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Lower your differential:
The Teacher Support Team (TST)  Three Tier Process removes the bias that elevates your district’s differential due to over identification. In Mississippi specifically, the Mattie T Court Decree requires that minority students be monitored to ensure proportionate placement in Special Education.

What does this mean? The differential is a calculation that determines whether or not you have marked the wrong students for SPED services. It is calculated on a formula developed by Oswald and Coutinho in 2001 and (as presented in the Mattie T Proclamation) looks like this:

A low differential means that your populations are in line. A high differential indicates that you may be referring too many (or too few) students to special services.

In other words, the population of your SPED programs must match the population of your district when comparing student count to the number of participants in special service programs. If your student population is 40% minority, then the SPED population should contain something close to the same 40%. The difference is called the differential and is the ratio of these two populations. By Mississippi law, it must fall below 1.85.

If this ratio is out of proportion, there must be documentation showing why this is the case. Failure to properly handle the Three Tier Process or lack of documentation will force the district into a Focused Monitoring Process by the Mississippi State Department of Education (MDE).

This is not a random edict from the MDE, but falls under the new guidelines of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and determines whether or not the school district is eligible for federal funding.

How can EducatorsInc help with this process?
One of our consultants helped develop the Three Tier Process adopted by the Mississippi State Board of Education and has overseen a successful TST program. They can guide your staff through the maze of forms required to document the need to place a student in SPED programs. We will:

1. Provide forms that may be used in the Three Tier Process;
2. Help to lower your differential;
3. Simplify the complex task of the Three Tier Process with step-by-step training.

By following the instructions provided by our consultants, you will lower your differential. You will also have full documentation for any ratios that are higher than the state's allowed minimum.

You should also understand that this process is not a “wait for failure” model. Once instruction is determined to be unsuccessful, students will be scheduled to receive interventions within the classroom setting (Tier II). If the supplemental instruction is not working, then the student may be referred prior to failing. We even provide all forms necessary for a Child Study and for notification of parents.

Your school-based team analyzes student data and determines whether referred students should be placed in Tier I (quality classroom instruction) or prescribed interventions at Tier II or III.

What forms are required by the Three Tier Process?
The MDE does not mandate specific forms. Suggested forms are provided by MDE and include data that are indicative of the information necessary to prescribe a successful intervention. They are set up to drive the intervention process in a sequential manner. Districts may utilize any format to streamline the process that includes all student demographic and performance data required for effective interventions.

Our set of forms (and our detailed database) will provide full information that makes the Three Tier Process understandable and turn it into a step-by-step guide. Deadlines will be met and the paperwork will become more manageable.

There are several advantages to using our TST software. It provides:

1. Automatic calculation of all deadlines taking into account school holidays;
2. Automatic building of the agenda for TST meetings; (View sample agenda)
3. Easy one-click transfer to related documents;
4. Automatic fill-in of standard information such as headings on all forms;
5. Simplification of the TST Process; (Concentrate on the process and not on filling out forms.)
6. Forms that may be printed before or during a TST meeting;
7. A step-by-step guide for entire process;
8. Forms based on requirements of the Mississippi State Board Policy I.E.I.;
9. Letters to parents that fold neatly into windowed envelopes; (No more addressing envelopes!)
10. Detailed documents on each child that reaches Tier II;
11. Documentation that you have followed the correct process;
12. Substantial information critical for SPED evaluation;
13. Flags when MSIS screens must be completed for compliance;
14. A method for changing the TST formwork from a job that takes hours per day to a job that takes minutes per day.

Techno Nerds Only:
One of the problems with computer programs that track student information is that a third party (which allows limited Internet access) controls it. Your computer must be connected to the district's server, which must be connected to the Internet, which must access an internet database at a remote location. We have taken a different approach. This software resides on the district server and is accessible simply by connecting to that server. That makes access very fast and removes links in the chain that slow down your work.

We provide a FileMaker license for the server and one user copy for each school. (Additional copies are available for a very small fee.) We license the software in your name and place the database on your server. We keep your copies of the FileMaker software and the TST Tracking software up to date.

And this is the most important item: if a staff member has an idea that we agree will improve the handling of the Three Tier Process, we will incorporate that change in an update.  We will also provide technical support when it is needed and help you set up all of the software.