Learning about interventions with the DuFours!

Having worked in a professional learning community for almost six years now, I can tell you that nothing is more challenging for traditional schools than crafting a school-wide system of interventions.

Even my building—which embraced the concept of ensuring success for every child from day one—has struggled to fully implement an effective plan for providing much-needed remediation and enrichment.

And it’ ain’t like we haven’t tried!

Like many schools, we offer opportunities for extra learning at every grade level, and we’ve got a student support team that brainstorms solutions for students who continue to struggle after classroom teachers have done their best—but those pieces don’t always work together in a systematic way and they’re not always implemented consistently by every teacher, team and/or grade level.

Crazy, isn’t it?  We’re committed, but commitment alone hasn’t been enough to get the job done.

Which is why I’m completely jazzed that Rick and Becky DuFour have decided to join me here on the Radical for another 3-day asynchronous conversation, scheduled for May 19th through the 21st! 

As two of the foremost experts on restructuring schools as professional learning communities—remember that in addition to their work with buildings across the United States and Canada, both Rick and Becky led successful change efforts in their own schools—they’ve got tons of experience with effective interventions.

In fact, the best part of Rick and Becky’s newest book—Raising the Bar and Closing the Gap—is that it is FULL of practical examples of specific intervention strategies being implemented in schools of all shapes and sizes.

If Rick and Becky are willing to share even a small piece of their knowledge during the course of our conversation—something they did times ten during our first conversation back in September—we’ll all walk away more confident in our ability to collectively respond to the needs of every student in our buildings.

So mark your calendar.

Plan on stopping by our conversation—which you’ll be able to access from here on the Radical—for a few minutes each day.  Bring questions about interventions.  Share examples of what’s working in your building.  Listen to others working through the same challenges as you are.

There’s no two ways about it:  This is a great chance to strengthen your school’s intervention practices, and I hope you’ll join us!

(Blogger’s Note:  Even though I would have done it for free, Solution Tree—the DuFour’s publishing company—is paying me a bit o’ cash to moderate this conversation.  To learn more about my relationship with Solution Tree, read my nifty new disclosure policy.)