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Welcome to the Instructional Support Program Home Page!
My name is Kimberly Connell and I have had the pleasure of teaching in the school district since 1987. The majority of my career I have worked in the Learning Support Program. I am currently working as the Instructional Support Program at both Grandview Elementary and Morrisville Intermediate School.
I believe that all children can learn and it's my job to find a way to help your student to become a successful, productive member of our Morrisville community.
What is IST?
The Instructional Support Team (IST) is a program whose goals are to maximize individual student success in the regular classroom, while at the same time serving as a screening process for students who may be in a need of special education services. IST is a positive, success-oriented program which uses specific assessment and intervention techniques to help remove educational, behavioral, or affective stumbling blocks for all students in the regular classroom.
Who is on the IST team?
The IST team is composed of a group of professionals from the student's school. These professional may include the student's classroom teacher, the instructional support teacher, a school psychologist, principal, guidance counselor, social worker, special education teacher or other relevant service provider, such as speech/language consultant or behavioral consultant.
What does the IST team do?
A student, who is struggling in the school setting, will be referred to IST by their classroom teacher. Once a referral is made, the team meets together to discuss the concerns regarding the student. The team will develop an action plan, which includes goals, baseline data and instructional interventions. After the plan is developed, the team will implement it for 6 to 8 weeks. At the end of this period, the team will meet again to check on the progress of this child. The team will make additional recommendations for the child and update the Action Plan. During this process the team may make a recommendation to refer the student for an evaluation. That evaluation process may or may not lead to recommendations of special education services.
The ultimate goal of the team is to have the student become successful in the general education setting.
