District presents MTSS rollout and student‑level assessment plan, highlights screening and tiered supports

District instructional leaders presented a multi‑tiered system of supports (MTSS) update that emphasized combining academic, behavioral and social‑emotional screening with team‑based diagnostics to target instruction and interventions for individual students.

Presenters described the MTSS framework (tier 1 universal instruction, tier 2 targeted support, tier 3 intensive intervention) and walked the board through two illustrative student case studies—"Lucy," a representative elementary student with stronger math than reading skills, and "Johnny," an older student with comprehension struggles—showing how universal screeners, diagnostics and teacher observations guide interventions.

Staff said the district uses a mix of assessments: daily formative classroom checks, common benchmarks, the AIMSweb/aimswebPlus screeners for early literacy and numeracy, and end‑of‑year state assessments. The presentation noted that some social‑emotional screening tools are still in exploratory stages; administrators said they currently rely on proxy indicators such as attendance, referral and tardy data while piloting formal social‑emotional screeners.

The presenters described the district’s team‑based approach: when a screener flags a student, a school team that can include general‑education teachers, special‑education staff, related services and building administrators meets to review common assessments, observations and diagnostics, then creates a tiered plan with progress monitoring and frequent follow up. For the example students, proposed supports ranged from small‑group phonics or slowed pacing (tier 2) to individualized pull‑out interventions and social‑emotional small groups (tier 3).

Administrators said the work is ongoing: the district is building staff capacity, refining definitions of tiers and piloting screening tools. They asked the board to expect further updates after budget season and suggested a fuller progress report in the spring or early summer.

Board members asked about capacity (whether the district has enough staff to run team meetings and interventions), parent communication (how and when families are informed and involved), and data storage (where cumulative student information will be kept). Presenters said teams exist at school levels, that many teachers already communicate routinely with families, and that the district is exploring portfolio or repository approaches for longitudinal student records while continuing to use current systems such as AIMSweb and school‑level data tools.

Presenters emphasized the core point that early, curriculum‑embedded prevention (strong tier‑1 instruction) reduces the need for later intensive intervention, while regular collaboration and progress monitoring ensure intervention effectiveness.