Flex

We are labeled a SINA school at Riverside Elementary. We are a School In Need of Assistance. That statement can be quite deflating, but it shouldn't be. I challenge you to find a school that isn't in need of assistance and/or couldn't make improvements. We're all works in progress.

In fact, I could argue that there are several hidden benefits of being a SINA school. 1) It draws our attention to the group of students that we need to give extra supports. 2) It forces us to develop a plan for improvement. 3) It gives our school a little bit of extra money that allows us to enhance some of the things that we do.

This year our SINA plan now includes a component that addresses Response to Intervention (RTI). I am not going to go into detail explaining RTI, a simple Google search for RTI will return many hits to give you that information. Just know that RTI is a systematic method of delivering interventions to students, and that RTI is trending (for good reason) in education.

Last year, the Highland CSD's administration team studied Simplifying Response to Intervention, written by Mike Mattos. After the administration's learning from the book, Mr. Armstrong was generous to purchase the book for all of our teachers throughout the District.

This September, Riverside Elementary was fortunate enough to use a portion of our SINA money and send our Building Leadership Team to Cedar Rapids to hear the RTI expert himself, Mike Mattos.

A portion of the time spent with Mattos in Cedar Rapids was devoted to formulating a plan to create systematic interventions at our school. Coordinating a systematic block of time throughout the building for interventions isn't easy work to do, due to the logistics of scheduling, but it is the right work to do. Nonetheless, over the course of two days, we had brainstormed an idea as to how this might look at Riverside Elementary. Through multiple meetings spent developing this idea, by the end of September, we had a plan that we felt comfortable with.

 

What we came up with were Flex teams/Flex time. Our rationale for the Flex title is three-fold 1) students are going to get stronger, 2) groups will be flexible, and 3) our plan/process will be flexible, too. A note outlining the details of this should have come home with students on Friday, October 25th (below is a link to that note).
Introducing Flex - Google Doc

We're aware that this will be a work in progress. It is a starting point. As we begin, and as we go we will make adjustments to improve our plan/process. Nonetheless, the implications that this has in regards to student learning is exciting and that has us excited!