San Bernardino City Unified School District

RtI students close learning gaps with Standards Plus

Challenge

Kendall Elementary School is like many urban schools in California with 42% of the students designated Socio economically Disadvantaged, and 23% as English Language Learners. This city of San Bernardino neighborhood school is committed to exiting from Program Improvement. According to Principal Dr. Armine Der-Karabetian, “The past three years Kendall Elementary faculty has worked systematically to become a Professional Learning Community. They have worked collaboratively to achieve a common goal linked to the purpose of learning for all.”

Solution

With NCLB benchmarks raising, Dr. Der-Karabetian and the Kendall staff recognized that many students had serious learning gaps in reading and language arts. The school was mobilized to provide early, effective assistance to children having difficulties learning, and to implement a data-driven process to diagnose learning disabilities. They created the Kendall Enrichment Academy (KEA) to help meet these objectives. With help from Program Facilitator Sytarria Ridley, the staff reviewed multiple sources of data to identify which students needed to be served in this Response to Intervention (RtI) program. The academy staff employed a variety of strategies and concurrent instructional materials to address students’ individual goals. These materials included Standards Plus Intervention System materials for standards based direct instruction in state standards. Kendall staff members also used Standards Plus grade level lessons daily in their regular classrooms.

Results

Many Kendall Enrichment Academy students met their achievement goals and exited the program. KEA data, including Standards Plus Intervention assessments, indicate that most students are advancing more than one grade level, and fewer students are falling into retention status. Students who would benefit from special education services are identified sooner, and many students who might have been misidentified for special education placement in the past are remediated through the KEA intervention.