Reaching Struggling Learners
Reaching Struggling Learners
#93: Transforming Education with Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS)
Ever wondered how a school ecosystem can adapt to better serve both students and educators? This episode is a deep dive into the world of MTSS (Multi-Tiered System of Supports) and its profound impact on the educational journey. Join me, as we unravel the skepticism and spotlight the true transformative power of MTSS within education. You'll come away with a fresh understanding of how MTSS not only propels students into becoming active participants in their learning but also strengthens their resolve to tackle academic challenges. It's about building resilience, motivation, and a community that supports each learner's unique path.
Our conversation goes beyond the student desk to the heart of our schools—the teachers and administrators. Delve into the collaborative spirit that MTSS fosters among educators, providing them with an arsenal of strategies against burnout and isolation. We'll share stories from the frontlines, including how MTSS is not a shortcut to special education but a bastion for targeted support, easing the load on those resources. For parents tuning in, this episode sheds light on the clarity and empowerment MTSS brings to understanding and engaging with your child's educational needs. Together, we're painting a picture of a healthier, more supportive educational system for all.
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5 Steps to Getting Started with Progress Monitoring
We know what MTSS is and if you don't, you can always go back a couple podcast episodes and listen to. I think it was episode 90, where I explained exactly what MTSS is and all the tiers and everything. And last week we talked about the purpose behind MTSS. But that's all, honestly, really theoretical and teachers, schools they have to work in. Yeah, they have the realm of theoretical to back up what they're saying, but really they need to know actual results. They need to know the actual benefits of MTSS or the differentiation levels and all that. The fact is that students, teachers, classrooms, schools, districts all of those different levels should be getting some benefit from the MTSS process. But what are those benefits? That's what we're going to talk about today. Hi, I'm Jessica Curtis of Teaching Struggling Learners. I'm a boy mom and a veteran teacher. You're listening to the Reaching Struggling Learners podcast where we talk all about helping students succeed academically, socially and behaviorally. Thank you so much for tuning. In.
Speaker 1:Several times over the last several years that I was working with different school districts, I had several different administrators at the secondary level explain to me that MTSS for the secondary level was a complete and utter waste of time, energy resources and, at one point time, energy resources, and at one point I even had an administrator explain to me that she was not going to waste her time even thinking about that process, the mandated process. She wasn't going to think about that because it was such a waste of time and she had such better things that she could be filling her time with to serve her students. If only those administrators could have understood the benefits that they could have seen in their school districts and in their schools. The fact is, mtss does have some really significant benefits at every single level if we follow the process, the system, correctly and we actually use it the way it was meant to be. Today, I just want to talk about the different levels of benefit that could be achieved if we are following the MTSS process the way that it's supposed to be done. Now, all of these benefits are important. All of them can be just absolutely life-changing for students. But I am also listing all these benefits with the assumption that the school is following the process, making MTSS, the different levels of MTSS, as efficient as possible.
Speaker 1:Now, I realize this is not a utopian world. We have a long way to go, but this is what we should be striving for these benefits that I'm about to lay out for you. This is what we should be striving for, about to lay out for you. This is what we should be striving for Every time we meet for MTSS, every time we go over MTSS data or do data chats. This is what we're going for here.
Speaker 1:So obviously, I always want to start out with the students right, because, let's face it, what are schools without students? We have to be giving them the education, the experiences that they deserve and that they need to be successful. So when we perform the MTSS system properly, students at all levels, elementary through secondary they can absolutely see progress, significant progress. They can also start to really understand their own learning. When we're talking about tier two and tier three specifically, those smaller groups can be really, really significant in helping the students to understand the way that they learn and the way that they learn most easily.
