Student Needs

• We can anticipate that not all students will learn essential behavioral and academic skills the first time we teach them or in the first way that we teach them. We can prepare with evidence-gathering opportunities—assessments—that reveal these students and their needs and embed time during which these additional, timely supports in meeting grade-level expectations can be provided. That’s Tier 2. • We can anticipate that some students have significant behavioral and academic needs and gaps in prerequisite knowledge from several grade levels or courses prior to the current grade level or course. We can prepare with timely, intensive, and targeted interventions that meet these needs. That’s Tier 3.

Each tier has a lot of moving parts, so we need a system—MTSS—that organizes and sustains these tiers of support. This ensures that students who are struggling are identified in a proactive and timely manner, and teams determine early intervention solutions to minimize the impact of struggles. This information is gained by assessing student response to high-quality instruction that has been demonstrated to be effective. MTSS emphasizes outcomes. It is equally impactful for students who are not identified as struggling but who are considered gifted or above level, but whose needs may not be met.

Effective road maps present understandable steps that lead travelers to critical decision points. A road map sets clear future objectives and answers the critical why, what, and how questions to create a plan for reaching that objective. The “why” questions define objectives and strategies, the “what” questions are about challenges, solutions, and performance targets, and the “how” questions outline the processes and resources (human and technical) that will be needed along the way. With these questions answered, teams can develop their action plans. This book is structured around key parts, presented as chapters, of a successful journey.

Who This Book Is for and How This Book Is Organized

This road map provides guidance to K–12 educators—classroom teachers, special education teachers, paraprofessionals, principals, and superintendents—while suggesting when and how to make midcourse adjustments. The school principal is the key leader in the problem-solving and assessment process, and in the entire multitiered system of supports for students needing intensive intervention (students

who are not responding to Tier 1 and 2 supports and identified with significant deficits in foundational skills). The principal drives the process, asking key questions, holding staff accountable, and ensuring that required resources are allocated.

The principal and the rest of the school’s educators are assumed to be working as a well-functioning professional learning community (PLC). The collaborative teams that make up a PLC are a fundamental component of MTSS and are primary drivers on the journey to implement and sustain an MTSS program. There is no MTSS without PLCs, and schools in which collaborative teams are a robust, healthy, and consistent presence are likely to possess or are poised to possess a robust, healthy, and impactful multitiered system of supports. PLC processes enhance teams’ capacities to meet student needs.

At the district level, superintendents and their boards might consider using the MTSS road map to vertically and horizontally align their schools across the entire K–12 system. This requires a discussion that could potentially include gaining consensus among stakeholders about shifting the distribution of resources to address the greatest areas of need in the system. At a minimum, this would be an annual discussion and could well become part of the financial planning districts engage in.

Take the following factors into consideration when beginning a journey using the MTSS road map.

• What’s our destination? Chapter 1 describes the essential elements of successful MTSS—where you want to go—and the appendix offers case studies of implementation plans so readers can see where other schools have gone. • Where do we go next? Chapter 2 explains Tiers 2 and 3 so readers know where to go when students aren’t getting everything they need from Tier 1, and chapter 3 reveals what readers need to assess before and during MTSS implementation so readers know where to go next. • How do we get there? Chapter 4 offers the ten steps to MTSS success and helps readers anticipate roadblocks. • What are our gauges telling us? Chapter 5 explains what information schools need to make an informed decision about their journey; with this information, readers can gather and use data to inform and sustain MTSS and student success.