Describe One Combined Instructional Experience, Not Two Programs
Tier-Alignment Audit
Companion to The Child Should Never Experience the Organizational Chart · Updated 2026-09-30
Use this for any student receiving supplemental academic, behavioral, language, or other support alongside core instruction. Worked as Tool 7 in “Seven Prototype Tools Put the Ideas to Work in Real Meetings”, in “Make the Seams Disappear for the Child”, with the five-question rule explained in “Tiers of Support Must Work as One System.” The book has no worked instance of this audit yet.
Name the student or student group, the core instructional setting, the supplemental support, and the targeted problem.
| Field | Record here |
|---|---|
| Student or student group | |
| Core instructional setting | |
| Supplemental support | |
| Targeted problem |
A. Core Instruction
| Question | Answer or notes |
|---|---|
| What is the student expected to learn in the core setting? | |
| What evidence do we have about the quality and accessibility of that instruction for this student? | |
| What relevant instruction has the student actually had the opportunity to receive? |
B. Supplemental Support
| Question | Answer or notes |
|---|---|
| What mechanism is the support intended to change? | |
| What routines, materials, language, or strategies does it use? | |
| How will progress be measured? |
C. Alignment
| Question | Answer or notes |
|---|---|
| Which practices should be intentionally consistent across settings, and which should intentionally differ because the specialist is adding expertise? | |
| What content or instructional time does the student miss in order to receive the support, and how is that missed instruction recovered or accounted for? | |
| Which of the support’s frequency, setting, or provider is fixed by an IEP or a 504 plan, so that the question becomes what to protect around it? (See “Some Dependencies Are Written Into Law.”) | |
| What information moves from core instruction to the support provider, and what moves back? |
D. Interpretation
| Question | Answer or notes |
|---|---|
| What alternative explanations for difficulty remain plausible? | |
| For multilingual learners, what language-development evidence matters? | |
| If disability is being considered, what evidence distinguishes disability-related need from language development, opportunity to learn, attendance, or instructional mismatch? |
E. Ownership and Review
| Question | Answer or notes |
|---|---|
| Who owns the supplemental action, and who owns integration across settings? | |
| What evidence will be reviewed, and on what date? | |
| What result would cause the team to intensify, change, reduce, or discontinue the support? |
The audit is complete only when the team can describe one combined instructional experience rather than two parallel programs. Write that description here:
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