Speaker 1:We all know that every single student is different. Every single student learns just a little bit differently than the one sitting next to them or the one sitting in front of them. We know that as educators. We know that as parents. If you have more than one kid, you know, looking at your children, those children do not learn the exact same way. They don't act the exact same. They're different kiddos and so when we employ MTSS, tier 2 and Tier 3 specifically for students who are struggling, we have a wonderful opportunity to teach those kiddos how they think, not what to think those kiddos how they think, not what to think, but how they think and how they learn, which is a huge opportunity for them to take control of their own learning and that they can move forward with some strategies and how they can help themselves, which, honestly, that is hugely empowering for children. It's empowering for anyone, but right now we're talking about kids in school. It is hugely empowering to give them the keys to their own success, not just the little skills that we want them to learn, but actually the keys that they can use to learn for themselves, to choose what they want to learn, what they want to focus on.
Speaker 1:That's huge and obviously, students who are successful, students who have met a challenge, struggled a little bit and have overcome it, have learned, have been able to see the progress that they have made through hard work, through extra work, through the graphs that we make, through progress monitoring. That very much bolsters a student's confidence level. When children meet and overcome challenges. That opens up more opportunities for them because they see that, hey, this challenging thing that I've just experienced, I can be okay, I can meet a challenge, I can overcome it and I can be better for it. I can be better on the other side. So that very much boosts a student's confidence and, by the way, it also motivates them to when they come up against a challenge again in the future academically, they know in their head hey, I know I can overcome this because I overcame that other thing back there. But I'm motivated to try a little bit harder, put a little bit more effort in, because I know that I can progress. I know that I can beat that challenge.
Speaker 1:Now, obviously, every single student is different. Every single student is going to see progress at a different level, is going to gain more confidence or less confidence, based on who they are, as a as an individual. But across the students who are given the proper tier two and tier three interventions, they receive all of those benefits. And all of that rolls into the benefits that our teachers see. Now the first thing is kind of obvious Obviously, our teachers want to see their children, their students, succeed. Teachers want the students to make progress. They want them to be able to read, they want them to be able to do math, to write on grade level. They want these things. And so when we provide the proper supports for their students, right then and there teachers are much happier than they were. When we're not giving the kids what they need, just the opportunity to have support for their students, that's a really big win for teachers because, let's be honest, teaching is a lonely profession and knowing that there is a group of people in the school that is going to meet on a regular basis to help their students Again, assuming that we are performing the MTSS meetings appropriately, assuming that the teachers are not put on the spot and made to feel bad it's a judgment-free zone, like we talked about in previous podcast episodes that is hugely beneficial to teachers to know that somebody's got their back, that somebody is going to help their students who need it.
Speaker 1:Also, like we've talked about in previous episodes, it is a big benefit to teachers to learn new strategies or get new resources through this MTSS process. Even teachers who have been teaching for 30 years can come into a meeting and talk about a student that is struggling in their classroom and come away with something new, something new to try some new resource Again, having that backup of knowing that, yeah, I have this student that's struggling. It's not all on that teacher to try and figure it out. Do it all on their own. No, they have backup, they have someone, they have a group of someones who are there who are going to share strategies, who are going to share resources. That's huge and teachers want that. They want to have support, they want to have a communal sharing of resources and strategies, again in a non-judgmental area. It has to be a judgment-free zone.
Speaker 1:Part of the reason that teachers love learning new strategies, getting new resources, is because, yeah, they want to see their students perform well. They also want to improve their own craft. Teachers are lifelong learners. That's part of the reason they got into the profession. They value education, they value learning, and so when they are given opportunities on a regular basis in a comfortable environment to improve their own craft, their own teaching craft, that is a huge motivational and confidence booster. That is absolutely going to help teachers be better. Teachers feel like they're making improvement, feel like they're making a difference, and that's really, really what they want. Teachers need to feel more supported.
Speaker 1:We've talked about on this episode, podcast episode, many others, and I mean it's in the news all the time. Teachers are leaving education in droves Because, yeah, there's the money thing we won't even talk about that because the money thing is a big one. But the reality is teachers are leaving the profession because they don't feel supported. They have been thrown to the wolves on. Here's this new curriculum this year, and here's this new curriculum the next year, and here's you know what? Do that stuff that you're not really comfortable with.
