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By Sheri Willrodt

Executive Director of Special Services

At Austin Public Schools, one of our strategic priorities is to provide district-wide multi-tiered systems of supports for all learners.  To that end, we are working to build and expand the district’s Multi-Tired Systems of Support (MTSS) to help ALL students achieve their potential.  We have MTSS teams at the district and building levels.

The initial focus of the work of our District MTSS Committee was to develop procedures for buildings to implement common school based MTSS teams:  School Leadership Teams (SLT), Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), Supplemental Support Teams (SST), and Intensive Support Teams (IST).  Building teams attended a series of trainings from the Minnesota Department of Education regarding MTSS implementation over the course of last school year.

The purpose of the School Leadership Team is to provide infrastructure and support for teacher success in providing effective instruction and intervention to students.  This committee’s responsibilities include ensuring an effective unified vision for multi-tiered systems of supports in the school and ensuring that resources, structures, and processes are in place to guide evidence-based decisions, effective actions, and systems improvement across all teams.  They also focus on the integration of academic and behavioral practice (SEL, PBIS, school climate, restorative practices, mental health, and non-exclusionary discipline practices) efforts in the school. 

The two main purposes of Professional Learning Communities are to improve the learning outcomes of ALL learners through collaboration analysis and professional learning with colleagues.  These teams are comprised of either grade- or department-level peers.  The Supplemental Support Team looks at data to determine which students need Tier 2 intervention supports to be successful.  This team plans, monitors, and revises Tier 2 academic and behavioral interventions for supplemental support.  The Intensive Support Team looks at data for individual students who are still not being successful despite supplemental supports.  They plan individual, intensive intervention for those students.

Our District Multi-Tiered Systems and Supports (MTSS) Leadership worked over the summer to develop our district MTSS Handbook.  This team will continue to refine the handbook over the course of this year and will be participating in a series of mini sessions with MDE to support this work.

This fall, our standard MTSS teams of SLT (School Leadership Team), PLC (Professional Learning Communities), SST (Supplemental Support Team), and IST (Intensive Support Team) are in place and up and running at all buildings.  This was a heavy lift last year and it feels good to be able to hit the ground running with these structures in place this fall! 

Austin Public Schools is pleased to have these multi-tiered systems of support in place across all sites to support student success.