Seminole County Public Schools, Florida 

Seminole County Public Schools, Florida

For the past five years, 95 Percent Group Inc. has provided RTI consulting and sustained professional development for 38 elementary schools, 13 of which receive Title 1 funding and 8 of which have received a Reading First grant. We have been providing site-based coaching and mentoring and extensive professional development in 2010-11 to the 11 Title I schools funded by Title I stimulus money. We have provided quarterly professional development to the principals and reading coaches/literacy specialists and extensive site-based modeling and coaching at 23 of the 38 schools. 

In 2005 four schools were selected to be pilot, or demonstration, sites for implementation. The demonstration schools received site-based coaching by 95 Percent Group starting with a full-day workshop to launch the implementation, followed by half-day grade-level meetings four times per year. At the workshop, all teachers at a grade level received an overview about RTI, techniques and error pattern analysis worksheets to analyze DIBELS data, training in how to administer and determine group placement from 95 Percent Group’s diagnostic screeners, and an introduction to lesson planning and instruction. 

At the follow-up meetings, which were held at a school and all grade level teachers attended for half a day, the focus was on learning research-based instructional strategies for providing focused small-group intervention instruction. 95 Percent Group consultants reviewed the team’s data and student group placements, and discussed a lesson using our intervention programs/materials that the school had acquired. The meetings always included live modeling of a lesson by the consultant with a small group of three to five students at that grade level. Teachers had an opportunity to then pull in other students and practice in pairs while the consultant observed and mentored. This same model was repeated two additional years with five and six more schools, respectively.

 Seminole County DIBELS Data

 

The district’s 18,000 K–3 students have made significant gains in the past four years: First grade has increased from 85% at benchmark to 95% at benchmark because of interventions provided at Kindergarten. The improvement in the DIBELS data of their students at the beginning of the year is summarized in the Seminole County DIBELS Data figured above.