How the IPTN Works

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We are eager to hear from Washington families, students, educators, and other community members about ways the IPTN could better impact the network’s aim.

If you want to learn more about the work of the IPTN, including ways to talk to someone on the IPTN leadership team, email IPTN.

The IPTN functions by assembling leaders from technical assistance (TA) organizations into a collaborative network. This network is structured into various communities of practice, each focusing on different drivers of significance related to the aim of the network. Network drivers encompass the following areas: 

  • Data Monitoring and Analysis 
  • Strategic Resource Use  
  • TA: Evidence-Based Practices & Adaptive Leadership 
  • Shared Ownership: “De-siloing” 
  • Family and Community Partnerships 

Within these communities, TA providers engage in vital activities that include identifying and addressing crucial needs for creating inclusive educational systems. They work collaboratively across different levels of influence to implement systemic improvements in Washington’s school systems. In addition, they receive personalized support from the staff of OSPI and other partners, ensuring that their efforts are aligned with the broader network. 

IPTN Theory of Action

The theory of action below defines the concrete actions IPTN members take in order to impact the network’s aim. Much of this work involves an ever-evolving progress where members reflect on the overall vision of the network and identify clear actions that have the potential to positively impact this vision.  

If the IPTN Design Team takes the following actions
  • Identify professional organizations to provide TA across Washington that help to equip educators with the skills, knowledge, and mindset for supporting inclusive practices within Washington, 
  • Map the leadership, location, strengths, and interests with selected TA providers within Washington and use these strengths and interests to codesign a TA network and related communities of practice,  
  • Create a mission, a vision, goals, and objectives and identify key data as the core focus of the IPTN and give TA providers participating in the IPTN the opportunity to give feedback on these areas prior to designing TA tiers, 
  • Deliver universal TA offerings that provide general high-leverage supports, resources, and coalition-building events that mobilize TA providers toward the work of inclusive practices and elicit their feedback regarding targeted and intensive TA activities (e.g., website, virtual convenings, potential in-person convenings, checklists, and other free resources), 
  • Create targeted TA offerings through communities of practice centered on areas of interest intersection between TA providers and the goals and areas of focus of the IPTN,  
  • Create intensive TA offerings through individualized support for TA providers requesting more intensive support and for TA providers identified as requiring more intensive TA in priority areas (e.g., theory of action creation, power-mapping, facilitating internal meetings, etc.), and 
  • Curate data gathering and visualization technologies targeting TA providers that understand the IPTN’s key data, making these data publicly available to the field.  
The actions will result in the following outputs
  • A tiered TA system of network-based support that provides sustainable infrastructure for future areas of focus, 
  • A mobilized TA provider community equipped with the knowledge and network for moving inclusive practice forward within the state,  
  • A process where IPTN providers experience tiered TA for themselves and their organization to further the work of inclusion and equip providers to provide tiered supports and/or organize their supports and services for a full-scale multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) local education agency (LEA) TA system in Washington, 
  • Data infrastructure and tools that make the key data related to inclusion and student outcomes clear to the IPTN network and the field, and 
  • Washington will increase the number of school districts focused on inclusion and inclusionary practices within an MTSS across the state.  
So that the IPTN will have the following outcomes
  • Washington will create proportionate representation across student racial and ethnic groups regarding identification, eligibility, and placement of students eligible for special education services within the state.  
  • Key Data: Identification rates across eligibility categories and racial groups, educational setting placement rates across racial groups  
  • Washington will increase access for students who have historically been segregated from general education and therefore increase student placement in LRE 1 with an emphasis on students currently in LRE 3.  
  • Key Data: Improved LRE rates for focused populations 
  • Washington will increase student outcomes and access to postsecondary opportunities for students with and without disabilities.  

Working Within the IPTN’s Tiers of Support  

Within each TA tier, IPTN members are provided the tools and community for making an impact toward the network’s aim. Furthermore, it is through these tiers that IPTN members communicate with the OSPI and with each other regarding how to make a collective impact.  

Tier 1 Universal Activities

Collective activities for ALL IPTN members organized around improving access to rigorous standards-based instruction and improved postsecondary outcomes for students in LRE 3 and Black students with an IEP. Examples of these activities include microlearning, cross-organization problem-solving, data-based root cause analysis, community of practice (CoP) share-outs, and informal meetings between members outside of IPTN sessions. 

Tier 2 Communities of Practice

Targeted CoPs organized around five systemic drivers that would impact the IPTN aim statement. CoPs are composed of IPTN members based on the sphere of influence these members hold within their roles or based on the mission of their organizations. CoP drivers are centered around the following areas—data monitoring and analysis, strategic resource use, evidenced-based practices and adaptive leadership, shared ownership (“de-siloing”), and family and community partnerships. 

Tier 3 One-On-Ones

One-on-one activities between IPTN leadership and IPTN members focused on identifying and carrying out change ideas within their organization’s spheres of influence related to improving the IPTN aim. 

IPTN Network Framework

The IPTN works within a tiered model of support to create a continuum of training options, community idea-sharing methods, and a collective approach to influencing our network’s aim. This tiered support model differs from that of larger MTSS initiatives happening in the state for schools and districts, though many members of the IPTN have spheres of influence that intersect with these efforts.