Graduating in 2013, one of the hot-button topics that I noticed in the education field was the concept of RTI, or Response to Intervention. Since then, the concept has not gone away; instead, the concept has only grown and blossomed to involve other ideas and frameworks. Most recently, the idea of MTSS, or a Multi-Tiered System of Support, has started to be embraced by school districts around the country, as well as in the state of Illinois (Duffy, 2018; Naperville Community Unit School District #203, 2018).

MTSS Framework

Source: Palo Alto Unified School District, 2015-2016

These two frameworks involve approaches to systemic structures to help students. In my own personal life, my school district has turned to MTSS in the last two years as a way to make sure that all of our students are succeeding. For my district, our two district improvement goals are that: 1) All staff and students will feel safe and respected, and 2) We will ensure high levels of learning for all students. It is this second district improvement goal that has us shifting to the MTSS system--this is a way to ensure that students don't fall through the gaps. 

The district improvement plan is by no means the same thing across all districts; however, there is no possibility that a school district does not want to ensure their students high levles of education. 

The idea of no students failing or falling through the cracks is not new or groundbreaking by any means, but the MTSS framework is a framework that is a different way to approach this topic (Duffy, 2018).  

The reception of the MTSS framework at the high school where I work was rough. Teachers loved the idea of having the whole school responsible for the kids; that there would be checks and balances to make sure nobody was falling behind. However, what was not embraced was the seemingly large amount of work and preparation that comes with it. This was supposed to be more work on top of what teachers already do.  This same plan was rolled out throughout the district; not just at the school at which I work. Across the district, it seeemed like the work balance issue wasthe issue that teachers were held up on.

Beyond this, the foreign terminology and acronyms seemed to make MTSS even more of a challenge to implement than it perhaps is. Within the span of a year and a half, terms such as “RTI”, “MTSS”, “Tiers 1-3”, and “PBIS” were used with differing and sometimes contradictory definitions, depending on the point in the year or who was leading the discussions.  Upon reflection, the misuse and inconsistencies in definition between the terms mentioned above seemed to be an issue not just in my school district, but around the country  (Harlacher, Sanford & Nelson Walker, 2016).

Clearly, the roll-out of the framework was not as smooth as intended. As an educator who is about to go into another school year with an administration team that still has MTSS on its mind, I dove deep and studied the Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) and its implementation.

History

The idea of students not falling through the cracks is by far not a new concept. Though in history, the idea of students having specific learning disabilities that impact their learning and require specific accommodations is newer. In 1974, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act recognized the existence of the specific learning disabilities, requiring school districts to provide a free and appropriate public education to all students (Duffy, 2018). This evolved again in 2004 with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDIEA/IDEA), which mandated accountability and equity for students: at the state level, school districts could use the Response to Intervention (RTI) framework or other research-based interventions to help students with disabilities (Duffy, 2018).

Response to Intervention (RTI), at its core, was an academic intervention; but the critiques cried that this was a response only after the student failed (Harlacher, Sanford, Nelson Walker, 2016; LexiaLearning, 2018). Specifically, the RTI model contained three tiers of support, as seen above in Palo Alto Unified School District image. The first tier of support was meant to be for students who were low risk, with in-class screeners and assessments; tier two for students who were medium risk for failure, with targeted supports and interventions; while tier three was used for students who were high risk of failing, utilizing comprehensive interventions.

Within the same decade as RTI, the idea that behaviors may require interventions and supports gained traction: Positive Behavioral Interventions and Support (PBIS) was also used as a system for interventions--this was a tiered model similar to RTI, but aimed towards behavioral issues (Harlacher, Sanford & Nelson Walker, 2016).  

However, most recently within the last few years, MTSS's development has taken on the definition and the roles of both RTI and PBIS to include multiple tiers aimed at the students’ academic and behavioral needs: essentially, it matches PBIS and RTI together to account for more of the student (Harlacher, Sanford & Nelson Walker, 2016).  It takes on the framework of both RTI and PBIS with the three tier system, but improves upon RTI in that the screening is used for preventative and early interventions, and also still uses PBIS's focus on creating a school-wide team: in short, the development of MTSS can be viewed as a master framework that calls upon and improves upon both RTI and PBIS. 

