This text is an excerpt from a presentation given by Amanda Abernathy (Warren Consolidated Faculties) and Dr. Kari Stubbs(Levels Studying) at MAASE 2025.
On the MAASE 2025 Convention, Amanda Abernathy of Warren Consolidated Faculties and Dr. Kari Stubbs from Levels Studying shared how one district turned its Tier 3 interventions from a compliance-driven “check-the-box” course of right into a proactive, data-driven, and sustainable system. The catalyst behind this transformation? The Tutorial Readiness Intervention System (ARIS) — a research-based toolkit from Levels Studying that builds the foundational abilities college students with autism and associated wants have to entry studying: joint consideration, engagement, and communication.
“I can’t educate a toddler to learn if the coed by no means engages with me. ARIS gave us the instruments to get them to have a look at us, join, and take part.” — Amanda Abernathy
Why Tier 3 Wanted Change
Too typically, college students who enter Tier 3 interventions keep there indefinitely. As Amanda described, “As soon as a scholar landed in Tier 3, it’s like they purchased themselves a house till age 26.”
Warren Consolidated refused to simply accept that actuality. By embedding ARIS into their Multi-Tiered System of Helps (MTSS), they redefined Tier 3 helps:
- Closing tutorial gaps not addressed within the basic training curriculum.
- Delivering real-time, actionable knowledge to tell tutorial changes.
- Aligning educational and behavioral helps so college students may generalize abilities throughout settings.
Outcomes That Converse for Themselves
In only a few years, the district achieved outcomes that many educators would possibly think about extraordinary:
- Zero para turnover for 3 years in a constructing with 21 aides — exceptional in a subject with 20–30% annual turnover.
- Progress from 1 to 7 lecture rooms serving college students with autism and associated wants.
- Each scholar demonstrated measurable progress, tracked and visual by ARIS.
- One scholar efficiently transitioned from Tier 3 to Tier 2 in lower than a 12 months.
- A nonverbal 4-year-old progressed to finishing 10 minutes of unbiased educational work every day.
- 100% of paras educated alongside academics, changing into totally built-in members of tutorial groups.
Tales of Scholar Success
From Nonverbal to Engaged: A preschooler with no useful communication started the 12 months fully disengaged. By spring, he was independently finishing 10 minutes of educational duties — and shifting from Tier 3 to Tier 2.
Opening Doorways to Inclusion: A scholar with vital behavioral challenges started collaborating normally training actions for the primary time. Even whereas remaining in Tier 3, ARIS gave her entry to experiences she wouldn’t have had in any other case.
As Amanda defined, “Generally progress isn’t seen in standardized assessments. With ARIS, we are able to monitor and present progress in ways in which matter to educators, mother and father, and decision-makers.”
Why ARIS Works
ARIS succeeds as a result of it focuses on the readiness abilities that unlock entry to teachers: engagement, communication, and joint consideration. Built-in into MTSS, it ensures:
- Tutorial and behavioral helps are unified.
- Lecturers and paras share a standard language and constant instruments.
- Actual-time visible progress monitoring drives better-informed placement choices.
- Paras are empowered and invested, resulting in stability and program constancy.
Employees Stability as a Basis for Scholar Progress
Maybe probably the most placing outcomes of Warren Consolidated’s ARIS journey is the full elimination of para turnover. For 3 years, not a single aide left. That stability not solely sustains this system but in addition empowers paras to steer small teams, perceive the “why” behind methods, and turn into valued contributors to every scholar’s studying story.
“Our aides are an vital a part of our youngsters’ studying story.”
The Subsequent Chapter: ARIS Digital
Trying forward, Warren Consolidated is making ready for the district-wide rollout of the brand new ARIS Digital Platform in Fall 2025. This shift from inconsistent, handwritten notes to real-time digital knowledge assortment guarantees to:
- Standardize progress monitoring throughout lecture rooms.
- Give supervisors instantaneous entry to scholar progress developments.
- Lighten instructor workloads whereas making knowledge extra actionable in IEP conferences, MTSS cycles, and father or mother conferences.
As Amanda put it, “We’re shifting from 1999 to real-time visibility. I can sit down with a instructor, pull up the information, and know precisely how college students are rising — constantly and comparably throughout the district.”
A Mannequin for Sustainable Change
For Warren Consolidated, ARIS is now not only a curriculum — it’s a Tier 3 transformation device. It has helped the district:
- Transfer college students out of Tier 3 when applicable, with the information to help these choices.
- Maintain employees capability by shared possession and constant practices.
- Unite basic and particular training groups round a standard course of and language.
The Warren Consolidated story demonstrates what’s doable when faculties mix a high-fidelity tutorial system like ARIS with systemic alignment and collaborative monitoring: Tier 3 turns into not a last vacation spot, however a launchpad for scholar progress.