Speaker 1:Now do it online without any prep, and now do it kind of hybrid. So be prepared to do it online, but also be prepared to do it in person. Oh, never mind, you're just we're back in person. Oh, never mind, we're going to take two weeks off. It is ridiculous. We have to have new curriculum, but the students are far behind and we're still going to test them. But the tests don't matter, because there was the lockdowns and stuff. But it does matter for whether you get paid and how much you get paid, and there's a big pressure to get the test done and that the students have to perform well on the test, even though they weren't in school for a year and a half.
Speaker 1:Yet teachers don't feel supported. They don't. And if we do the MTSS system, we perform the series of meetings and providing the interventions again the way it's supposed to be teachers do start to feel supported again. It's not the end all, it's not the only thing that we can do or should do to support our teachers, but it's a really big step in the right direction to helping our teachers feel more supported. And then, finally, when it comes to teachers and the benefits from MTSS, teachers need community. They need to feel like they are a part of something. For a very long time, teachers have been told yeah, you listen to what's been told to you, they listen to the gurus, and then you walk in your classroom and you shut your door and you do what you need to do. That has been said over and over again. It was said to me when I first started teaching and for many times afterwards. But the fact is, teachers do need community. Teachers cannot continue to do it on their own, certainly not when we are just throwing new thing after new thing after new thing and never giving them a chance to breathe. We are also, at the same time, giving them new curriculum, giving them students who didn't master the previous set of skills. They haven't mastered the skills of reading, of writing, of performing math on grade level way back when. And now we're expecting them to educate students that aren't prepared for their curriculum.
Speaker 1:A case in point I had a teacher friend send to me last week just a really quick picture didn't have the student's name obviously on it, but just a very small work sample of a student at the high school level. That child was unable to write a sentence and the reason this teacher sent it to me was to try to help. She knows that I'm really good at interpreting. I can usually sound out things and figure out what a child is trying to say, and she's doing everything she can to give this child credit. And let me tell you the things that were written down. Most of it wasn't letters, the student. I was able to decipher two words the cell, and they spelled the word the T-H-A.
Speaker 1:I am not saying this to make fun of a student. Certainly not, absolutely not. But that student is in a high school classroom and is expected to perform and be taught at the high school level and be taught at the high school level. How in the world is any of that student's teachers going to be able to get that student to write sentences or be able to express themselves when simple words like the are misspelled? How is the student supposed to perform well with assessments and things when the child is not able to understand form letters, handwriting down letters? This is not a skill and, by the way, this is not a student who has any type of OTPT type of situation. We're not talking about something like that. We're talking about an average student who is struggling, obviously significantly, but does not have any extra special supports in place. This is the average student that this teacher is seeing.
Speaker 1:So this is a prime example of why we have to get MTSS systems working efficiently and effectively in our schools, because these kids are getting into high school and they're not able to complete simple tasks like writing a sentence with correct capitalization, punctuation and let alone spelling Just capitalization and punctuation and even phonetically spelling words. Our teachers need support. They need to have people that they can lean on within their building, in their grade level, in their subject level, whatever it is. They desperately need this if we want to keep good teachers in our school buildings. We talk a lot about the teacher shortage.
Speaker 1:I have recently seen quite a few snippets of information about administrators are also leaving. I don't have any personal examples of this, so I don't know how widespread it is, but I do know that the statistics are out there, that administrators are absolutely leaving the school environment and, again, I can't blame them. The pressures and all of the expectations are just as bad for them as they are for the teachers. They don't get as much lip service, I guess, when you look at social media and things like that, but the fact is there is a lot of pressure for administrators to perform and a lot of misunderstandings from above that the fact is the students are behind. The fact is that students did very much not benefit from the shutdowns and the lockdowns and there is learning loss if we are going to try to compare our students' test scores now to the norms which were done before there was a pandemic and before we shut down an entire nation.
