Six Data Points and a Principal Who Wants Paperwork

1. Judge the data before judging the child. Six points across eight weeks is the bare minimum for a trend. Using the endpoint method, (33 - 22) / 7 weeks = about 1.6 words per week, at or just above the 1.5 aimline. But the series is not clean: there is a 7-point jump between the middle and later probes and a dip earlier, which is what non-equivalent, harder passages produce. The apparently adequate slope may be measurement noise rather than growth.

2. Inventory implementation confounds. Nine absences in 40 days is roughly 22% of school missed, so Devon did not receive the intended dose. Two weeks of a substitute raises real questions about fidelity. Neither a session/dosage log nor a fidelity check is in the record.

3. Apply a pre-set decision rule. With usable points closer to four or five, and with delivery confounds, the defensible conclusion is that the data are insufficient to support or to rule out a disability. Below-benchmark status is a screening flag, not an eligibility criterion, and a slope drawn from invalid passages is not evidence that Devon is fine either.

4. What to say to the principal. Neither yes nor no: correct the measurement and attendance problems, continue four more weeks with a written rule such as 'if slope is under 1.0 words per week with fidelity at or above 80%, refer,' and reconvene. Committing now to an evaluation date or to continued Tier 2 alone would both be predetermination.

Threats to validity

• Probe equivalence: passages differed in difficulty; grade-level text varies by hundreds of a lexile range across forms. Use consistent level/season, alternate forms, and score the median of three passages.
• Dosage: count sessions delivered, not weeks elapsed. Absences mean fewer than eight intervention sessions.
• Fidelity: a substitute interventionist with no fidelity data means the independent variable is unknown.
• Assessor and setting effects: changes in examiner, time of day, or group composition shift scores.
• Goal source: the aimline should come from actual peer growth (e.g., a national weekly growth norm), not a round number chosen by the team.

Plan for four weeks

1. Probe three times weekly with equivalent forms; keep the same level through the period.
2. Keep a session log (minutes, attendance, materials) and conduct two short fidelity observations with a checklist.
3. Address the attendance pattern directly: ask why days are missed (illness, transportation, avoidance) because the absences may themselves be the referral question.
4. Verify instructional match: is the intervention targeting Devon's actual deficit (decoding versus fluency versus vocabulary)?
5. Graph, compute slope, and bring the graph to a team meeting with the decision rule written down in advance.

The data-based plan and the legal obligation now run on separate tracks and both must proceed.

• The request triggers a timeline. Under IDEA, once the parent requests an initial evaluation the district must respond; consent, then evaluation within the state timeline (IDEA's 60-day default, often shorter in state rule). MTSS/RTI data cannot be used to delay or deny an evaluation of a child suspected of having a disability.
• You still have two lawful paths, and both require documentation. Either convene, review existing data with the parents, and obtain informed consent to evaluate, or refuse and issue prior written notice explaining the basis, the data relied on, and the procedural safeguards. 'Not enough progress-monitoring points yet' alone is a weak and risky basis for refusal after four months of concern.
• Do not discard the progress data. They remain useful as part of the evaluation: they inform the referral questions, the exclusionary-factor analysis (attendance, instruction, opportunity to learn), and later the IEP. Keep monitoring during the evaluation.
• Communicate. Tell the mother in plain language what happens next and when, in her preferred language, and follow up in writing.