Note: Our current pilot client does not use an SEL assessment. The table below spells out in detail how tiering will work for customers who use RethinkEd’s SEL/wellness student self-assessment. As we sign on more customers who use other SEL/wellness assessments, we will add how to map assessment results to tiers accordingly.
Similar to the logic behind the tier recommendations for academic assessments, RethinkEd wants to leverage the work of the makers of wellness assessments (sometimes referred to as social-emotional learning assessments) when determining the level of support students need. For wellness assessments that provide categories of scores like RethinkEd does, the recommended tiers will be based on them. Typically for assessments that provide categories scores, the scoring reflects how well students are faring on wellness compared to peers. For example, RethinkEd’s wellness measure has scores of 1 to 5 that reflect percentiles according to grade level bands (e.g., grades 3 through 5, grades 6 through 8). A score of 1 corresponds to the 10th percentile and lower (labeled as “very low”), and a score of 2 corresponds to the 11th to 30th percentile (labeled as “low”; ERB 2019). Such approaches to scoring provide strong indication of how to recommend students for tiered interventions.
Although some wellness measures have scores offering comparisons that group students according to their ages or grade levels, some do not, opting instead to provide an overall score for students regardless of their age or grade level (e.g., SAIL Colab, 2020). We therefore use more general language when explaining our approach to recommending tiers below, omitting references to grade-level performance, than we do when explaining tier recommendations for academic assessments. A general guide to how we determine tier recommendations is:
· Tier 3: score category indicating that the student is much lower than average
· Tier 2: score category indicating that the student is lower than average
· Tier 1: score category indicating the student is about average or above average
To make this general guide more concrete, the table below gives the mapping of RethinkEd score bands to recommended tiers.
We will be using the Student’s Self-Assessment Data as the basis for suggested Tier levels.
Self- Assessment data is entered twice a year, meaning that tiers would happy separately in the fall and in the spring of each academic year.
Table Mapping of RethinkEd Wellness Scores to Default Recommended Tiers for MTSS (see note below about changes to default)
| Numeric 1 to 5 band for RethinkEd Wellness assessment | Corresponding percentile compared to grade-level peers for RethinkEd Wellness assessment | Descriptive label for RethinkEd Wellness assessment |
Tier 3 (much lower than average) | 1 | 0 - 10 | Very low |
Tier 2 (lower than average) | 2 | 11 - 30 | Low |
Tier 1 (about average or above average) | · 3 · 4 · 5 | · 31 - 70 · 71 – 090 · 91 - 99 | · Average · High · Very high |
In the addition to the above, the product will show indicators for students who are approaching a less intensive tier (e.g., tier 3 near the cutoff for tier 2) or who are at risk to dropping to a more intensive tier (e.g., tier 2 near the cutoff for tier 3) as defined here:
Score of 9 or 10 = tier 3 with an approaching indicator (such as an up arrow)
Score of 11 or 12 = tier 2 with an at risk indicator (such as a down arrow)
Score of 29 or 30 = tier 2 with an approaching indicator (such as an up arrow)
Score of 31 or 32 = tier 1 with an at risk indicator (such as a down arrow)
Important note: When a user changes from the default mapping for tiers, the at risk indicator (such as a down arrow) will apply when the student has the minimum score or the minimum score +1 for tier 1 or tier 2. The approaching indicator (such as an up arrow) will apply when the student has the maximum score or the maximum score -1 for tier 2 or tier 3.