Like many school systems in Georgia, Early County is building capacity for never ending changes in education.  One such change is the implementation of Georgia's Pyramid of Interventions.  This Pyramid is an organizational structure, unique to each school system in Georgia.  It was designed to help us provide effective instruction to all students by matching curriculum and programs to "student need" based on data. Early County School System continues to pledge the highest quality education we can provide. The selection and implementation of scientifically based curriculums are being examined to ensure all students have access to the best curriculums and instructional practices.  Teachers have been trained in using Learning Focused teaching strategies that help to differentiate instruction.  All of this is within the regular education classroom. 

Both curriculum and instruction are crucial in raising student achievement, even more so is the educator's commitment and belief that all students can learn; leaving no child behind.   

In years past, if a student struggled in school, the teacher may have needed to collect failing grades before referring the student to the student support team (SST) for help.  In other words, the student needed to first experience failure before being eligible to receive additional support.  Even then, schools were limited to the help they could provide students and teachers.  Data shows, this "reactive" form of help was not very effective for helping meet the needs of students all across Georgia.  Counties that have taken initiative to implement Georgia's Pyramid of Interventions have the full support of the Georgia State Department of Education.

Our schools use assessments to help identify students needing additional help before the student experiences failure.  Assessments are also used to monitor the progress of students for the duration of the intervention.  The frequency of “progress monitoring” may increase as the interventions become more frequent.  Individual responses to even the best instruction/intervention vary. 

After a student has been identified as needing intervention, a grade-level team of educators will match the best intervention for that student.  The student will then receive intervention with a group of students that have similar needs.  The intervention is in addition to the standards based instruction that all students receive, not in place of it.  This helps to ensure the student doesn't fall further behind.  The length of time the student receives intervention varies based on student need.

At which point, it is clear the interventions have not helped the student to progress, the student may be referred to the RTI/SST team.  It is at this level that a team of educators will meet and discuss more intensive, more individualized intervention for the student. The intervention will increase in frequency as will the progress monitoring.