Lehigh awarded $1M RTI grant

The College of Education has been awarded a $1.08 million federal grant to train aspiring school psychologists as Response to Intervention (RTI) facilitators at middle schools and high schools.

Ed Shapiro, professor of school psychology and director of the Center for Promoting Research to Practice, and co-investigator Minyi Dennis, assistant professor of special education, won the highly competitive, five-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education.

Response to Intervention is a multi-tiered method of identifying students who are having trouble learning, assessing their educational needs, and providing them as soon as possible with interventions and tailored instruction. Shapiro says RTI provides a safety net to students who are struggling so that they don’t fall further behind in their studies or look to drop out.

“Schools and school districts are going to need well-trained staff members who understand the [RTI] process,” says Shapiro. “That need for personnel is going to continue into the future.”

Over the next five to six years, COE expects to be able to train 16 to 18 of its educational specialist/school psychology scholars in how to put the RTI model in place in middle schools and high schools, with sensitivity to the cultural and linguistic differences among students.  

Those participating in the program will have a two-day-a-week practicum for a full year, followed by a full-time, full-year internship, at one of the four school districts in the region that will be project sites.

“They become real partners with the school districts,” Shapiro says.

School districts are moving toward the use of RTI as a process for school change and as an alternative way to identify students with learning disabilities, according to the grant application. Given their training in data analysis, collaborative problem solving and evaluation, school psychologists can play a significant role on school teams in facilitating RTI.

Project sites include:

• Upper Darby School District in Delaware County
• Bristol Township School District in Bucks County
• Central Dauphin and Derry Township school districts in Dauphin County

Shapiro says the districts were selected based on their location (rural or urban) and the strength of RTI programs already in place on the middle school level.  

Trainees will receive a monthly stipend and two years of tuition. As part of the program, they will produce videos that can be used as resources across the country by those interested in RTI as a way to help students.  

This is the second major RTI grant awarded to Lehigh. In 2008, Shapiro won an $800,000 grant to create a national training program for school psychologists on the RTI process. Shapiro says 17 students graduated and went on to successful careers working for school districts.

The new training is expected to get under way in January.