Multi-Tier Systems of Support or MTSS is something that I hope you’ve heard mentioned in your school. In its simplest form, MTSS means that educators are helping meet a student’s instructional, social and emotional needs. Sometimes that happens with classroom instruction, sometimes with smaller groups and sometimes, one on one. MTSS includes methods like Response to Intervention (or its acronym, RTI) and Positive Behavioral Interventions and Support (yet another acronym: PBIS).
Often there is a tiered system. Tier 1 includes all students and is monitored by classroom teachers. It’s important for teachers to remember that a student who is unhappy or scared cannot learn. All students deserve a check-in from all their teachers on how they are doing.
It’s important for teachers to remember that a student who is unhappy or scared cannot learn.
Tier 2 students are identified by members of the Teacher Support Team (TST) or the Student Success Team (SST). Those are students that might need just a little more help academically, socially, or emotionally and they meet in smaller groups.
And if those students need more support, they are moved to Tier 3 for one on one coaching with a teacher or counselor.
It’s likely your school or district already has a framework in place that can help meet the needs of your students. If not, here’s a link to an excellent resource from P.K. Younge and Edutopia that can help get your school started.
If you’re already a SchoolStatus user and if you’re already beginning to address the needs of students via MTSS, awesome. You know the saying, work smarter, not harder. Let us help you.
As a member of the TST or SST, you’ll be responsible for evaluating student data to determine the student’s needs instructionally, socially, and emotionally.
SchoolStatus has your quantitative student data in one spot. We will make it easy for you to take a look at the student’s classroom performance. You can quickly and easily do trend analysis using prior year’s data on the Student Card™.
But we know that quantitative data is just a small picture of a student - they have problems with friends, they have problems at home, they have successes, they have fears, they have strengths. You probably know what those are - use Notes on the Student Card to help other teachers know too!
You’ll be able to use those notes to keep up with progress in your MTSS for each individual student. You’ll also be able to share that with each other securely and easily in SchoolStatus.
No MTSS would work if we only do it at school. Education - academic, social, or emotional education - cannot stop when the bell rings at the end of the school day. We need to bring in parents and stakeholders as partners in any MTSS. SchoolStatus has you covered there with phone calls for the more delicate subjects, and text messages for quick updates. And everything is logged and recorded automatically.
When you are designing your MTSS, or your RTI, or your PBIS or any other acronym, remember you have a resource in SchoolStatus and you have the team here at SchoolStatus ready, willing and able to help you.
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