The Mission Statement of the Mount Laurel Township School District is to provide an exemplary educational foundation for all students. In many cases, building principals and classroom teachers are able to meet the needs of students within their building and their classroom. However, it is occasionally necessary to access district educational support services to assist in providing success for all students. The coordination of services is the responsibility of the building principal to ensure that students who are “at risk” are provided with an appropriate educational program.

I&RS offers teachers support for students with varying needs. This assistance includes providing services that are available in your child’s school and at the district level. The role of the committee is to determine which service or services will most benefit the student. A plan to implement the identified support is also developed by the I&RS Committee. Each school in Mount Laurel has it’s own I&RS Committee. Each month, administrators, teachers, school counselors, and other district staff members work collaboratively to assist teachers in meeting the needs of all students.

In many instances, the intervention plan developed by the I&RS team will include the use of the Response to Intervention, or RTI, model.

The RTI model for school-age children who are at-risk emphasizes pre-referral prevention and intervention. RTI can be distinguished from traditional methods of identifying learning disabilities in that it allows early and intensive interventions based on learning characteristics and does not wait for children to fail before providing necessary services and supports. The major premise of RTI is that early intervening services can both prevent academic problems for many students who experience learning difficulties and determine which students actually have learning disabilities, as distinct from those whose underachievement can be attributed to other factors such as gaps in learning due to mobility. Note that learning disabilities can be rooted in academic, behavioral, health or social-emotional challenges.