Ten Steps to Make RTI Work in Your Schools. The 10

P.S. 52 Sheepshead Bay School in Brooklyn, New York, serves more than 850 students from pre-kindergarten to fifth grade from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. After scores on the 2014 New York State English language arts assessment were unsatisfactory, first-year principal Rafael Alvarez searched for a way to improve academic outcomes for his students. The school leadership team partnered with American Institutes for Research (AIR) to design and implement its Response to Intervention (RTI) framework, a research-based framework that uses data-based decision making and three levels of instruction to address a wide range of student needs. Over a period of three years of implementing the framework, both AIR and the school took away several important building blocks useful to any school or district implementing RTI. This piece summarizes that information by sharing the narrative of P.S. 52's work alongside useful resources and evidence about the implementation of RTI. Ten RTI building blocks followed by teachers, students, administrators, and parents at P.S. 52 are discussed.