I'd like to welcome you to the first of two today parent information sessions. This is the second one for the year and this will cover MTSS which is multi-tiered system of supports. I do know the last back to school night was
yesterday and each principal did discuss it at back to school nights. So a few questions have come up and I would like to address some areas and further explain what our goals are for this year.
Multi-tered system of supports is a framework that many districts are using to really build in supports for all students. It's a framework that provides academic, behavioral, social, and
emotional supports for all students. We use a lot of data in order to guide our instruction, guide our targeted instruction, and guide our interventions. And we also focus on prevention and early intervention with
students. How it works? There are three tiers. Tier one is core instruction for all of the students that takes place in the classroom. So tier one consists of goals
that are set based off of data that we have. For the younger grades, we have Dibbles, we have I Ready. For the older grades, we have I Ready and New Jersey student learning assessment data. So depending on the grade level, we take a look at all of our data. We compare it
to areas that students need extra support in as a grade level and that becomes our tier one goal. Tier 2 goal is also completed in the classroom by the classroom teachers. It could be small groupoup support. It could be
one-on-one. It could be just differentiating the instruction to fit the different needs of the students in the full classroom. And then we have tier three, which this is the confusion from what I'm being told with some
parents and some questions. Tier three is very similar to our former basic skills instruction program where it could be a pushin model with a select amount of students or a pull out model with a select number of students um
based on a goal. And parents will be notified if their child is in need for a tier three individualized uh support. So basic skills instruction, our former
BSI program, focused on reading and math, mostly reading though, specifically at the younger grades. And at Central, it focused just on math. We only served students that were below
grade level benchmarks and it was separate from our general education classroom instruction. So for example, if a child at the younger level younger level needed assistance with phonics, the child would be removed from the
classroom dur not during an ELA block, pulled in a small group in the basic skills classroom and work on phmic awareness and then go back into the general education classroom. We typically were finding that a lot of students that were in basic skills were
in there and they did not exit. Um even though we've changed our criteria, we have exit criteria, entrance criteria all year long, students were just we as we like to say lifers in basic skills.
That's not how we want to service our students. It should be a fluid program in that students are in for the intensive targeted instruction. After a six to eight week period, he or she is removed out and then another cycle of
students comes in. This way our basic skills teachers who are now the same teachers but they are called interventionists with the MTSS program. This way they can utilize their time and really work with a lot more students that are in need.
The goal and the job of the interventionists is not to get children at grade level. That's the job of our classroom teachers and our curriculum or using our curricular programs. The job of the interventionists is to close in
some of the gaps so that the child can then build on that foundation for learning. Okay. Some of the differences again um BSI as I said really focused on reading and math. More reading though with the
lower grades, upper grades more math. It was sometimes pushin but really a pull out for most of of the students and it was a standalone program. They had intervention strategies. They used um different resources that they pulled but
it was really a standalone program. MTSS the different levels tier one and tier two supports all students because they are in the general education classroom
at this time. It also focuses on academic behavior and social emotional. We use different layers of support. As I was saying the different tiers are we consider our layers in the class in small groupoup instruction.
And it's integrated across the district. So every grade level, kindergarten all the way up through 8th grade, every subject. So grades five and up. It just because we're focusing on ELA and mathematics, the science and social
studies teachers are involved as well. Why the change all of a sudden? So after years of looking at different data, we've noticed that our basic skills numbers were not decreasing.
Um they were pretty stagnant, staying the same. And then we started to look at students that were in there from sometimes at the first grade level and are still in there at the middle school level. Um, that's not, as I said in in
the previous slide, that's really not what we want for our students. We want to be able to fill in any gaps and then bring them back into the classroom so that they can add to the gaps and build on that foundation. So, we decided to
move towards the MTSS approach. We did implement pieces of it last year. pieces of it meaning training for teachers, identifying data teams to review the data per grade level, special education teachers, interventionists, and our
general education teachers, plus our full administrative team. So, we we implemented this looked at data last year. We had a lot of training on it in August with our staff and now we are fully implementing multi-tered system of
supports. It provides a very much more comprehensive system of support for all students. It focuses on prevention and early help. We're not just fixing after the fact. We're looking at data and saying, "Okay, children are having a
hard time comprehending. Why are they having a hard time comprehending?" Because they're not fluent readers. Why are they not fluent readers? It has to be phmic awareness. building upon those skills instead of surface level
remediation. This allows us to dig deeper into the data to truly understand why are there these gaps in instruction and how can we resolve it to close the gaps to help children build on that
foundation. It ensures equity and consistency across all grade levels. Again, we're involving families and the understanding and uh supporting of the growth. As I said, any tier three students that are identified, a parent
letter will be sent home so that you will be aware that your child is in need of tier 3 um support. You will have the opportunity to wave your child out, though we don't recommend it. um we are
not enforcing this on you as parents who have a say in how we educate your child. So what this means for you as the parents, your child, as I said in the beginning, will receive
two different tiers of support just by being in the classroom and identifying grade level needs. interventions as I said are based off of Dibbles I Ready and NJSLA.
We also look at the access reports for multi-ingual learners and we compare areas of every report to make sure that our grade goals are suffice. It's really a triangular approach. There's two
different points of data and then we put it all together. That third point is really just making sure that we're connecting the dots and that we are finalizing our goals based off of what we need based off of the data um through
the different cycles. There are four different cycles throughout the year. Every six to eight weeks we keep track with our data teams. We look at data and we evaluate a grade level goal. Again, MTSS, it's extremely flexible, which is
exactly what we need um in our schools, and it adapts to students needs as a grade level and individually as a child may move from tier 1 to tier 2 to tier three. And its focus, as I said in the
beginning, is really helping every child succeed. Okay, at this time I can open up the chat. Um, if there are any questions about anything,
um, you can just type it into the chat right now and I can answer any question that you have. Just so for you know, I also will be presenting this this evening at 7:30
and then within the next few days, it will be posted onto the district website um along with my um you know, my voice, my presentation, everything will be on the district website. So, if you logged in late or if you logged in a few
minutes after we started, you can um either watch it or you can log back in this evening at 7:30 because I'm going to present this again. But please feel free if you do not want to put any questions into the chat. Um you
definitely can do that. You can also email me and um I can respond to your questions as well. So, I'll just wait a few minutes to see if there are any questions in the chat. Okay, I don't see any questions. So
again, thank you for attending. Um, please feel free to email me if you think of questions that you weren't able to think of now maybe or you want to um get some more information. Okay, I do see a question. What is the
difference between targeted small groupoup work as in tier 2 intervention and just small group work? So based off so the difference really tier one the difference with tier one, tier two and
tier three is tier one and tier 2 are modifications that the teacher in the classroom is doing. That could be small group, it could be large group. A lot of our curricular programs start off in large group with an objective and then
we break up into centers. So it could be math centers or stations. It could be ELA reading centers, writing stations and um it's more a small group. Now a tier 2 could look at students are off in their centers or in their stations and a
teacher takes a small group at a table and goes over a skill. Um, and the difference with a tier 2 moving to a tier three is um either a push in for a select amount of students that qualified
based on their data or a pull out into the interventionist classrooms to work on those skills. That's the difference. Okay. Well, thank you very much. Um, enjoy the rest of your day and if anybody would like to log back in later
on this evening who may have logged in a few minutes late, please feel free. The information will be up on the website again. Thank you very much.