Hi, I am Dr. Katie Novak and I am here to help you unpack the new MTSS visual
which is a part of the Massachusetts State MTSS Blueprint. And, when you're
looking at this visual, a lot of the times, you're just like, "where do I start?"
And, with this Blueprint you're going to start from the outside and you're going to
work your way in. Now, all of us probably recognize that structure in the middle
which is the three-tiered structure where we talk about Tier 1, Tier 2 and
Tier 3 and the whole focus of an MTSS system is to create the strongest Tier 1
or foundation base possible so all students can access Tier 1 instruction.
in academics, behavior, and social emotional learning that meets
their needs. Now, we acknowledge that for some
students they're going to need something in addition to that. We don't want to
provide them with Tier 2 or Tier 3 services instead of Tier 1 but we want
to make sure that we have a strong Tier 1 so that when we provide them with
targeted intervention and support, it will truly allow them all to be able to
make great progress and to become future ready.
So, in Massachusetts, most of our students have very, very strong outcomes and we're
actually leading the nation. The reality is that for some students, they're not
making the same growth as their peers and that is not because students are
disabled but rather because our systems are disabled. And so, when you're thinking
about that inner structure - that three tiered structure - I want you to think about a
snowman because the snowman doesn't exist without a really strong
foundational base. And so, when you're thinking about building a system, you
want to first focus on that foundation. You will never "intervention your way out"
of a weak Tier 1 instruction for all students. So, in order to do that, you have
to make sure that that foundation is truly universally designed and provides
equitable access to all students. Universal Design for Learning is about
providing multiple means of engagement, action and expression, and representation in
order to eliminate the barriers that prevent some students from being able to
be really successful in that Tier one environment. And equitable access, if we
unpack that term, basically means every
single student has a seat in the classroom. That is access. Equitable means
the kid gets that seat in the classroom regardless of whether they have an IEP,
whether they're an English language learner. But, to provide equitable access
to all students, we do need that Tier 1 to be universally designed. We also need
to make sure that Tier 1 is very rich with progress monitoring tools and
diagnostic assessments and universal screeners. So, we know when students are
going to need supplemental targeted intervention and support. So, if we zoom
out what you'll see is, to make this structure in the middle be effective, we
have to actually work from the outside in. Now, with a snowman it doesn't matter
how badly you want to build the snowman; everything in the environment has to be
right for it to work. You need to have the right temperature. You need to have
the right kind of snow. You need to have the right kind of materials. If you want
to make a really big, really impressive snowman, you have to have a bunch of
shared responsibility for making it because you can't just pick up that
giant snowman stomach on your own. And so, it really is a team effort to create a
really great snowman and there's a lot of environmental factors. Now, in this MTSS
Blueprint, we call all those factors on the outside "drivers." And those "drivers"
are what create a system that allow for the universal design of academics,
behavior, and social-emotional learning within Tier 1. And, also a really robust
data culture so we can provide Tier 2 and Tier 3 services in a very
flexible way. To do that we have to unpack what those drivers are. Now, if
I'm building a snowman, we already talked about, we need some sort of systems
implementation drivers which are things like we need the right kind of weather;
we need the right kind of snow. And, when we're thinking about teaching and
learning, we need the right curriculum. We need the right database decision-making
tools. We need the right schedule. We need to have the right staffing.
Those are the environmental factors that a multi-tiered system addresses. Also, we
need to have really strong leadership in schools that create shared
responsibility and really build a culture that's about meeting the needs
of all students. It's about building collective efficacy
and working together to make decisions. The same is true if we want to make
our really amazing snowman. We all have to be on the same page about our
vision, about what we need to do moving forward. We have to provide each other
with feedback and we have to make sure that all of us are involved in actually
creating a system that works for all. Then, the last aspect here is this whole
aspect of capacity - building competency and capacity - and that is "how do we
actually teach in a way that is universally designed? How do we meet the
needs of all learners academically, behaviorally, and social emotionally?.
How do we create a system where all educators understand what it means to
teach all students?" And, to do that, we need to focus on our professional
development, our teacher induction programs, Ed Eval, and also distributed
leadership. And, talking about things like peer review, and pineapple charts, and
instructional rounds. So again, as I said at the beginning, we're going to build this
from the outside in. The first thing we want to do is look at all the drivers
and see which ones in our district or school may be barriers that will prevent
the really rich development of that three-tiered structure in the
middle. Once we know that all of those different drivers are in place, we can
begin to make really great decisions about how we're going to provide
equitable access to all students in universally designed classrooms
academically, behaviorally, and socially emotionally. And, when we do that, when
Tier 1 truly becomes the least restrictive environment for all students,
then we can provide students with "more" instead of "instead of" to provide them
with the targeted and the intensive support they need until data shows us
that they actually can have all their needs met in that Tier 1 classroom
with their peers.