Source: Flagstaff Unified School District, 2019

Features

Specifically, MTSS features three tiers--similar to RTI; however, the function of the tiers is slightly different: Tier 1 is dedicated towards interventions in the classroom that would apply to all students, Tier 2 is geared towards students who have been identified, through assessment and data-tracking, to need specific interventions, and lastly, Tier 3 is meant to be intensive interventions for individual students (Leonard, Coyne, Oldham, Burns & Gillis, 2019).

Besides the three-tiered structure, other necessary features of the MTSS framework include: universal screening, data-based decision making, continuous progress monitoring, focus on student outcomes, a continuum of evidence-based interventions, and a focus on fidelity of implementation (Raffler, 2014).

Source: Mark Raffler, 2014. 

The ideas behind these features stemmed from, as stated above, the combination of PBIS and RTI. The umbrella approach of both behavioral and academic success is meant to be a broad net that recognizes that students are more than one dimensional (Lexia Learning, 2018). Beyond this, the idea of MTSS is meant to support students with disabilities or at risk of failing, or who deal with behavioral issues by providing timely, aligned, and coordinated supports between all staff members who may work with the students (Leonard, et al., 2019).

Need for MTSS

As this new framework is still very new to the world of education, not many researched studies have released information on its effectiveness. However, the studies that have done research are showing the need for MTSS. For example, in Virginia, the graduation rates of schools who have used MTSS have gone up significantly: from 54.9% in 2013 to 63.7% in 2016 (National Center for Systemic Improvement, 2016).

In another case study on the implementation of MTSS in a K-3 reading program, the data that was tracked proved that with sustained and consistent work in the MTSS framework, students K-3 demonstrated improved reading achievement across all four of those grades:

Source: Leonard, Coyne, Oldham, Burns & Gillis, 2019

Beyond just the data on graduation rates, school districts around the country have recognized the need for MTSS and the framework that it brings: where the explicit identification of students’ needs will help schools provide specific instruction (Harlacher, Sanford & Nelson Walker, 2016). What MTSS also meets is the need for a comprehensive data system, with outcomes, services, implementations, and evidence-based practices (National Center for Systemic Improvement, 2016). This framework is used for all levels of education, from early childhood to secondary school. Below are applications for the MTSS framework.

The implementation of MTSS at different levels within the public education system can have their own unique challenges. Within this application, the implementation of MTSS will be explored at the EC-5 level and 6-12 level.

In general, guidelines for implementation of MTSS into school districts require: definition of measurable goals, identifying reasoning for why the desired goals are not currently attainable, development and implementation of plans to meet the goals, and lastly, evaluation of the goals (Problem Solving & Response to Intervention Project, n.d.). Another set of guidelines talks about the same concepts, just put in different terms: “1. Building trust and cultivating partnership relationships. 2. Conducting rigorous research to inform action. 3. Supporting the partner practice organization in achieving its goals. 4. Building the capacity of participating researchers, practitioners, practice organizations, and research organizations to engage in partnership work. 5. Producing knowledge that can inform clinical and educational improvement efforts more broadly” (Goldstein, McKenna, Barker & Brown, 2019).

EC-5 Implementation

The research around MTSS and RTI has been increasing in the last few years. Specifically, more interventions have been found at the elementary levels to help guide instruction than have been found at the secondary level (Bouck & Cosby, 2017). Relatedly, in their article titled “Implementing MTSS in Beginning Reading: Tools and Systems to support Students and Teachers”, researchers Kaitlin Leonard, Michael Coyne, Ashley Oldham, Darci Burns, and Margie Gillis write that at the early levels, the implementation of MTSS must include practices that establish “strong instructional leadership” and “coordinate efforts at the school level”, “provide high-quality core classroom reading instruction to all students, use universal screening and targeted progress monitoring data to inform instructional decisions, and provide small-group interventions at increasing levels of intensity” (2019).

Specifically, the introduction of MTSS needs assessments at the classroom and whole school level, systems of support, and monitoring of progress. Assessments at the classroom and whole school level may include formative assessments done in the classroom with only the teachers and students. However, other assessments that may be used are standardized assessments meant to probe for STEM skills or Reading/Writing (Bouck & Cosby, 2017). Beyond that, assessments to probe for learning disabilities may happen here as well.

