The District Leadership Team engages district, family, and community partners to identify stakeholder needs and resources for responding to these needs. Initial and ongoing allocation of resources will need to be prioritized so that professional development and coaching take place. Resources encompass not only available monetary assets but also available personnel, instructional materials, and time that will facilitate the implementation of an MTSS as a framework for supporting all students. The District Leadership Team participates in MTSS evaluation and removes barriers to implementation.
The key functions of the District MTSS Team are to ensure implementation capacity is developed at the school level and to assist the District Leadership Team in building the infrastructure needed for sustaining high-quality implementation. District Teams are accountable for assisting schools in developing school leadership teams.
Members:
Dr. Felisha Whitaker, Sr. Director of Academic Services
Jamar Perry, Assistant Superintendent
Dr. LaJuana Norfleet, Director of Student Services
Dr. Suzanne Cotterman, Senior Director of Exceptional Children
Shelby Hunt, Senior Director of Federal Programs
Angie Salisbury, Director of Secondary Schools and CTE
Amy Rice, Director of Testing and Accountability
Rebecca Bishop, AIG Coordinator
Schools can use this planning guide to assist them in developing team structures within the school and ensure all parts of MTSS are covered by a school team. Schools should also consider planning for how to communicate across teams so that all stakeholders are informed.
The School Leadership Team’s primary focus is to facilitate school-wide implementation of MTSS. Recommended team members include cross-disciplinary representatives including principal, general and special education teachers, content area experts, student support personnel, and a school MTSS Coach. Members of this team should function with a clear vision for facilitating MTSS development by examining school-wide attendance, academic, and behavioral/social-emotional data and focusing on the needs of their students. The members must not only be representative of the school but also have the beliefs, knowledge, and skills to lead implementation efforts. Those with knowledge and experience in MTSS data, systems, and practices are instrumental in school implementation.
The next teaming configuration may look very different based on a variety of factors at the school site. The purpose of this team is more important to note than the exact membership. The purpose of this team is to confirm the hypotheses made by the school leadership team regarding school-wide data and group data. This team is also often responsible for matching students they serve to supplemental interventions, as defined by the school leadership team. In an elementary setting, this is most often the grade level team or grade level PLC. In a middle school setting, this is most often a team of teachers that share the same group of students. In a high school setting, this team may be the same as the school leadership team or another team that is examining school-wide practices and ensuring that students deemed at-risk are provided quality intervention in order to achieve positive outcomes. The most important membership characteristic of this team is that there is common membership between this group and the School Leadership Team in order to ensure sound communication in a seamless system for student support.
This final teaming configuration may also look different at different sites. Sites should focus first on purpose rather than the name of the team. The purpose of this team is to design individualized supports for students who require something more intensive for an area(s) of difficulty than the standard treatment protocol designed by the school leadership team. Students requiring this level of support may require an array of interventions that are designed for their unique needs and, therefore, may need specialized personnel to consult on the design of this plan.
School Administrator
School Guidance Counselor and/or MTSS Team Coordinator
Referring General Education Teacher
Parent (Should always be invited)
Student, when appropriate
Teacher with specific instructional expertise
Special Education Teacher
ESL Teacher
AIG Teacher
School Nurse
School Social Worker
District Attendance Officer
District Parent-Family Liaison
Any Outside agency involved with the student
Responsibilities:
Takes responsibility for allocation of resources
Monitors staff support/climate for successful intervention implementation
Makes arrangements to allow MTSS Team members to participate in the meetings
Encourages parent involvement
Responsibilities:
Promotes positive behavior intervention supports (PBIS) and facilitates positive school climate
Assists administration and staff to understand the familial, cultural, and community components of students’ response to instruction, learning, and academic success.
Maintains a database that lists each student involved in the MTSS Team process
Maintains a case file for each student. The file should contain any documents brought to or developed at the MTSS Team meeting
Manages and monitors paperwork for completion and accuracy
Collaborates with teachers to track documentation and schedules students for MTSS Team meetings
Ensures the Problem Solving Model is followed
Ensures that information is documented
Encourages parent participation
Note: MTSS Team case files for all students in Granville County should be maintained in RTI:Stored and contain all MTSS documentation. The school counselor or MTSS Team Chair is responsible for the transition of MTSS documentation when a student changes schools.
Responsibilities:
Seeks expertise from MTSS Team due to academic or behavioral difficulties exhibited by a student in his/her class.
Identifies/implements, documents, and analyzes evidence-based academic and behavioral interventions
Differentiates instruction for a diverse classroom.
Collaborates with other school personnel in data collection and analysis. All of the student’s teachers who share an academic concern should participate in the meeting.
Responsibilities:
Provides important information regarding their child’s learning style, strengths, weaknesses, and background history.
Makes their concerns for their child known
Works together with school personnel in reinforcing skills and following through with interventions at home.
Listed below are some suggested roles to make MTSS Team meetings more efficient. In addition, the use of this script can also streamline the information-sharing portion of the meeting to ensure time constraints are met:
The meeting facilitator, also known as the MTSS Team Chair, must have a strong working foundation of the problem-solving process, as well as facilitation skills which include keeping all individuals who attend the meeting informed and focused on developing an intervention plan, encouraging participation from others, helping redirect the conversation if the discussion gets off task, and clarifying and summarizing information being communicated during the meeting. The most important aspect of the meeting facilitator’s responsibilities is establishing and maintaining a supportive and collaborative atmosphere.
This role should be assigned at the onset of the meeting. The recorder is responsible for completing the intervention plan at the MTSS Team meeting along with recording meeting notes. The recorder is expected to capture the important information shared at the meeting as well as ensure that all areas of the intervention plan are addressed including progress monitoring information, as well as, future meeting dates.
This role should be assigned at the onset of the meeting. The timekeeper is essential in making certain that meeting times are respected. Because many decisions need to be made during meetings, the team must stay on task and always be cognizant of time. The timekeeper should monitor the team’s use of time and remind the team when time is limited in each stage of the meeting.
This role should be assigned at the onset of the meeting. Another vital member of the MTSS Team is the individual responsible for progress monitoring. In most cases, the general education teacher should be in charge of progress monitoring. The progress monitor must have an understanding of the progress monitoring tools available and the purpose of each tool. It is recommended that a progress monitor use a graphing system in order to best show the student’s progress.
The most promising strategy for sustained, substantive school improvement is developing the ability of school personnel to function as professional learning communities” (DuFour & Eaker, 1998). PLCs provide educators an avenue to collaborate regarding student learning and effective instructional strategies. The three concepts of the PLC include clarifying what each student will learn and how educators will ensure the learning, building a collaborative culture because the work cannot be completed in isolation, and using various forms of data to monitor student learning and respond to the learning in effective methods.
Collaboration is the key of the PLC, “the power of teachers is enhanced when teacher work collaboratively in highly effective teams” (Eaker, 2016).
The PLC discussions are guided by the four critical questions:
What is it we expect our students to learn?
Clarifying and adding meaning to standards
What the benchmark, if met, would look like in student work
Common scoring, learning targets, pacing
How will we know when they have learned it?
Collaborative development and the use of common formative assessments
Quick checks for understanding
How will we respond when some students do not learn?
Differentiated instruction, MTSS
How will we respond when some students already know it?
Differentiated instruction
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