Implementor Spotlight — Lake County Schools
Lake County School, situated near the beautiful shores of Reelfoot Lake in Northwest Tennessee, has a dedicated District Leadership Team that is committed to building strong School Leadership Teams that can support RTI2-A + RTI2-B Implementation. Following districtwide training in the fall of 2022, Lake County’s RTI2-A + RTI2-B School Leadership Teams have been holding monthly meetings to review academic and behavioral data, align initiatives, evaluate outcomes, and ensure quality instruction, all guided by their District Coordinator’s leadership.
In the fall of 2022 and spring of 2023, all schools in Lake County completed the School Implementation Fidelity Assessment (SIFA) to identify their strengths and areas for improvement. The SIFA assesses a school’s ability to implement RTI2-A + RTI2-B, and the School Leadership Teams use the results to drive their continuous improvement efforts.
“SIFA data has helped us take a closer look at the way we lead, how we identify what our teachers need, and most of all, how we are using data to problem solve. After reviewing our schools’ SIFA data, we knew immediately where our focus should be. We could also see the successes we need to celebrate. We began our journey in the fall of 2022. Our schools completed the School Implementation Fidelity Assessment (SIFA) with the guidance of Tennessee Supports Center Educational Consultant. Our schools’ fall SIFA Data results, based on the essential components of Leadership, Assessment, Data-based Decision Making, and Instruction and Invention, were lower than we expected. This caused us to pause and really think about how we, as a district, were leading our schools. We reviewed each of our schools’ SIFA data, and then, we reviewed each schools’ annual implementation plan that was developed based on the SIFA data.
The district team was now able to identify where we needed growth, what professional development we needed to provide our teachers, and it identified supports the District Leadership Team needed to provide the School Leadership Team. In the spring of 2023, each of our schools completed the Spring SIFA. In comparing the fall data to the spring data, all of our schools made marked improvement. We credit this improvement to knowing and putting into action what we needed to do to show growth. The SIFA provided a pathway for our schools to follow. We are looking forward to seeing more growth with the upcoming fall SIFA. Moving forward, our next steps are to meet with our Tennessee Supports Center Educational Consultant to identify any targeted learning opportunities provided by Tennessee Supports Center that will strengthen our process.”
This data is shared with permission from Lake County School District.
This is a screenshot of SIFA data from four schools in Lake County School District at two timepoints, 2022 Fall/Winter and 2023 Spring.