A key feature of the systems of support is an intervention block period. For example, the Madison Metropolitan School District describes their block as, “An elementary intervention/enrichment block, often called a WIN period (What I Need), is a period of time in the school schedule where students, typically from an entire grade level, are strategically grouped to receive targeted skills or enrichment support in academics, language, or social/emotional skills. Middle and High Schools may also schedule in an Intervention/enrichment block, or a period of time where students get their needs met, but credit is usually not awarded for this time. Rather, it is just a part of the school day” (2015). A block period can be scheduled in the middle of the day, whether just for certain days of the week or for every day of the week, in which specific interventions can take place. For example, a student who is deficit in reading can be pulled for 20-30 minutes a day to remediate the reading skills during the intervention block period, while another student may be pulled for enrichment of STEM skills. In both of these situations, the student is benefitting from the personalized or grouped instruction.

Another set of supports that can be implemented at the EC-5 level are shown in the chart below:

Source: Leonard, et al. 2018

In the action process of implementation of the MTSS framework, the activity timeline will help schools identify current practices and identify gaps that can be met with the intervention time. The whole-group/small-group templates essentially provide a curriculum map for all instructors, so that instruction can be universal--if combined with the intervention period from above, any teacher can help any student if the curriculum skills are the same.

Lastly, from the chart above, the idea of progress monitoring is essential to the MTSS framework. By using a data grouping worksheet, school staff members can identify clear patterns and specific students to work with, with multiple points of data. From the case study above (Leonard, et. al, 2019), the writers state, “to develop a data grouping workbook, school data teams compiled screening data, district standardized assessments, and progress monitoring data in a single document. Teams then identified an instructional level and focus for each student, and included information about the small-group instruction that each student would receive in both Tier 1 classroom instruction and any supplemental Tier 2/3 intervention. Finally, the workbook documented the instructional materials or program that would be used with each student, and the interventionist delivering small-group instruction and/or intervention. The data grouping workbook was a way for school teams to compile all relevant assessment information, along with instructional and intervention decisions for each student. There can easily be misalignment between instruction and intervention supports for students with disabilities across general and special education, something that can result in a lack of intensity and consistency of instruction” (Leonard, et al., 2019).

With the implementation of MTSS, certain school districts have created a position of “Data Facilitator” to expressly work with the collection and facilitation of data (Duffy, 2018). This position is one that would work with both the administration and the teachers of the school to help teachers understand and use the data.

In all, the implementation of MTSS at the EC-5 level is definitely important, especially in the identification of students who may need to be given an individualized education program (IEP). However, beyond just the students who may fall under the category of special education, the MTSS framework helps students remediate skills that would traditionally have been above the threshold for special education, but may still be lower than average; and lastly, this framework, at the EC-5 level can help students strengthen their study habits (Bouck & Cosby, 2017; Goldstein, et al., 2019).

6-12 Implementation

In the implementation of MTSS at the 6-12 level, the goals are very similar to those at the EC-5 level. At the 6-12 level, the goal is always to help the students. However, the process for implementation may be a little different. One school district describes factors in implementation, including: rigorous curriculum and high quality instructional practices, high-functioning collaborative PLC teams, Valid and reliable suite of assessments, time for collaboration; intervention; and extension (Naperville Community Unit School District #203, 2018). In comparing these with the implementation plans from the EC-5 above, they are virtually the same, except with the addition of collaborative PLC teams.

The components of school improvement (cultural, procedural, professional) can also be used to help the incorporation of the framework. In the article “Using School Improvement and Implementation Science to Integrate Multi-Tiered Systems of Support in Secondary Schools”, researchers identified six stages for implementation: first--creating a sense of urgency for the need to change on the part of the staff (buy-in for the initiative is enhanced through highlighting the necessity of the framework, as well as a connection is made to the school improvement plan); second--program installation, typically involving creating teams to guide the approach; third--initial implementation, with piloting different components of the intervention with smaller groups (specific classrooms, grade levels, departments) to help gain data and provide advice to be shared with the rest of the staff; fourth--full operation, which may change the role of staff members (some may be in charge of teaching specific parts of the curriculum or behavior skills); fifth--innovation, in which the administration and the teams guiding the interventions look at data to adapt the implementation plan; and sixth--sustain, in which training is provided to members of the staff to help facilitate the plans for the future, as well as to help find new leadership figures for new positions and roles that may develop (Bohanon, Gilman, Parker, Arnell & Sortino, 2016).

