School-based response to intervention (RTI) teams must gather, organize, chart, and interpret essential instructional information to make effective adjustments to meet the academic needs of struggling learners. Quantified data such as student proficiency scores, rate of progress trends, and achievement gap results provide the foundation for making multitiered decisions in RTI models. In addition to these quantified results, several key qualitative instructional aspects exist in every teaching and learning environment that warrant consideration when making instructional decisions. This article describes key quantitative and qualitative instructional essentials necessary to make informed academic adjustments for struggling learners. Identification of the essentials discussed is based on literature review and fieldwork completed with school-based RTI problem-solving teams in their efforts to implement RTI. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)