Speaker 1:I am going to talk a little bit about some of the benefits that administrators see from properly running MTSS, because, again, I do think it is important that we realize that administrators are people too. I do tend to bash them because I love teachers I do but the fact is that administrators are under a massive, massive amount of pressure and if we are going to make big improvements in our schools in MTSS, we have to get administrators to want to stay. We have to keep the good administrators wanting to stay, wanting to persevere through these rough times in education. So, of course, obviously the first benefit we're going to talk about for administrators is your students are going to do better, which means your data is going to look better. Data speaks a lot when you're a school administrator talking to district administrators, we know this. We want the data to get better every single year and that's, honestly, that's the first step. When it comes down to it, mtss does improve your data because your students are able to perform better. They're filling skill gaps, which we need them to do.
Speaker 1:It also increases teacher retention. What does that do? Well, that means you're not having to train new teachers every year. It means that your teachers have the opportunity to get their feet under them and they can start to hone their craft and get better and better every year, which again cycles back to guess what your student data improves year by year. You do not want, every single year, to have a massive number of new teachers, especially not emergency hires and those kinds of things, not to mention the stress of the time lost to having to interview new teachers and trying to figure out who's going to be a good fit for your school environment and, quite frankly, not having a whole lot of choices because we don't have a whole lot of teachers out there that are wanting to come into the field. So it's really good for everyone involved if we can increase teacher retention.
Speaker 1:A lot of times teachers will talk about school culture. They will talk about the fact that a culture was toxic or it was a welcoming environment. Those kinds of things. We don't tend to talk a lot about how the school culture affects administrators Because a lot of times the fact is administration very much does set the tone for school culture. We will admit that. But it is also really tough to for an administrator, for any administrator, to take a school culture, whether they're a brand new administrator to the building or they've been around. They've been around there for a while and they realize this is not the way we want it to be. We want to improve our school culture.
Speaker 1:It is very difficult to turn that ship around MTSS and providing that environment, that safe, judgment-free zone for teachers where you can be in there and support your teachers and show them. You support them and provide realistic strategies and ideas. Or hear me out here Provide them with a break, provide them with an opportunity. Hey, I see that you've been struggling with this student. How about I give you a 10-minute break? You know, because I realized we had that meeting last week in MTSS and I know you're stressed, so I had an extra five minutes. I'm going to watch your class for a little bit. You go down, you take a little break and then you come back, not because the student wrecked their classroom, not because anything happened, but because you're tuned in to what's going on in that classroom for that teacher, and that will make huge, huge steps in helping your school culture and helping your teachers to understand that you are there to support them.
Speaker 1:Having all those things in place creates a cycle and it all becomes a beautiful cycle of. We start improving the teaching because we're providing support, we're providing resources, we're providing strategies and we're improving the craft that the teachers have and we're keeping teachers around longer, which increases student outcomes, which then increases teacher retention, which goes back around to. We're going to continuously improve teaching and it becomes a beautiful cycle of improvement instead of just constantly getting worse and worse, because we're losing good teachers who had the good strategies, because we don't have the supports in place that they need, and something that I guess is a little bit controversial, but the fact is MTSS if you check out, you know my last week's podcast episode. The purpose of MTSS is actually to prevent the need for special education, and later on, months from now, I do have plans to talk about improving the special education system in our schools, which I really hope you stick around for, because I've got some really good ideas.
Speaker 1:But the fact is, the special education system as a whole is completely overtaxed. Our special education teachers do not have the time or the resources to deal with the students that they already have on their caseloads, and using MTSS as a slip and slide to get more kids into the quote unquote services that they need is not helping that. Our special education system is completely overtaxed, which means that mistakes are happening, which means that services are not being provided that the students need and that we are legally obligated to give them, which is causing special education to be a hugely, hugely stressful system, not just for the teachers but for the administrators. Enter MTSS. If we are doing MTSS properly, if we are providing a supportive environment for our teachers, if we are providing interventions and strategies that are focused on what the students need, we're going to get the kids on grade level and they will not need special education. Now, does that mean that no kids should ever be going from MTSS into special education? Absolutely not. No kids should ever be going from MTSS into special education Absolutely not. We know that there are some students who absolutely 100% do need special education services because they do have special needs. We get that, but not the massive numbers that we have going through.
