Pre-referral Teams—Child Study Team, Student Support Team, Teacher Assistance Team
Each
school implements pre-referral interventions and accommodations within
general education classrooms to assist students who are struggling with
the curriculum and are not meeting success in school. Pre-referral
activities are implemented following recommendations made by
building-based support teams—Child Study Teams (CST), Student Support
Teams (SST), and/or Teacher Assistance Teams (TAT).
These teams
consist of professional staff members from both general education and
student support services who meet weekly to help teachers and
administrators analyze student needs and design accommodations and
strategies to assist students. Teams often include an administrator, a
counselor or psychologist, and a regular classroom teacher. Depending on
the needs of students presented for discussion, teams can be expanded
to include nurses, reading teachers, behavioral specialists, and other
student support personnel.
The purposes of these team
meetings are to identify students who struggle, recommend interventions
to assist classroom teachers better meet the needs of these students in
regular classrooms, and to initiate an 8-12 week trial period for
implementation of the accommodations. Should interventions prove
unsuccessful and the team suspect a disability, a referral can be made
to the Director of Special Education for follow up testing and
evaluation.