U-46 testing takes a personal turn

A more personal measure of progress is on its way to Elgin Area School District U-46.

Unlike the state and federally mandated tests that measure a school's academic progress, Response to Intervention, a new federal initiative, aims to identify individual students' needs.

While the Illinois Standards Achievement Test and the Prairie State Achievement Exam both target subgroups of students, the new program tests all students to measure their ability to grasp basic academic and behavioral concepts at grade level. It also develops interventions to bring those students up to grade level.

All Illinois school districts have until 2010 to fully implement the program.

Some U-46 schools have voluntarily adopted certain aspects of the plan early, said Deb Dimke, the district's executive director for educational programs.

Hanover Countryside Elementary Principal Leslie Kleiman credits her Streamwood school's "amazing" resource teachers for beginning interventions.

Hanover Countryside targets first- and second-graders having a hard time with learning sounds and reading or those who have low scores on the ISAT's math section, Kleiman said.

"During class time, a resource teacher comes in and does an extra guided reading group and phonics intervention."

This short boost isn't meant to take the place of the phonics and reading taught by a student's regular classroom teacher.

"We call it double dipping," Kleiman said.

Hanover Countryside, which began interventions last year with first-graders, found "as a result (of the interventions) we had no one leaving first grade that wasn't reading," Kleiman said.

Ryan Anderson, principal at Creekside Elementary in Elgin, said his school uses an "intervention team" composed of speech therapists, occupational therapists, nurses and tutors. The team both identifies students who need support and keeps detailed reports on intervention progress," he said.

"I wouldn't say we're implementing RTI on the academic side yet," he said. "Interventions have been behaviorally driven so far."

The Illinois State Board of Education has mandated that this spring, all districts must complete a self-assessment to determine its next steps in the development and implementation of the program.

In the 2008-09 and 2009-10 school years, faculty will receive training on testing special education students, limited-English-proficient students, along with mainstream elementary, middle and high school students.

Barb Bonner, U-46's chief academic officer, said district administrators, guidance counselors, deans and union leaders attended a response to intervention "academy" at the end of February. A committee that includes members from each of the aforementioned groups is tasked with completing the self-assessment.

"We've known RTI is coming for some time," Dimke said. "We're trying to do more professional development in the interim."

Teachers generally agree the idea behind Response to Intervention is sound. But questions remain about how such an intensive measure will be uniformly implemented throughout the 53 schools in U-46.

Perry Hayes, principal at Ellis Middle School in Elgin, said his school has not yet implemented any aspects of the program. But, he said, Response to Intervention can only be effective if "everybody is on the same page -- administration, staff and students. If you're not at a school like that, (implementation) is probably going to be more different. But we're pretty collaborative here at Ellis."

Kleiman said she believes Response to Intervention can be done districtwide. "But, you're going to have to use people creatively," she said.

"The whole idea to give additional help early can only work properly with enough manpower,'" she said.