Differentiating instruction to meet all students’ needs is one of the most challenging parts of teaching. The academic setbacks many of America’s students have experienced after the COVID-19 pandemic temporarily closed schools have made it even harder. That’s why, starting in 2023, the Los Angeles Unified School District began investing in classroom math and literacy interventionists at every grade level in its Priority Schools—those where the district said needs are most significant.

Interventionists — certified teachers who help classroom teachers support students in math and literacy to get them to proficiency as quickly as possible —“are crucial in providing those additional opportunities to support both the teachers and the students,” said Nora Gonzalez, principal of William R. Anton Elementary. Student academic progress there declined after schools reopened, prompting the district to designate it a Priority School and provide interventionists for every grade.

“We don’t want students in the interventionist cycle for long,” said Frances Baez, chief academic officer for the Los Angeles school system. “They’re in and out,” which she said helps ensure all students get targeted support.

The nation’s second largest school district, which funds the interventionist positions using a combination of sources, including Title I money, uses what Baez called a plan-do-study cycle to guide the interventionists in using student data to inform lesson planning, instruction, and analysis of student progress. Additionally, the district adopted high-quality instructional materials and gives interventionists ongoing training in how to use them to ensure curricular and instructional alignment across schools.

“We created an interventionist academy so that all of our interventionists have the same training, same professional development, resources, and materials,” Baez said. 

Interventionists support students, teachers, and parents

Gonzalez, who along with a fellow school administrator, provided small-group support in reading and math for her 5th and 6th-grade students, said her school’s interventionists “were very busy.” They spent much of the day providing small-group instruction to up to 60 students each, but they also closely collaborate with teachers to support their instruction by co-teaching with and modeling lessons for them. 

“They’re providing a hands-on approach so teachers implement multi-tiered strategies effectively,” Gonzalez said.

Later, the interventionists might spend several hours planning professional learning communities with Gonzalez, observing instruction to support teachers in implementing new teaching strategies, or training classroom aides. After school, they provide extra help to students. And they hold workshops to teach parents strategies for supporting their students with their schoolwork. 

“We stretch the interventionists thin,” Gonzalez admitted. “It’s very systematic, very structured, very planned, so that we maximize the day.”

District sees promising results

Those efforts have yielded promising results. Baez said students who interventionists have supported have improved at a faster rate than those who haven’t, both districtwide and statewide. And district students have shown gains in every grade level and in every student demographic. Students with disabilities, English learners, and students at Priority Schools exceeded pre-pandemic levels in English language arts.

At Anton Elementary, Gonzalez reported a 28-point increase in English language achievement and a 23-point increase in math achievement since interventionists came on board. She said the growth is also evident when she and the interventionists examine student data together and observe students working in classrooms.

“This whole initiative is to enhance our students’ learning and the teachers’ effectiveness, and that’s exactly what it’s doing,” she said.

“We will be impacted across the board”

Los Angeles Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho told the Los Angeles Times in November 2024 that the district was enhancing its budgetary strategy to maintain investments such as the interventionists, calling on Congress and California state legislators to increase funding to public schools.

Both Gonzalez and Baez underscored the importance of federal education funding, both for the interventionist initiative and for the district as a whole.

“Given that our funds keep dwindling each year, I don’t know what we would do without federal funding,” Gonzalez said. 

Baez imagined serious ramifications if more federal education funds are reduced or eliminated.

“We will be impacted across the board. We use Title I for so many positions…it would be a direct hit to the classroom, to our schools, to our professional development,” she said.