on Results

18. FOCUS on Learning…Instead of Teaching False belief that it’s the teacher’s job to teach and kids job to learn…..we must demand high levels of learning for all students. If what we are doing in the classroom doesn’t focus on learning then we shouldn’t do it regardless of how many years it has been in our plans.

19. FOCUS on Learning Shared We as Instructional Leaders are responsible for the learning of every student on our campus, especially kids born of economic disadvantaged families. They will overcome and reach the same levels as advantaged if we do what we should.

20. Resistors to FOCUS on Learning If entire school hasn’t bought in, change the teams you can. Help them be the most effective and others will follow out of pressure. If you introduce a change that in incompatible with your school’s culture: 1. Alter culture 2. Prepare to fail.

21. Resistor Defense Mechanism Teacher resistors who do not know how to respond to lower kids act arrogant and respond with a passive aggressive personality. These resistors are often times veteran teachers and will sabotage your Pyramid if given the chance.

22. FOCUS on the Failures Pull out the negatives and look at the percent failing – not passing. That’s the part we don’t like to look at.

23. Uncomfortable Truth If we take credit for those that learn and bring our campus recognition, then we must accept responsibility for those that don’t.

24. How do we address the intentional non-learners….those that get through school the cheapest way….barely making it through.

25. A Student’s Response If you have a kid who doesn’t know the information and now they know they don’t know it….you have also created a self-esteem issue. This self-esteem issue will effect them for the remainder of their learning life if we don’t intervene.

26. Pride Must Be Set Aside…. • These count as failures if they are capable of giving us more. • Pre-Ap students failing are our fault….we are the adults….we are the professionals….it is our responsibility to make a connection.

27. Time vs. Programs Kids born of economic disadvantage have a harder time BUT if we give them our TIME they will overcome and reach same levels as advantaged. It’s because of what we do….not the programs we buy. Money should be placed in personnel not programs.

28. FOCUS on Results • Assess our effectiveness of high levels of learning for all students on the basis or results rather than intentions. • Collaborative teams seek relevant data and use that data to promote continuous improvement. (This isn’t TAKS data only.)

29. Must Haves… • Timely and frequent information on the achievement of all students. • Agreed upon standards. Not what’s “always been done on our campus.” • Valid Assessments.

30. Characteristics of Effective Intervention Program • Urgent • Mandatory - The child does not get the choice to fail or not. If they don’t care, we do. • Timely – If quality of time and quality of instruction are variables, then learning will be constant.

31. GRADING A campus claiming to be a PLC is fooling themselves if students work through interventions and still fail. Teachers MUST alter their way of thinking where grading is concerned. Grading policies CAN NOT be the driving force of an Intervention Plan. It becomes not a question of do we care, but a question of do we care enough!

32. A- I - M • Assessment – set up by campus collaborative teams to determine individual needs. • Intervention – designed by individual campus for individual student needs. • Monitor – constantly performed on interventions to ensure success.

33. PYRAMID – No Easy Recipe Literally use a visual pyramid design. No two campuses will look the same. Language of Interventions must be developed on campus so that teachers, principals, and parents are comfortable.

34. First Step • Brainstorm a list of all possible intervention strategies. • Determine whether intervention is systematic or individual. • Rank the Interventions in order of intensity. • Eliminate duplication and develop new interventions to fill the gaps.

35. Learning CPR • Urgent Life Saving Process • Directed • Timely • Systematic • Targeted • Administered by trained professionals.

36. Pyramid Essentials • Most At-Risk students must be built into the base of the pyramid. • Staff members must be able to respond and build a relationship with Pyramid students. • Students challenged by authority at school are beat down in the neighborhood if they don’t fight back verbally. Make sure they are with the right staff members.

37. Voted Off The Pyramid Lazy kids can not monopolize classroom teacher’s time. Many hours are wasted on smart – lazy kids. They don’t need the constant assistance they demand. These kids need after school mandatory homework class staffed by an efficient aide. Somewhere and someone to make them do it!

38. The Work Begins • Meet with your collaborative team or teams. • Evaluate where you are in the PLC Process. • Establish criteria for identifying at-risk students. • Build your pyramid accepting the fact that it will never be a finished product.

39. Questions?

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