Special Education and MTSS

Ensure all students have what they need to be successful

Our Perspective

Achieving better results is possible

Despite increased spending, hard work, and dedication, school districts of all sizes and demographics continue to struggle to implement special education, intervention, and social-emotional support programs that are cost-effective and deliver results for students. DMGroup can help your district focus efforts on targeted strategies and strengthen supports that will deliver results, provide a firm foundation for learning, and help every student succeed.

Our Approach

DMGroup knows what works when it comes to improving special education, intervention, and social-emotional supports for students. We can help you bring focus to your efforts so that your limited resources are devoted to targeted strategies that consistently deliver results.

Combining research-proven best practices, management expertise, and tried-and-true approaches garnered from a decade of working with hundreds of school districts, our approach brings about real results, helping you deliver effective supports for all students, including students in special education, students who struggle with reading, students living in poverty, those requiring Response to Intervention (RTI), and students with social, emotional, and behavioral needs.

  • Emphasize effective general education as part of the overall approach to helping students in special education
  • Focus on strengthening core reading skills to build a foundation for learning for all students and provide additional supports for students who are struggling
  • Provide extra instructional time to master content every day
  • Expand the reach and impact of social, emotional, and behavioral supports
  • Ensure that content-strong staff provide interventions and allow special educators to play to their strengths
  • Use data to track progress and inform ongoing improvement

Spotlight / Research Paper

Improving Special Education

Download


Key Benefits

Improve the lives and learning of all students

  • Improve special education, intervention, and social-emotional supports for students
  • Gain an in-depth understanding of how students are actually being served
  • Benchmark your district’s practices to those of similar districts and benefit from our national perspective and best practice expertise
  • Ensure resources are allocated where they will do the most good for the most students
  • Achieve scalable, sustainable, lasting change for students, families, and staff

Consulting Services

Align your practices to proven best practices

Consulting Service

Special Education Opportunity Review

Brochure

All districts seek to improve outcomes for students with special needs and students who struggle but raising achievement remains a persistent challenge. DMGroup will help you identify high-impact opportunities to improve services and equity for these students.

Analyze Current Practices

Conduct an in-depth qualitative and quantitative analysis of your district’s current practices, including using our Scheduling Sharing software, to understand your district’s unique circumstances and current approach.

Compare to Best Practices

Benchmark your district’s practices to like-districts’ and to established best practices, providing unique visibility into how your approach compares.

Identify Opportunities

Identify the highest-impact opportunities to raise achievement for students with special education needs and students who struggle. After conducting our in-depth analysis, we'll deliver these findings in a report.

Empower and Plan

Enable your leadership team to plan a path forward for implementation of identified opportunities by facilitating a full-day retreat.

Consulting Service

Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Supports Opportunity Review

All districts are experiencing increased demands for social, emotional, and behavioral supports while also facing tight budgets. As a result, districts are eager to learn how to help the most children with the resources they have, while also making the work more sustainable for their hard-working staff. DMGroup will help you identify opportunities to improve and expand supports for students with social, emotional, and behavioral needs.

Build Buy-In

Create momentum and buy-in for change through proactive communication with district stakeholders.

Analyze Current Practices

Conduct a detailed analysis of current district social, emotional, and behavioral support practices, balancing data-driven analysis with extensive in-person interviews.

Compare to Best Practices

Benchmark your district’s practices to like-districts’ and to established best practices, providing unique visibility into how your approach compares.

Identify Opportunities

Identify the highest-impact opportunities to improve and expand social, emotional and behavioral supports for students, providing a forum for discussion of district strengths, challenges, and opportunities.

Empower and Plan

Enable your leadership team to plan a path forward for implementation of identified opportunities by facilitating a full-day retreat.

Consulting Service

Literacy Review

Reading is widely recognized as the gateway to all learning, and best practices for teaching reading exist. Yet, districts often struggle to implement these best practices due to a lack of fine-grain data on how reading is currently being taught. DMGroup will help you gain the visibility you need in order to align your district’s current elementary reading program to best practices in a sustainable and cost-effective manner.

Analyze Current Practices

Conduct a detailed analysis of your district’s current approach to teaching reading, including the types of staff and service delivery models for core reading and intervention efforts.

Observe in Detail

Capture how reading is taught at the individual teacher level using our distinctive methodology, gaining actionable insights for assessing and managing faithful implementation.

Compare to Best Practices

Compare current district practices to established best practices, including those of the National Reading Panel and the What Works Clearing House.

Identify Opportunities

Create a shared understanding of best practice research to build lasting capacity within the district’s leadership team through training and facilitated discussions.

Empower and Plan

Develop a custom-tailored plan for improving elementary reading practices that builds upon your current initiatives and positions your district to raise student outcomes.

Monitor and Support

Assist with monitoring the fidelity of implementation.

Consulting Service

MTSS/ RTI Opportunity Review

While student achievement is the ultimate goal of all districts, too many students fail to master grade-level content and are not college and career ready upon graduation despite smart, caring staff and a significant investment of resources (time, talent and money). DMGroup will help you compare current district practices to best practices for implementing MTSS/ RTI effectively and identify opportunities for improvements.

Client Result

Special Education Opportunity Review Lights a Path to Improvement at West Feliciana Parish Schools (LA)

Read the Success Story

The challenge of turnaround is that a multitude of leadership and management issues must be tackled but taking these on all at once can seem overwhelming. DMGroup provided tremendous support and was an important partner.

Dr. Pia Durkin, Former Superintendent New Bedford Public Schools (MA)

One of the projects that District Management Group worked with us on was a special education and struggling students opportunities review, and I think framing the problem in that way… was very effective for shifting the mindset for me and the rest of my staff.

Dr. Kevin Smith, Superintendent Wilton Public Schools (CT)

It was win-win. The kids are doing well, our operations improved, achievement increased, and they are being better served.

Joseph Macary, Superintendent Vernon Public Schools (CT)

By having clear, insightful data about our special education practices, our conversations became action-oriented. Our team immensely benefitted from comparing and contrasting our data with neighboring and other like-districts, and from learning about DMGroup’s recommendations on best practices.

Patty Phillips, Former Superintendent School District 622 North St. Paul-Maplewood-Oakdale (MN)
Spotlight / Research Paper

Improving Special Education

DMGroup shares its framework focused on seven key best practices that can improve outcomes for students with mild to moderate disabilities as well as students without disabilities while also making more effective and efficient use of district resources.

Download the Article

Related Topics

Article

10 Lessons to Remember: Taking Action to Improve Special Education

Case Study

Dramatic Improvements in Third-Grade Literacy at East Baton Rouge Parish School System (LA)

Self-Assessment / Toolkit

Manager’s Toolkit: Are There Opportunities To Improve Special Education In Your District?

Interested in something more specifically tailored to meet your needs?

DMGroup can provide custom-tailored support to help your school district in the areas of special education, intervention, and social-emotional supports for students, including support for implementation of any identified opportunities for improvement. If you have a unique need, reach out to let us know how we can help you.

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