Question: What infrastructure elements are important to consider when implementing DBI and intensive intervention? 

 

Answer: So when I think about implementing a DBI process in a school, you’re talking about what you’re doing for your top tier of students who need the most intensive levels of support. But the context within the school environment really has to be ready to accept that and what I’ve found in working in a lot of different schools is that, it does require some foundational elements to be in place before you can think about what you’re doing for your top tier or level of kids. And some of those things are strong building leadership, because having somebody within a building that’s guiding the staff within the building and helping to blend different initiatives helps to take away that siloed effect and that’s a very important foundational element that I’ve found. Another thing I’ve found that’s really important is having another internal individual on the staff in addition to the principal, like an internal coach, so to speak, who can to help things to move forward. So in combination with the principal or in the absence of the principal, there is still a sustained effort to move things forward. And then thirdly, the other things I’ve found is having a willing staff, but also to have other general educators as part of this process. Because often when we think about students who need the highest levels of support, we tend to think about interventionists, or specialists, or individuals who have a specialized form of training, but those types of supports only happen with those individuals, and without the general educators really being on board and being willing to take some of the interventions and supports and apply them in the classroom to help generalize that ability so that students can actually move further faster. That’s a very important element. So the buildings where I’ve seen most success, the teams are heavily comprised of general educators. And in one particular building that I work in, general educators lead the conversation and lead the team meetings. So that’s been a really important factor that I think that in the most successful building that I’m in, those are the elements that have really caused that building to embrace the DBI effort, because they have these things in place, and they didn’t have to waste time getting those things in place. Concurrently, in buildings where those things are not place, we do have to spend time putting those foundational elements in place, because without them, you’re delivering  something they’re not ready to hear and they can’t take that and apply it immediately. You have to help them learn how to apply those within the context of their building. So, it’s really important not to overlook the fact that the infrastructure has to be ready to breed this initiative within the context of that building.