Spotlight Reading School C

School C, one of six elementary schools in its district, is approximately 90 miles northwest of Austin, near Killeen and Ft. Hood. In a community serving many military families, School C must deal with periods of rapid growth and student mobility. Prior to selection as a Spotlight 3-Tier school, School C administrators identified implementation of a 3-tier reading model as a campus improvement goal for the 2004-2005 school year. An important characteristic of the school was its degree of initial "buy-in" required for success with schoolwide improvement efforts. The principal was committed to taking steps toward successful implementation and in January 2005 created a campus leadership team to fulfill this mission.

The principal and leadership team expressed satisfaction with their students' overall reading success, but they were concerned about the limited amount of instructional focus on critical reading skills. Their goal was to improve the reading instruction in the earlier grades so that by the time students reached third grade they would be successful. This would allow the third-grade teachers to focus more on building reading comprehension and less on isolated skills. Achieving this change in instruction encompassed a comprehensive action plan to improve reading instruction at multiple levels, beginning with kindergarten. The team also recognized the role that assessment data would play in informing instruction.

Important steps the School C leadership team took in the fall of 2005 were to revamp the tutoring program for struggling readers and to explore leveraging the available resources in more effective and cost-efficient ways. The team developed a plan for altering the tutoring program to accommodate Tier II and Tier III students by using the staff member devoted to the previous program. An additional staff member was hired in the fall of 2006 so two staff members provided intervention.

In the 2007-2008 school year, School C led its district in districtwide implementation of 3-tier reading, providing professional development to the district and acting as a resource to support the district's implementation efforts. The district also rezoned for the 2007-2008 school year. As a result, School C changed from a PK-4 campus to PK-5 using the same personnel. In addition, School B began to implement a 3-Tier model in mathematics.

In 2008-2009, School C sustained its implementation of a 3-Tier model in both reading and math.