Advancement · Program Development

Design a program
your staff can deliver.

Enter how many students need each tier, the group size, the sessions and the minutes your staff really have. The page counts the groups, the weekly minutes, the hours each student gets and the cost, and shows what one more student in a group does to the plan.

Open the designerWhat you get
$12one-time · every device you sign in on
Buy · $12

Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Or get it in the Grant writer’s desk, $49 for 32 items.

The program designer

The worked example is a made-up winter reading cycle: 53 students, 17 groups, and a plan that comes up 136 minutes short each week. Change any number, or start blank.

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What you get

Advancement · Program Development$12 · included with Classroom and Whole-school licenses

What you finish with
For one cycle of intervention: the number of groups in each strand and the size of the last one; staff minutes a week for groups and for progress checks; the minutes needed against the minutes available, with the shortfall or the spare time and the full-time equivalent; the hours and sessions each student receives and the sessions a student must attend; a table of what one student more or fewer per group does; the cost of the cycle and per student; the weeks for review; and notes where a strand falls outside what the IES practice guide describes as typical. Prints a one-page plan and downloads a group list to fill in with adults, rooms and times.
Who it is for
Principals and assistant principals, MTSS and intervention coordinators, instructional coaches, reading and math specialists, and district program staff planning a tiered intervention. Counts of students only: no names, no student records.
Format
Browser tool. Type the numbers and the result updates beside them. Prints a one-page plan; downloads the group list (.csv); export and import a file.
Access
$12 one-time, yours on every device you sign in on; the tool opens once you are signed in with it. Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Also in the Grant writer’s desk ($49) and the Advancement Suite pass ($99), and 1 more bundle. Everything you type stays in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives
The Program Development space in Caveat Advancement.
Support
Questions, a correction or a request: team@caveatacademic.com.

How to use it

  1. Set the cycle: the first day, the number of weeks, how often the team reviews, and the minutes lost to setup in each session.
  2. Add a row for each strand: how many students need it, the group size, sessions a week, minutes a session and how often progress is checked.
  3. List each adult with the minutes a day they can give to groups. Be strict: count only time that is free of other duties.
  4. Read the result. If the plan is short, the table shows what one more student per group does; the alternative is more staff minutes or fewer sessions.
  5. Write who enters and who exits, print the plan, and download the group list to assign adults, rooms and times.

Open the designer

How the plan is sized

Arithmetic you could do on paper, done every time a number changes.

1 One strand: Tier 2 in the exampleGroups42 ÷ 4 = 10.5, so 11students ÷ group size, rounded upStaff minutes for one group4 × (30 + 5) = 140sessions × (minutes + setup), each weekAll Tier 2 groups11 × 140 = 1,540staff minutes a weekEach student receives4 × 30 × 10 = 1,200 min20 hours over the cycle2 The whole program against the staff timeNeeded2,890 + 96 = 2,986groups + progress checksAvailable2,850 minuteseach adult’s minutes × days, added up2,850 − 2,986 = −136: short by 136 minutes a week1 One strand: Tier 2 in the exampleGroups42 ÷ 4 = 10.5, so 11students ÷ group size, rounded upStaff minutes for one group4 × (30 + 5) = 140sessions × (minutes + setup), each weekAll Tier 2 groups11 × 140 = 1,540staff minutes a weekEach student receives4 × 30 × 10 = 1,200 min20 hours over the cycle2 The program against the staff timeNeeded2,890 + 96 = 2,986groups + progress checksAvailable2,850 minuteseach adult’s minutes × days, added up2,850 − 2,986 = −136Short by 136 minutes a week
The example’s Tier 2 strand, then the whole program: 2,986 staff minutes needed each week against 2,850 available.

Groups, minutes and hours

Groups are students divided by group size, rounded up, so the last group may be smaller. A group costs staff time for every session: the minutes of instruction plus the setup minutes you enter for moving students and getting started. A student’s hours are sessions a week times minutes a session times the weeks in the cycle; setup is not counted as instruction.

Progress checks are students times the checks that fall inside the cycle times the minutes per check, spread evenly across the weeks. Staff time available is each adult’s minutes a day times days a week. The full-time equivalent divides the minutes needed by the full-time minutes you set, 1,500 a week unless you change it.

What the research guide says

The IES practice guide for reading in the primary grades recommends intensive, systematic small-group instruction for students below the benchmark and says these groups typically meet three to five times a week for 20 to 40 minutes. It recommends monitoring the progress of Tier 2 students at least once a month, and intensive instruction on a daily basis for students who show minimal progress. The page notes when a strand falls outside those descriptions; it does not judge the program you use.

Group size, session length and sessions a week together set how many chances a student has to respond and be corrected, which Fuchs, Fuchs and Malone call dosage. That is why a bigger group is never free, even when it makes the schedule fit.

What it leaves out

A plan that fits in minutes still has to fit the day: which rooms are free, when each grade can release students, who covers an absence. The page sizes the program; the master schedule places it. Costs are the staff time set aside plus what you enter, with no benefits or overhead unless they are in your hourly figure.

Sources

  1. Gersten, R., Compton, D., Connor, C. M., Dimino, J., Santoro, L., Linan-Thompson, S., & Tilly, W. D. (2009). Assisting students struggling with reading: Response to Intervention and multi-tier intervention in the primary grades (NCEE 2009-4045). Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Recommendations 3, 4 and 5.
  2. Gersten, R., Beckmann, S., Clarke, B., Foegen, A., Marsh, L., Star, J. R., & Witzel, B. (2009). Assisting students struggling with mathematics: Response to Intervention (RtI) for elementary and middle schools (NCEE 2009-4060). Institute of Education Sciences. The companion guide for math.
  3. Fuchs, L. S., Fuchs, D., & Malone, A. S. (2017). The taxonomy of intervention intensity. Teaching Exceptional Children, 50(1), 35–43. Dosage as one dimension of intensity.

The worked example is made up; its counts, minutes and dollar figures are examples. The page does arithmetic on the numbers you enter and does not recommend a program, a group size or a staffing level. It keeps counts only, in this browser. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.