MTSS Implementation
The Board is contemplating revisions for Policy 2163, Supports & Interventions. Concurrent with those changes, the Superintendent will adopt a new procedure as well. Before he does, I want to be sure to memorialize some elements of the current Superintendent Procedure which are sure to go away.
Both the policy and the procedure are all about Multi-tiered Systems of Support (MTSS).
Both the policy and the procedure are all about Multi-tiered Systems of Support (MTSS).
The policy says that the District will implement it.
The procedure says that the District will do the work over three years, starting in the 2012-2013 school year and completing the implementation in the 2014-2015 school year. The District is now, with the start of the 2016-2017 school year, in the fifth year of this three-year implementation. According to the latest timetable I have seen, they fully expect to take another six years to finish the job.
All this time the staff has provided positive reports about the progress of the implementation and have not expressed any dissatisfaction with the pace. To date, no one on the staff has suggested any root cause for the delay nor offered any solution to address it. In fact, the staff continue to deny that there has been any delay.
MTSS implementation is one of the Superintendent's SMART goals and its success is critical to his performance review.
Comments
Just Wow
Here is an item from a March, 2013 Friday Memo showing the implementation timetable for MTSS.
Here are the minutes of the Superintendent Evaluation Check-In Work Session of Thursday, June 29, 2016.
As you read it, you will get a sense of the Board's impatience around the MTSS implementation timeline and the staff's apparent lack of urgency.
"Mr. Tolley noted the department was currently recruiting new schools to continue the implementation of successful MTSS pilot programs into more schools this upcoming year."
Seriously!?! As late as this past summer there are schools which have yet to pilot MTSS?
"Directors and staff discussed how long the District has been implementing MTSS process. Mr. Tolley noted that in some form or another, MTSS has been utilized for nine years."
Throughout this document you will read how little the District has implemented MTSS and you will read how happy the staff are with the progress.
According to Superintendent Procedure 2163,
"Interventions will be administered for a period of at least 8 weeks, unless progress monitoring data reveals a need for a change in intervention. Progress monitoring occurs at least monthly using district approved tools. The student's parents will be notified of the intervention supports and provided results of the repeated assessments."
Has anyone received such a notice and been provided the results of repeated assessments? Anyone?
According to Policy 2163:
"Parent/Guardian Involvement in the MTSS Process
The district shall inform parents/guardians regarding the use of scientific, research-based interventions, including: a) the state’s policies regarding the amount and nature of student’s performance data collected and the general education services provided; b) strategies used to increase the student’s rate of learning; c) and the parents/guardians’ right to request a special education evaluation."