Leadership, Collaboration, and Professional Knowledge
This domain covers the specialist's work beyond a single lesson: coaching colleagues, leading data teams, designing professional learning, and coordinating with families and IEP teams. Items are scenario-based and reward knowing who does what and which decision rule applies.
Multi-tiered systems of support
- Tier 1: core instruction for all students; roughly 80% should meet benchmarks.
- Tier 2: small-group, targeted intervention, typically three to five sessions weekly, with progress monitoring every two to four weeks.
- Tier 3: intensive, individualized, more minutes and smaller groups, often special education or close to it.
- Movement between tiers is driven by data and decision rules, not by the calendar.
Coaching and collaboration
- The coaching cycle is non-evaluative: co-plan, model, observe, reflect. The specialist supports the teacher's practice rather than rating it.
- Grade-level data meetings review screening and progress data, regroup students, and check intervention fidelity before changing programs.
- Confidentiality and clearly defined roles keep collaboration productive; the specialist recommends, while administrators make personnel and placement decisions.
Legal and family context
- IDEA governs special education eligibility, including specific learning disability, and permits RTI data to be part of the evaluation process.
- Section 504 provides accommodations for students with disabilities who do not need specialized instruction.
- Dyslexia is a phonological-processing-based word-reading difficulty; structured, explicit literacy instruction is the evidence-based response.
Worked example
A fourth-grade Tier 2 group has made no growth after eight weeks of three 20-minute sessions. Reasoning: before intensifying, the team verifies fidelity and attendance, checks that the intervention matches the assessed deficit, then either increases intensity (more minutes, smaller group, Tier 3) or refers for a comprehensive evaluation. Abandoning intervention without a fidelity check, or waiting another semester with no change, are both wrong.
Traps that cost marks
Assuming more time alone fixes weak intervention; skipping the fidelity check; confusing 504 accommodations with IEP services; treating the specialist as the evaluator of teachers.