The New York State Education Department (NYSED) Office of Instructional Support is pleased to announce technical assistance resources to assist middle schools across the State to implement high-quality frameworks of RtI. The NYSED is seeking “Applications of Interest” from public middle schools that are interested in participating in a three year RtI Middle School Demonstration Project.

The purpose of the RtI Middle School Demonstration Project is to provide school-specific support to New York State (NYS) public middle schools (Grades 5-8) that are interested in developing or refining a data-driven prevention/intervention framework aimed at improving instruction for all students.

RtI can be defined as a school-wide prevention framework that provides needsspecific instruction to students, including: (1) universal screening to determine risk status; (2) progress monitoring to determine student response to instruction, and; (3) supplemental intervention that increases in intensity based on student needs and progress. In recent years, RtI has evolved to include attention to the academic behaviors that are needed to make learning possible (e.g., academic engagement, following directions, completing work). While implementation of RtI has focused predominately at the elementary level, many schools are beginning to scale up prevention efforts to focus on middle school implementation.

Participation in the RtI Middle School Demonstration Project

Interested public middle schools who wish to apply are strongly encouraged to participate in a webinar designed to assist applicants. Please use the webinar registration link to attend. The webinar will be held on January 11, 2017 from 4:00-4:45 pm. This webinar will detail the logistics of the project, eligibility and selection criteria process, project expectations, and responsibilities. This webinar will be archived on the NYS. Response to Intervention Technical Assistance Center’s (RtI TAC) website for middle schools that are unable to participate in the live webinar.

Middle schools interested in participating in the project must submit an application to the NYSED no later than February 10, 2017. Please see the attached application materials. Upon review of applications, the NYSED will narrow the field of applicants to twenty (20) middle schools for further consideration. These twenty (20) middle schools will be scheduled to participate in individual web-based interviews with consortium members from the RtI TAC and NYSED personnel. Upon completion of the web-based interviews, ten (10) middle schools will be selected for participation in the project.

Each selected middle school will be paired with a consortium member from the RtI TAC. The TAC consortium members will provide school-specific technical assistance over the course of three years. For additional information on the RtI TAC and the consortium members, please see the RtI Who We Are page. The intent is for each selected middle school to develop an RtI framework that will serve as a model prevention/intervention process for other middle schools across the State. The assistance provided for each school will include:

• an annual two-day RtI Summer Institute to be held in Albany at the end of June each project year and one annual regional professional development session;
• eight days annually of on-site building-based professional development and technical assistance; and
• monthly webinar academies for the principals and RtI coordinators from each participating middle school.

Funding will not be provided to selected middle schools for participation in the project; however, the professional development and technical assistance will be provided at no cost. The RtI TAC will cover the cost of hotel accommodations and mileage for participants’ attendance at the annual RtI Summer Institute. Information regarding eligibility for participation and project participation requirements may be found in the attached application.

If your middle school is interested in receiving the support provided through the project, please complete and submit the attached forms by email no later than Friday, February 10, 2017 to rtipdschools@nysed.gov. All districts will be notified in April 2017 of selection to participate in the project. I encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity to improve outcomes for all middle school students.

If you have any questions regarding the information in this memorandum, please contact Jason O’Connell at (518) 486-7462.

Enclosures

Response to Intervention (RtI) Middle School Demonstration Project Application of Interest
Additional Project Information
Response to Intervention (RtI) Middle School Demonstration Project Questions and Answers