Speaker 1:Special education was never meant to house the large number of students that we have. And the fact is, when we have teachers that have caseloads of 20, 30, 40, 50 kids, that education that they are providing is not specialized. You cannot provide a actual individualized IEP if you are having to write an IEP and have an IEP meeting every other day. And, let's be honest, if you have a 180-day schedule and you take into account testing and the beginning of the school and the end of the school weeks, that means that if you have a teacher that has 40, 50 kids on their caseload, they're writing multiple IEPs a week that's not individualized. There's no way in the world that that teacher has the time, the mental capacity to actually individualize that, to actually individualize that, which is why we have mistakes happening, that's why we have problems with procedures not being followed, that's why we have huge issues with the service numbers and the minutes not adding up and all of that. We have to start realizing that what we're doing with MTSS being a slip and slide to special education. It has to stop. And a huge benefit to administrators by getting MTSS done correctly, providing the interventions and getting the kids to be more successful, is we take some of that strain over time off of our special education system so that our special education system and the teachers can do what really needs to be done for those kids who desperately, desperately need the individualized attention that we are promised and that we are legally supposed to give them.
Speaker 1:We always talk about with MTSS. We talk about the school, we talk about the administrators, the students, the teachers, administrators we don't really talk as much, but definitely we talk about the students and the teachers, the impact of MTSS for them. I don't know that I've ever had anybody really talk, have a real discussion about the benefits of MTSS to parents. I think it's important that we have this discussion today. We know that parents want their children to be successful. I don't know of a single parent that I have ever worked with, whether I liked them or not, that didn't want their child to be successful. There were varying levels of involvement. There was varying levels of engagement with their children and understanding of the education system and how teaching and education works, but not a single parent that I've ever met has ever wanted their child to not be successful. That's just kind of not a thing. Those parents tend to not be around and you tend to not ever meet them in all honesty. So the fact is, if we're doing MTSS right and we are providing the interventions, their children are going to be successful, which that's a benefit to them. Parents want their kids to be successful, and another thing is that it gives parents clarity to understand exactly what their child is struggling with.
Speaker 1:A lot of times when I talk to parents, they will say that they don't understand why their child isn't doing well in reading. Well, they're getting all this extra help. Why aren't they doing well in reading? It's not that their child isn't doing well in reading. It's that they didn't learn their letter sounds. And when you explain it and you break it down to them, then they go oh, oh, okay. And then when they ask the school what can I do to help my child read, just reading with the child is not going to help. Can we just all agree on that? That? A child who is struggling in reading, just reading to them more, is not actually going to teach a child to read. We have to actually zone in on the skill that they're missing. We have to do that. And what better way to get a child to progress than to get the parents to help and give extra help on top of what we're doing in school. So instead of when teachers hear the parents say, when you know when they're sitting in conferences, and all that, when the parent says, well, what can I do to help my child improve? Instead of giving them a website to go to or saying, well, you could make flashcards or what have you, we can pull out these MTSS data charts and show your child knows these 20 sight words right here. They have to learn these 100 sight words in the next nine weeks. And here's some flashcards already made. Can you work on these flash cards with your child every evening or three times a week or whatever it is. That is something that a lot of parents are willing to do Obviously not all parents.
Speaker 1:We know that some parents are not very involved for a lot of reasons, and that's not, it's not blaming. We know that there are some parents that are getting home right before bedtime and they're doing the absolute best they can no judgment on them at all, none whatsoever. But a lot of times those kids are going to after school care and those parents could request that the child be worked with to work on those flashcards. We got to start thinking outside the box and if we want to get the kids extra help outside of their intervention time, then we have to start really including parents so that they can help support their children or, quite frankly, just so that they can understand a little bit more of why their child is experiencing frustration. Maybe they need to understand that the reason your child doesn't want to write the grocery list for you is because they really can't spell the words and we're working on teaching them the letter sounds and so when you want them to write something down for you, help them. Help them to sound out the individual sounds in the word we can give the parents. When we work through MTSS and we're working on very specific goals, we can give parents very specific ideas that they can work into their lives to help their children and, honestly, that all comes back to helping parents feel more connected with the school and the education of their children.
