Westchester Elementary School

As soon as teachers are aware that an individual student is experiencing difficulty meeting or highly exceeding grade-level academic and behavioral expectations, effective supports and interventions must be available to assist the student.   In order to respond quickly, our schools have established an Achieving Success through Supports and Interventions for Students and Teachers (ASSIST) team problem solving process to assist classroom teachers in designing, implementing, and evaluating the effectiveness of intervention strategies when typical classroom strategies have not been successful.

ASSIST Teams work at both the grade/department level for general intervention planning and at the building level for more focused/intense intervention planning.  Grade level ASSIST teams are comprised of grade level teachers, counselor, school psychologist, special education and REACH teachers who support that grade level.  Principals may also participate in the grade level ASSIST team meetings.  Grade level teams identify and implement general classroom supports and interventions such as differentiated instruction, learning scaffolds and social skill lessons based on school-wide expectations.

When the identified concerns are significant or the response to general intervention is inadequate, the building level ASSIST team will convene.  The building level ASSIST team is facilitated by the school counselor, building principal, and school psychologist and is comprised of classroom and support teachers/staff (e.g. nurses; literacy, resource, gifted teachers; educational support counselors; occupational/physical/speech language therapists) who have been trained in problem solving and intervention strategies specific to academic and social/emotional/ behavioral needs.  Parents may also be asked to participate in the Building ASSIST Team process for their child.

The Building ASSIST team’s role is to conduct individualized problem solving, focused intervention planning, implementation support, data collection, and monitoring of the student’s response to interventions.  Intervention plans often include small, flexible instructional groups that target essential curriculum skills and frequent curriculum-based assessments.   Building ASSIST teams will use data collected on the student’s response to focused interventions to determine when more intense interventions or evaluation are required in order to better understand and support the learning needs of the student.