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Plainfield 202 narrows focus on classroom instruction as MTSS work expands
Summary
District leaders described a year of work to strengthen multi‑tiered systems of support (MTSS), starting with core Tier‑1 instruction improvements and planning districtwide Tier‑2 and Tier‑3 intervention tracking in the Embrace system; the effort emphasizes formative assessment, teacher professional development and progress monitoring.
Plainfield SD 202 administrators told the Board committee on May 14 that the district is concentrating MTSS efforts on improving Tier‑1 classroom instruction while building consistent Tier‑2 and Tier‑3 intervention processes across schools.
“Tier 1 is often represented by a triangle,” Michelle Imburdino told the committee, summarizing the district push to make core instruction stronger and more consistent so fewer students require intensive interventions. “We found post pandemic, as you've seen in a lot of our academic data, our students are struggling. When you're talking about a significant number of students that are struggling, it's not necessarily that we're gonna take 70% of our students and put all of them into an intervention. We needed to make some adjustments in course so we can make sure that students were receiving grade level content, but we are scaffolding that content to meet the students where they are.”
Administrators described a multi‑year rollout. Year 1 work centered on instructional best practices — lesson openings and closures, clear objectives and measurable learning targets — and teacher coaching tied to the Danielson framework. Representatives from elementary, middle and high school levels piloted focused professional development in math instruction and strategies to increase student discourse and formative assessments.
Casey Hartman said elementary teams emphasized consistent lesson structure and engagement strategies. Middle school teachers used an “AWE” rubric — agenda, what are we learning, evidence of success — to set and revisit learning targets throughout lessons, and the district planned expansion of math discourse training next year. High school staff emphasized student self‑assessment and disciplinary literacy across content areas.
For Tier‑2 and Tier‑3 supports, district staff said they are refining intervention selection and progress monitoring so interventions target the specific skill deficit (for example, phonics vs. comprehension in reading). The district piloted Tier‑3 documentation in the Embrace case management system and plans to extend that rollout to all schools next year so MTSS paperwork and progress data are centralized and portable with students.
Administrators said the long‑term goal is to ensure students can transfer skills from small‑group interventions back to the general classroom and to use data to detect whether an intervention is working or needs adjustment. They also said MTSS is not solely about remediation: the district is reframing the classic MTSS triangle as a diamond, adding explicit enrichment and acceleration supports for students above grade level.
Committee members asked for follow‑up on how MTSS interventions map to assessment outcomes and for crosswalks between classroom grades, iReady diagnostic results and state assessments. Staff said those analyses would be candidates for future curriculum and technology committee presentations.
The MTSS briefing was informational; committee members did not take action. Staff will continue professional development and a targeted rollout of tracking tools and criteria for intervention placement.