Speaker 1:There have been a lot of polls that have gone out that one of the biggest complaints that parents have about schools is that they don't feel connected. They don't feel like they know what's going on in the schools. They don't feel like they know what their children are learning. If their children are struggling and are in MTSS, they're really sending an excuse for the parents not to know what we're working on. That's actually kind of fundamental, don't you think? If a child is struggling, shouldn't we be telling the parents what they're struggling with in the hopes that the parent can do something and is willing to do something? Because I have to believe that the vast majority of parents are willing to help their children, but they don't know how. At least that's what the polls say. So I mean I got to kind of believe that to a certain degree, and I mean all the parents that I have talked to they're all very willing to work with their kiddo, read with their kiddo and work on flashcards, work on multiplication facts they're more than willing to do that, but they need to know what that foundational skill is that they need to be working on to make the most impact for their child. Because if the parents are at home working on something that is light years ahead of where the child is, all we're doing is causing frustration for that child and the parent.
Speaker 1:And finally, when it comes to parents getting some benefit from MTSS, we want parents to understand that their child is important to us. I don't even know how many times I have sat in meetings or seen emails from parents or messages from parents accusing teachers or counselors or schools in general school districts that they don't care about the kids. We care about the kids, about the kids. I've been one of the people that has received those emails and it shocks me, because when I am working for a school district, the kids are my number one focus. I spend hours, every every minute of every day, doing things to try and help the students.
Speaker 1:Parents don't see that. They just know that their baby is struggling and their baby doesn't want to go to school because their baby is frustrated, and why wouldn't they be? Why wouldn't a child be frustrated when they have made it to the third, fourth, fifth, 5th, 8th, 9th, 10th grade and they can't read? Why wouldn't they be frustrated when they've made it to high school and they can't spell the word? Because that's a problem? And kids aren't dumb. They know when they can't do something that they are expected to be able to do. They know that and parents want their kids to be successful and they need to know that their child is important, is a priority to us as teachers, administrators, whoever you are, whatever you're doing in the school district, the parents need to know that, and involving them in MTSS is a huge step in the right direction.
Speaker 1:Imagine a parent who is frustrated and feeling like nobody cares that their child is struggling and they are invited to a meeting where a panel of teachers come together and talk about yes, their child is struggling in reading. This is why and here's some strategies that we can try and let's talk about, here's some ideas. Maybe this other resource would work better and they see that and go. There's a panel of teachers talking, there's specialists talking about my kid, there's administrators and everybody in this room is talking about my child. That proves to a parent that, no, their child is important. They are important and we're not going to sit on our laurels and just let their child fail. We're not going to do that.
Speaker 1:And that's how we get parents backing us up. That's how we get parents back involved in the school culture. That's how we get back to having volunteer parents and all of that the heyday of education where we had parent support. We have to get back to that. Where we had parent support. We have to get back to that. Are all parents going to get involved? No, they're not.
Speaker 1:But that doesn't mean we can't change that. All of the benefits, whether it's for students or teachers or administrators or parents, all of those benefits help all of us within the education ecosystem, but all of us as a society in general. The fact is our schools, as I've talked about for a while, our schools are failing us. They're failing our students, they're failing our teachers, our administrators, our parents, everybody. But we can turn that around if we get our systems in place and working the way they were meant to work, and we can do this. If we want the benefits that we've talked about today, we have to put in the hard work of setting up a good system so that our students can benefit. So next week we're going to talk about what is the rate of improvement that we should be expecting for our students when they are in MTSS. So I can't wait to talk to you next week and until then, may your coffee be strong, your students calm and always your students progressing. Bye.