School-Wide Screening: Caveats and Concerns

| RTI Practices | Caveats and Concerns | School Examples | Resources |

School-based examples of school-wide screening, such as those presented in the School Examples section, are "real world" examples that represent current practices considered by most staff in their sites as "works in progress." In contrast, research studies may present a different picture of screening standards (see Research Examples). Schools considering adopting a responsiveness-to-intervention model should consider the following points when undertaking screening in conjunction with their RTI process.

Schools and teachers need to consider false positive and false negative error rates when making determinations about at risk status using school-wide screening data. A false positive occurs when a screening measure determines a child is at risk, but that child later has adequate outcomes. A false negative occurs when a student performs adequately on the screening measure but has difficulty acquiring the skill.

Screening measures must have adequate predictive validity; that is, performance on the screen must be highly correlated with performance on the outcome measure.

Clarifying the difference between screening and progress monitoring can help schools understand the role of screening in an RTI model: School-wide screening occurs two or three times per year as an assessment for an entire grade, and results may be used for reporting adequate yearly progress. Progress monitoring, in contrast, occurs more frequently (potentially weekly) to monitor individual student progress and determine whether instruction needs to be adjusted.