In Guilford County Schools (GCS), the Intervention Support Team (IST) is a regular education process to address and resolve student problems in learning and/or behavior. IST is modeled after the national practice of having assistance or Intervention Support Teams in schools. The mission statement of IST in GCS is as follows:

The Intervention Support Team of Guilford County Schools will facilitate student achievement of academic, behavioral, and social competence.

By working with the referring teacher and the parents, the IST addresses academic and/or behavioral concerns by following a process designed to identify essential information, to develop an appropriate intervention plan, and to collect critical data when necessary. Specifically, the Intervention Support Team helps the classroom teacher:  choose the appropriate academic skill or behavior to work on; define the identified skill as specifically as possible; find research-based interventions that may work for the identified skill or behavior, and use curriculum-based measurement (CBM)  to monitor how much progress is being made. Research supports the strong positive impact of the regular classroom environment upon student achievement.

Each school in GCS should have an IST. IST membership is a school-based decision. It is recommended that members be selected from the following categories of personnel in order to have a team with a broad knowledge base and skill range: regular classroom teachers; teachers in special areas like exceptional child services; school-based support staff like counselors and curriculum facilitators; itinerant support staff like social workers and school psychologists; and administrators. Training for new IST teams is offered each year as well as trainings in how to administer and score the screening tests used by IST.