Culturally Responsive Response to Intervention Instruction and Rehabilitation (RTIIR) Practices in Public Schools Using MTSS

Introduction

Response to Intervention (RTI) has been recognized as a resource for all schools to use to adequately identify a learning disability (Callahan, Moon, Oh, Azano, & Haily,

2015; Walsh, Kemp, Hodge, & Bowes, 2012; Washington, 2014). In addition, RTI has been used as a preventative method of assessment and pre-referral to address the misidentification and over-representation of students considered in need of special education (Balu et al., 2015; Fletcher, Lyon, Fuchs & Barnes, 2018). Although RTI has produced broad empirical and evidence based data that has improved the identification, screening and assessment of students across the evaluation and special education continuum, questions still persist about the universal application of RTI specifically, the way RTI is used by schools who lack adequate resources to implement the program effectively. The primary focus of this chapter is to explore how RTI can be delivered culturally and responsively and with fidelity as a rehabilitative tool for students who attend urban schools, that may possess large numbers of culturally and linguistically diverse students (CLD) and whose school has a large percentage of at-risk or low performing students also considered ‘high needs.’ Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) function as a major framework for the successful implementation of RTI.

Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) is viewed as one of the most important rehabilitative resources used to address students social and emotional needs in partnership with the child find duty of public schools who must screen and address student’s needs who are suspected of having a learning disability and or emotional disability (Benner, Nelson, Ralston, & Mooney, 2010; Drake, Aos, & Miller 2009; Hagan-Burke, Kwok, Zou, Johnson, Simmons, & Coyne, 2010). Deficits common in disability categories such as Autism and Intellectual Disability are also commonly a part of RTI and use tiers of MTSS to address social skills deficits and adaptive and functional needs. However, in order to address these skill deficits with fidelity, a component of culturally responsive teaching and collaboration must also be hallmark of RTI with MTSS as a component used to meet the needs of students across multiple levels of needs, including trauma. The literature overwhelmingly supports utilizing RTI with MTSS as a primary intervention to close the achievement gap that also requires the use of Evidenced Based Interventions (EBI) for the purposes of child find, universal screening and diagnostic assessment at multiple levels of service support for students. Primarily, RTI using MTSS as a culturally responsive intervention with rehabilitative purposes has been successful at meeting the needs of students across three key areas; (a) Resilience; (b) Anxiety; and (c) Depression (Harrison and Thomas, 2014).

This chapter will address the problems that the field of special education confronts when adopting the use of RTI, given the vast amount of inequity that looms across urban and suburban schools (Bose, Kohli, Newell & Christ, 2019). The author argues that RTI must be carried out culturally and responsively with equity and attention to the students, who may not exhibit academic or behavioral responses that can be quantified or understood, through traditional observation and assessment (Kvale & Spaulding, 2008) with a rehabilitative focus. Further, in order for RTI to be implemented with equity, and evidence based decision making, there must exist culturally responsive teaching practices that govern its widespread adoption and use, especially by high needs urban school personnel whose schools typically experience the most challenging issues when assessing and providing services for students who come from CLD backgrounds. Some of these culturally responsive practices are situated in culturally responsive classroom-behavior interventions and assessment used in RTI (Montani & Frawley, 2011; Pavri, 2010). Lastly, If RTI is to be effective in addressing achievement and behavior gaps that exist amongst CLD at risk and high needs learners who also have special education needs, then a new legal framework should be developed that will construct guidelines and shape education reform, so that there is continuity and consistency across all public schools, urban, suburban, charter and cyber (Fuchs, Morgan & Young, 2003).