Implementing Prereferral Intervention Teams as an Approach to School-Based Consultation in an Urban School System

Prereferral intervention is an approach to the prevention of special education problems that, although frequently recommended in recent years, has not received sufficient attention as a research topic. The purpose of this article is to provide data descriptive of the typical procedures and the collaborative problem-solving processes used by the prereferral intervention teams in eight urban schools. In addition to describing the model and its implementation, this article provides data indicating educators' perceptions of the goals of these teams, and their strengths and weaknesses, as well as describing the nature of consultation that is provided to classroom teachers and offering recommendations for improving these teams. The qualitative data sources used in this research included surveys, interviews, and team observations. Surveys were administered to team members and teachers, followed by interviews with these two groups. This resulted in 134 surveys and 91 interviews that were available for analysis. A...