Interventions
Interventions Support Learning
Student Success Team (SST)—Child Assistance Team (CAT)
Our Child Assistance Team (CAT) process incorporates performance and progress data along with professional perception, student input, and parent input to make informed educational decisions. Our goal is to blend systematic supports, engaging assessment, instruction, and communication to improve student learning.
The SST/CAT process is a general education function designed to address the social, emotional, behavior, and academic needs of students.
Through a tiered process, the classroom teacher, parents, other staff members and site administrator(s) create an action plan based on the student’s strengths and challenges.
The plan identifies strategies and interventions that will best address the student’s needs. It is monitored and reviewed to identify strategies that are working to be continued or additional needs.
Academic Interventions at School
In Los Gatos Union School District, our teaching staff is committed to providing a high quality instructional and learning experience in the classroom that is differentiated to support all learners. When necessary, the intervention process is implemented to meet diverse student needs. It acknowledges that the rate of learning, academic levels or behaviors, vary for all learners.
The Governing Board has adopted state standards of proficiency in reading comprehension, writing and computational skills and in other appropriate areas. Students are assessed for these basic skills and receive interventions when appropriate.
Tier 1: Interventions are universal, and available to all students in the classroom (e.g., additional drill and practice in math fluency, added small group access for comprehension strategies). Tier 1 interventions are those strategies that instructors are likely to put into place at the first sign that a student is struggling. Intervention at this level will incorporate curriculum and support tools that are available in the core program.
Tier 2: Interventions are individualized, and tailored to the unique needs of struggling learners. They are reserved for students with significant skill gaps who have not responded successfully to the Tier 1 interventions. Intervention at this level will augment/supplement the core materials with intervention specialists or additional materials—the something different in differentiation.
Following are some, but not all, of the interventions that may be provided during Tier 1 and Tier 2:
- Use of a strategic student study/child assistance team to identify student strengths and weaknesses
- Targeted small group instruction with students of similar abilities
- Targeted Instructional Lessons
- Time with Reading Intervention Teacher
- Providing instructional or environmental accommodations in the classsroom
- Work with Student Advisors/Counselors
Tier 3: Interventions at this level are the most intensive interventions available in a school and are generally reserved for students with chronic and severe academic or behavior/emotion concerns. When our teams arrive at Tier 3, we are ensuring that we have exhausted regular categorical supports and are considering assessment to determine if a student has a suspected disability and requires special education services.
Behavioral Interventions at School
The Child Assistance Team (CAT) process may also be used in response to behavioral and/or discipline situations. Behavior intervention strategies reflect the District’s commitment to teaching the whole child, the use of positive interventions and alternative disciplinary measures rather than exclusionary discipline measures as a means for correcting student misbehavior.
Administrators work in conjunction with staff (teachers, specialists, counselors) to develop, implement, and monitor interventions for students.
The following list provides examples of the interventions that may be provided:
- Conferences
- Child Assistance Team (CAT) meeting
- Positive Behavior Supports—visual schedules, check ins, prompts, proximity, etc.
- Class meetings
- Sensory tools
- Preferential Seating
- Individual or small group school-based counseling
- Self management strategies
- Quiet work area