In their guidebook Taking Action (2018), Austin Buffum, Mike Mattos, and Janet Malone support Bohanon, et al. (2016). Buffum, Mattos & Malone (2018) find that the first steps in implementation is to establish a culture of shared responsibility for the students, forming a collective set of professional learning communities (PLCs), and then clearly identifying the essential standards of what the curriculum is asking. Through these actions, the school can then be classified into three tiers for supporting all students. Tier 1 ensuring school-wide success with access to essential grade-level curriculum and behaviors, Tier 2 designing supplemental interventions for academic and behavioral essentials, and finally Tier 3 identifying specific students needing intensive support; as a part of tier 3, actions include prioritizing student needs, monitoring these needs, and ensuring intervention intensity (Buffom, Mattos & Malone, 2018).

Lastly, the implementation of MTSS at the 6-12 level revolves around finding time: time for teachers and staff to sit down and identify essential skills, needs, and students’ progress towards the skills and needs; as well as time for interventions (Bohanon et al., 2016; Duffy, 2018; Buffom, Mattos & Malone, 2018; Leonard et al., 2019).

Two innovations that may improve the implementation of MTSS revolve around one thing: the use of technology.

Blended Learning

On the teacher end, the idea of blended learning may be able to facilitate the interventions within MTSS and bring about more Tier 2 supports within the classroom. With the emergence of blended learning, educators may be able to work with specific groups of students much more easily than in a traditional classroom. In a traditional didactic setting, the majority of the class time would be dedicated to the transfer of knowledge from teacher to student. However, with blended learning, teachers may be able to record their lectures and offer students online activities while calling specific students to work in person to help remediate or even to provide enrichment.

Learning Management Systems and Student Data Tracking

Another piece of technology that may innovate the implementation of MTSS is the use of data tracking devices and websites. Learning management systems like Canvas, Moodle, or Blackboard may be accessed by multiple members of the staff, which would help the process of identification. Beyond that, other systems of data tracking, such as Socrative, GoFormative, or Quizalize may help individual teachers share out data about individual students.

Source: Zzish, 2017. 

While the data and research clearly shows that there is a lot of positive potential in the MTSS framework, there are also some critiques. One of the more salient critiques is the inconsistency of the tiers: whether it is a good thing or not, the numbers of students within Tier 2 and Tier 3, as well as the number of minutes between the tiers as a part of the interventions is not specified. Some school districts, in carving out a section of time for Tier 2 and Tier 3 interventions have come up with a block period schedule, others by making two or three days of the week “special” days with the intervention period, and yet other schools have a daily schedule with the intervention periods (Harlacher, Sanford & Nelson Walker, 2016). The inconsistencies within the framework provide both freedom and room for misinterpretation.

Yet another critique is the idea that the infidelity of the implementation may just make this framework a moot point: if valid data points and assessments are not being used, then the framework may be doing students a disservice. For example, if a school uses a data point that is three weeks old as a reason to pull a student for targeted intervention, there is a chance that the student has already made up the deficit or has already done something to remediate. Beyond the timeliness, a deeper cause for inaccuracies is that of the curriculum: if the assessments do not actually assess for skills called for in the curriculum, then the data may be invalid.

Even more challenges to the implementation of MTSS could come from inconsistencies at the school administration side, the school principal side, Professional development, school culture, curriculum planning groups (PLCs) or funding sides. At all levels EC-12+, one of the most common prerequisites was to make sure that all staff members were on board and fully comprehending of what will happen. If any level of the tiered system fails, then the MTSS framework will not work as effectively.

In the research that was available, it felt as though a comprehensive look at the effectiveness of MTSS was not yet available. It is true that the secondary level of education is lacking in areas (Bourck & Cosby, 2017). As a whole, the field of education needs a look at how effective MTSS is at helping with skills, student achievement, matching up to core curriculum, and the behaviors support is very underexplored.

Even more, another area for research is the comparison of the three frameworks in shoring up student achievement. I have not found a study that compares the effectiveness of MTSS with that of PBIS and RTI. Such a study may be useful to see if MTSS truly is effective or if it is just a case of “any help will help”.

A last area of research that may be explored is MTSS at the post-secondary level. This may be harder for larger schools to implement, and it may possibly even be unwanted at the post-secondary level. However, this is an area that is untapped for research: how can colleges prevent students from falling through the cracks?

It is absolutely necessary to have a way to hold schools accountable for the students that they serve. In this case study of the Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) framework, it is clear that the framework does benefit the students. However, since the framework is so new, there certainly are differences in the ways that schools districts have implemented them; some successfully and others, not so successfully.

Going back to my own MTSS experience, this year has been an interesting one in the viewpoint of implementation of MTSS: as it currently is a union contract year, the idea of MTSS has not died down, but has frozen. In conversations from the administration, I know that their hearts are in the right place and that they are in alignment with the methods for implementation listed above in the applications section. However, I think that the issue is with the transparency of the implementation: due to the abovementioned conflicting definitions and inconsistencies between the rollout, it feels like the idea is underdeveloped. Looking at the future of education in the district, I do think that a successful implementation of MTSS is a necessary step in order to meet our goals.

Bohanon, Hank., Gilman, C., Parker, B., Arnell, C., and Sortino, G. (2016). Using school improvement and implementation science to integrate multi-tiered systems of support in secondary schools. Australasian Journal of Special Education, 40, 2: 99-116, 2016. Retrieved from Loyola eCommons, School of Education: Faculty Publications and Other Works, http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/ jse.2016.8

Duffy, J. (2018). Implementation of response to intervention (RTI) and a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS): A case study examination of one school district in minnesota. Culminating Projects in Education Administration and Leadership. 40. Retrieved from https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/edad_etds/40

Bouck, E. C. & Cosby, M. D. (2017). Tier 2 response to intervention in secondary mathematics education, Preventing School Failure: Alternative Education for Children and Youth, 61:3, 239-247, DOI: 10.1080/1045988X.2016.1266595

[Image of MTSS features] Retrieved September 29, 2019, from https://www.fusd1.org/Domain/1520

Goldstein, H., Mckenna, M., Barker, R. M., & Brown, T. H. (2019). Research–practice partnership: Application to implementation of multitiered system of supports in early childhood education. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups, 4(1), 38–50. doi: 10.1044/2018_pers-st-2018-0005

Harlacher, J., Sanford, A., Nelson Walker, N. (n.d.). Distinguishing between tier 2 and tier 3 instruction in order to support implementation of RTI. Retrieved from http://www.rtinetwork.org/essential/tieredinstruction/tier3/distinguishing-between-tier-2-and-tier-3-instruction-in-order-to-support-implementation-of-rti#top

Leonard, K. M., Coyne, M. D., Oldham, A. C., Burns, D., & Gillis, M. B. (2019). Implementing MTSS in beginning reading: Tools and systems to support schools and teachers. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 34(2), 110–117. doi: 10.1111/ldrp.12192

Lexia Learning. (2018). RTI and MTSS: Do you know the difference between these support systems? Retrieved from https://www.lexialearning.com/blog/rti-and-mtss-do-you-know-difference-between-these-support-systems

Madison Metropolitan School District. (2015). Scheduling guidance. Retrieved from https://mtss.madison.k12.wi.us/files/mtss/ScheduleGuidanceFinal.pdf

National Center for Systemic Improvement (2016). Data use multi-state spotlight: Using MTSS data to improve graduation rates. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED591446.pdf

Palo Alto Unified School District. (2016). Palo Alto Unified School District Response to Instruction and Intervention (RTI2) PreK-5 Handbook. Retrieved from https://www.pausd.org/sites/default/files/RTI%20HANDBOOK%202016-17%20.pdf

Problem Solving & Response to Intervention Project, in accordance with the University of South Florida (n.d.). MTSS implementation components: Ensuring common language and understanding. Retrieved from http://www.floridarti.usf.edu/resources/format/pdf/mtss_q_and_a.pdf

[Mark Raffler]. (2014, April 18). Critical Features of MTSS. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BikLk0BAYSY

[Zzish]. (2017, November 13). Quizalize--the easy way to differentiate your teaching. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfeRSIJXAV4