התמלול המלא של #93: Transforming Education with Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS)

That's huge and obviously, students who are successful, students who have met a challenge, struggled a little bit and have overcome it, have learned, have been able to see the progress that they have made through hard work, through extra work, through the graphs that we make, through progress monitoring. 00:06:27.723 --> 00:06:32.273 That very much bolsters a student's confidence level. 00:06:32.273 --> 00:06:36.966 When children meet and overcome challenges. 00:06:36.966 --> 00:06:54.935 That opens up more opportunities for them because they see that, hey, this challenging thing that I've just experienced, I can be okay, I can meet a challenge, I can overcome it and I can be better for it. 00:06:54.935 --> 00:06:57.663 I can be better on the other side. 00:06:57.663 --> 00:07:16.646 So that very much boosts a student's confidence and, by the way, it also motivates them to when they come up against a challenge again in the future academically, they know in their head hey, I know I can overcome this because I overcame that other thing back there. 00:07:16.646 --> 00:07:25.430 But I'm motivated to try a little bit harder, put a little bit more effort in, because I know that I can progress. 00:07:25.430 --> 00:07:27.742 I know that I can beat that challenge. 00:07:28.903 --> 00:07:31.769 Now, obviously, every single student is different. 00:07:31.769 --> 00:07:41.024 Every single student is going to see progress at a different level, is going to gain more confidence or less confidence, based on who they are, as a as an individual. 00:07:41.024 --> 00:07:50.005 But across the students who are given the proper tier two and tier three interventions, they receive all of those benefits. 00:07:50.005 --> 00:07:54.661 And all of that rolls into the benefits that our teachers see. 00:07:54.661 --> 00:08:04.004 Now the first thing is kind of obvious Obviously, our teachers want to see their children, their students, succeed. 00:08:04.004 --> 00:08:08.081 Teachers want the students to make progress. 00:08:08.081 --> 00:08:12.802 They want them to be able to read, they want them to be able to do math, to write on grade level. 00:08:12.802 --> 00:08:14.185 They want these things. 00:08:14.185 --> 00:08:23.550 And so when we provide the proper supports for their students, right then and there teachers are much happier than they were. 00:08:23.550 --> 00:09:12.681 When we're not giving the kids what they need, just the opportunity to have support for their students, that's a really big win for teachers because, let's be honest, teaching is a lonely profession and knowing that there is a group of people in the school that is going to meet on a regular basis to help their students Again, assuming that we are performing the MTSS meetings appropriately, assuming that the teachers are not put on the spot and made to feel bad it's a judgment-free zone, like we talked about in previous podcast episodes that is hugely beneficial to teachers to know that somebody's got their back, that somebody is going to help their students who need it. 00:09:14.745 --> 00:09:26.974 Also, like we've talked about in previous episodes, it is a big benefit to teachers to learn new strategies or get new resources through this MTSS process. 00:09:26.974 --> 00:09:52.063 Even teachers who have been teaching for 30 years can come into a meeting and talk about a student that is struggling in their classroom and come away with something new, something new to try some new resource Again, having that backup of knowing that, yeah, I have this student that's struggling. 00:09:52.063 --> 00:09:56.573 It's not all on that teacher to try and figure it out. 00:09:56.573 --> 00:09:58.163 Do it all on their own. 00:09:58.163 --> 00:10:07.868 No, they have backup, they have someone, they have a group of someones who are there who are going to share strategies, who are going to share resources. 00:10:07.868 --> 00:10:11.126 That's huge and teachers want that. 00:10:11.126 --> 00:10:22.315 They want to have support, they want to have a communal sharing of resources and strategies, again in a non-judgmental area. 00:10:22.315 --> 00:10:24.605 It has to be a judgment-free zone. 00:10:25.046 --> 00:10:34.022 Part of the reason that teachers love learning new strategies, getting new resources, is because, yeah, they want to see their students perform well. 00:10:34.022 --> 00:10:37.028 They also want to improve their own craft. 00:10:37.028 --> 00:10:39.773 Teachers are lifelong learners. 00:10:39.773 --> 00:10:42.224 That's part of the reason they got into the profession. 00:10:42.224 --> 00:11:03.142 They value education, they value learning, and so when they are given opportunities on a regular basis in a comfortable environment to improve their own craft, their own teaching craft, that is a huge motivational and confidence booster. 00:11:03.142 --> 00:11:07.860 That is absolutely going to help teachers be better. 00:11:07.860 --> 00:11:14.802 Teachers feel like they're making improvement, feel like they're making a difference, and that's really, really what they want. 00:11:14.802 --> 00:11:17.828 Teachers need to feel more supported. 00:11:18.910 --> 00:11:28.073 We've talked about on this episode, podcast episode, many others, and I mean it's in the news all the time. 00:11:28.073 --> 00:11:39.083 Teachers are leaving education in droves Because, yeah, there's the money thing we won't even talk about that because the money thing is a big one. 00:11:39.083 --> 00:11:44.974 But the reality is teachers are leaving the profession because they don't feel supported. 00:11:44.974 --> 00:11:52.601 They have been thrown to the wolves on. 00:11:52.601 --> 00:11:55.128 Here's this new curriculum this year, and here's this new curriculum the next year, and here's you know what? 00:11:55.128 --> 00:11:56.812 Do that stuff that you're not really comfortable with. 00:11:57.019 --> 00:12:01.851 Now do it online without any prep, and now do it kind of hybrid.

00:12:01.851 --> 00:12:05.602 So be prepared to do it online, but also be prepared to do it in person. 00:12:05.602 --> 00:12:09.085 Oh, never mind, you're just we're back in person. 00:12:09.085 --> 00:12:11.147 Oh, never mind, we're going to take two weeks off. 00:12:11.147 --> 00:12:12.607 It is ridiculous. 00:12:12.607 --> 00:12:18.272 We have to have new curriculum, but the students are far behind and we're still going to test them. 00:12:18.272 --> 00:12:33.847 But the tests don't matter, because there was the lockdowns and stuff. 00:12:33.847 --> 00:12:42.308 But it does matter for whether you get paid and how much you get paid, and there's a big pressure to get the test done and that the students have to perform well on the test, even though they weren't in school for a year and a half. 00:12:44.150 --> 00:12:45.974 Yet teachers don't feel supported. 00:12:45.974 --> 00:12:47.155 They don't. 00:12:47.155 --> 00:13:01.390 And if we do the MTSS system, we perform the series of meetings and providing the interventions again the way it's supposed to be teachers do start to feel supported again. 00:13:01.390 --> 00:13:15.082 It's not the end all, it's not the only thing that we can do or should do to support our teachers, but it's a really big step in the right direction to helping our teachers feel more supported. 00:13:15.082 --> 00:13:22.663 And then, finally, when it comes to teachers and the benefits from MTSS, teachers need community. 00:13:22.663 --> 00:13:26.091 They need to feel like they are a part of something. 00:13:26.091 --> 00:13:37.750 For a very long time, teachers have been told yeah, you listen to what's been told to you, they listen to the gurus, and then you walk in your classroom and you shut your door and you do what you need to do. 00:13:37.750 --> 00:13:40.464 That has been said over and over again. 00:13:40.464 --> 00:13:44.591 It was said to me when I first started teaching and for many times afterwards. 00:13:44.591 --> 00:13:48.567 But the fact is, teachers do need community. 00:13:48.567 --> 00:14:00.601 Teachers cannot continue to do it on their own, certainly not when we are just throwing new thing after new thing after new thing and never giving them a chance to breathe. 00:14:00.601 --> 00:14:11.128 We are also, at the same time, giving them new curriculum, giving them students who didn't master the previous set of skills. 00:14:11.128 --> 00:14:22.168 They haven't mastered the skills of reading, of writing, of performing math on grade level way back when. 00:14:22.168 --> 00:14:28.500 And now we're expecting them to educate students that aren't prepared for their curriculum. 00:14:30.043 --> 00:14:46.312 A case in point I had a teacher friend send to me last week just a really quick picture didn't have the student's name obviously on it, but just a very small work sample of a student at the high school level. 00:14:46.312 --> 00:14:55.393 That child was unable to write a sentence and the reason this teacher sent it to me was to try to help. 00:14:55.393 --> 00:14:57.844 She knows that I'm really good at interpreting. 00:14:57.844 --> 00:15:06.011 I can usually sound out things and figure out what a child is trying to say, and she's doing everything she can to give this child credit. 00:15:06.011 --> 00:15:11.008 And let me tell you the things that were written down. 00:15:11.008 --> 00:15:15.701 Most of it wasn't letters, the student. 00:15:15.701 --> 00:15:23.249 I was able to decipher two words the cell, and they spelled the word the T-H-A. 00:15:24.789 --> 00:15:29.634 I am not saying this to make fun of a student. 00:15:29.634 --> 00:15:31.636 Certainly not, absolutely not. 00:15:31.636 --> 00:15:49.743 But that student is in a high school classroom and is expected to perform and be taught at the high school level and be taught at the high school level. 00:15:49.743 --> 00:16:01.427 How in the world is any of that student's teachers going to be able to get that student to write sentences or be able to express themselves when simple words like the are misspelled? 00:16:01.427 --> 00:16:18.091 How is the student supposed to perform well with assessments and things when the child is not able to understand form letters, handwriting down letters? 00:16:18.091 --> 00:16:26.129 This is not a skill and, by the way, this is not a student who has any type of OTPT type of situation. 00:16:26.129 --> 00:16:27.913 We're not talking about something like that. 00:16:27.913 --> 00:16:41.056 We're talking about an average student who is struggling, obviously significantly, but does not have any extra special supports in place. 00:16:41.056 --> 00:16:47.308 This is the average student that this teacher is seeing. 00:16:48.429 --> 00:17:17.644 So this is a prime example of why we have to get MTSS systems working efficiently and effectively in our schools, because these kids are getting into high school and they're not able to complete simple tasks like writing a sentence with correct capitalization, punctuation and let alone spelling Just capitalization and punctuation and even phonetically spelling words. 00:17:17.644 --> 00:17:20.528 Our teachers need support. 00:17:20.528 --> 00:17:33.981 They need to have people that they can lean on within their building, in their grade level, in their subject level, whatever it is. 00:17:33.981 --> 00:17:36.926 They desperately need this if we want to keep good teachers in our school buildings. 00:17:36.926 --> 00:17:40.113 We talk a lot about the teacher shortage. 00:17:40.933 --> 00:17:49.413 I have recently seen quite a few snippets of information about administrators are also leaving. 00:17:49.413 --> 00:18:09.261 I don't have any personal examples of this, so I don't know how widespread it is, but I do know that the statistics are out there, that administrators are absolutely leaving the school environment and, again, I can't blame them. 00:18:09.261 --> 00:18:17.364 The pressures and all of the expectations are just as

bad for them as they are for the teachers. 00:18:17.364 --> 00:18:35.826 They don't get as much lip service, I guess, when you look at social media and things like that, but the fact is there is a lot of pressure for administrators to perform and a lot of misunderstandings from above that the fact is the students are behind. 00:18:35.826 --> 00:18:59.601 The fact is that students did very much not benefit from the shutdowns and the lockdowns and there is learning loss if we are going to try to compare our students' test scores now to the norms which were done before there was a pandemic and before we shut down an entire nation. 00:18:59.882 --> 00:19:14.221 I am going to talk a little bit about some of the benefits that administrators see from properly running MTSS, because, again, I do think it is important that we realize that administrators are people too. 00:19:14.221 --> 00:19:39.406 I do tend to bash them because I love teachers I do but the fact is that administrators are under a massive, massive amount of pressure and if we are going to make big improvements in our schools in MTSS, we have to get administrators to want to stay. 00:19:39.406 --> 00:19:48.212 We have to keep the good administrators wanting to stay, wanting to persevere through these rough times in education. 00:19:48.212 --> 00:19:59.642 So, of course, obviously the first benefit we're going to talk about for administrators is your students are going to do better, which means your data is going to look better. 00:19:59.642 --> 00:20:07.525 Data speaks a lot when you're a school administrator talking to district administrators, we know this. 00:20:07.525 --> 00:20:14.461 We want the data to get better every single year and that's, honestly, that's the first step. 00:20:14.461 --> 00:20:20.134 When it comes down to it, mtss does improve your data because your students are able to perform better. 00:20:20.134 --> 00:20:22.848 They're filling skill gaps, which we need them to do. 00:20:24.039 --> 00:20:27.729 It also increases teacher retention. 00:20:27.729 --> 00:20:29.093 What does that do? 00:20:29.093 --> 00:20:32.851 Well, that means you're not having to train new teachers every year. 00:20:32.851 --> 00:20:48.127 It means that your teachers have the opportunity to get their feet under them and they can start to hone their craft and get better and better every year, which again cycles back to guess what your student data improves year by year. 00:20:48.127 --> 00:21:20.387 You do not want, every single year, to have a massive number of new teachers, especially not emergency hires and those kinds of things, not to mention the stress of the time lost to having to interview new teachers and trying to figure out who's going to be a good fit for your school environment and, quite frankly, not having a whole lot of choices because we don't have a whole lot of teachers out there that are wanting to come into the field. 00:21:20.387 --> 00:21:27.204 So it's really good for everyone involved if we can increase teacher retention. 00:21:27.746 --> 00:21:31.093 A lot of times teachers will talk about school culture. 00:21:31.093 --> 00:21:39.093 They will talk about the fact that a culture was toxic or it was a welcoming environment. 00:21:39.093 --> 00:21:40.115 Those kinds of things. 00:21:40.115 --> 00:21:54.788 We don't tend to talk a lot about how the school culture affects administrators Because a lot of times the fact is administration very much does set the tone for school culture. 00:21:54.788 --> 00:21:55.950 We will admit that. 00:21:55.950 --> 00:22:09.569 But it is also really tough to for an administrator, for any administrator, to take a school culture, whether they're a brand new administrator to the building or they've been around. 00:22:09.569 --> 00:22:14.385 They've been around there for a while and they realize this is not the way we want it to be. 00:22:14.385 --> 00:22:16.269 We want to improve our school culture. 00:22:17.030 --> 00:22:33.432 It is very difficult to turn that ship around MTSS and providing that environment, that safe, judgment-free zone for teachers where you can be in there and support your teachers and show them. 00:22:33.432 --> 00:22:37.784 You support them and provide realistic strategies and ideas. 00:22:37.784 --> 00:22:45.292 Or hear me out here Provide them with a break, provide them with an opportunity. 00:22:45.292 --> 00:22:48.296 Hey, I see that you've been struggling with this student. 00:22:48.296 --> 00:22:53.202 How about I give you a 10-minute break? 00:22:53.202 --> 00:23:00.884 You know, because I realized we had that meeting last week in MTSS and I know you're stressed, so I had an extra five minutes. 00:23:00.884 --> 00:23:02.853 I'm going to watch your class for a little bit. 00:23:02.853 --> 00:23:29.012 You go down, you take a little break and then you come back, not because the student wrecked their classroom, not because anything happened, but because you're tuned in to what's going on in that classroom for that teacher, and that will make huge, huge steps in helping your school culture and helping your teachers to understand that you are there to support them. 00:23:29.759 --> 00:23:38.674 Having all those things in place creates a cycle and it all becomes a beautiful cycle of. 00:23:38.674 --> 00:24:01.040 We start improving the teaching because we're providing support, we're providing resources, we're providing strategies and we're improving the craft that the teachers have and we're keeping teachers around longer, which increases student outcomes, which then increases teacher retention, which goes back around to. 00:24:01.040 --> 00:24:32.945 We're going to continuously improve teaching and it becomes a beautiful cycle of improvement instead of just constantly getting worse and worse, because we're losing good teachers who had the good strategies, because we don't have the supports in place that they need, and something that I guess is a little bit

controversial, but the fact is MTSS if you check out, you know my last week's podcast episode. 00:24:32.945 --> 00:24:52.393 The purpose of MTSS is actually to prevent the need for special education, and later on, months from now, I do have plans to talk about improving the special education system in our schools, which I really hope you stick around for, because I've got some really good ideas. 00:24:53.500 --> 00:24:59.794 But the fact is, the special education system as a whole is completely overtaxed. 00:24:59.794 --> 00:25:20.625 Our special education teachers do not have the time or the resources to deal with the students that they already have on their caseloads, and using MTSS as a slip and slide to get more kids into the quote unquote services that they need is not helping that. 00:25:20.625 --> 00:25:46.428 Our special education system is completely overtaxed, which means that mistakes are happening, which means that services are not being provided that the students need and that we are legally obligated to give them, which is causing special education to be a hugely, hugely stressful system, not just for the teachers but for the administrators. 00:25:46.428 --> 00:25:49.204 Enter MTSS. 00:25:49.204 --> 00:26:10.392 If we are doing MTSS properly, if we are providing a supportive environment for our teachers, if we are providing interventions and strategies that are focused on what the students need, we're going to get the kids on grade level and they will not need special education. 00:26:10.392 --> 00:26:16.810 Now, does that mean that no kids should ever be going from MTSS into special education? 00:26:16.810 --> 00:26:17.993 Absolutely not. 00:26:17.993 --> 00:26:21.160 No kids should ever be going from MTSS into special education Absolutely not. 00:26:21.160 --> 00:26:27.673 We know that there are some students who absolutely 100% do need special education services because they do have special needs. 00:26:27.673 --> 00:26:32.420 We get that, but not the massive numbers that we have going through. 00:26:32.840 --> 00:26:40.193 Special education was never meant to house the large number of students that we have. 00:26:40.193 --> 00:26:51.210 And the fact is, when we have teachers that have caseloads of 20, 30, 40, 50 kids, that education that they are providing is not specialized. 00:26:51.210 --> 00:27:03.821 You cannot provide a actual individualized IEP if you are having to write an IEP and have an IEP meeting every other day. 00:27:03.821 --> 00:27:26.834 And, let's be honest, if you have a 180-day schedule and you take into account testing and the beginning of the school and the end of the school weeks, that means that if you have a teacher that has 40, 50 kids on their caseload, they're writing multiple IEPs a week that's not individualized. 00:27:26.834 --> 00:27:52.205 There's no way in the world that that teacher has the time, the mental capacity to actually individualize that, to actually individualize that, which is why we

have mistakes happening, that's why we have problems with procedures not being followed, that's why we have huge issues with the service numbers and the minutes not adding up and all of that. 00:27:52.205 --> 00:28:01.380 We have to start realizing that what we're doing with MTSS being a slip and slide to special education. 00:28:01.380 --> 00:28:02.384 It has to stop. 00:28:02.384 --> 00:28:37.711 And a huge benefit to administrators by getting MTSS done correctly, providing the interventions and getting the kids to be more successful, is we take some of that strain over time off of our special education system so that our special education system and the teachers can do what really needs to be done for those kids who desperately, desperately need the individualized attention that we are promised and that we are legally supposed to give them. 00:28:38.253 --> 00:28:39.907 We always talk about with MTSS. 00:28:39.907 --> 00:28:51.516 We talk about the school, we talk about the administrators, the students, the teachers, administrators we don't really talk as much, but definitely we talk about the students and the teachers, the impact of MTSS for them. 00:28:51.516 --> 00:29:00.200 I don't know that I've ever had anybody really talk, have a real discussion about the benefits of MTSS to parents. 00:29:00.200 --> 00:29:03.788 I think it's important that we have this discussion today. 00:29:03.788 --> 00:29:07.518 We know that parents want their children to be successful. 00:29:07.518 --> 00:29:15.048 I don't know of a single parent that I have ever worked with, whether I liked them or not, that didn't want their child to be successful. 00:29:15.048 --> 00:29:19.394 There were varying levels of involvement. 00:29:19.394 --> 00:29:39.376 There was varying levels of engagement with their children and understanding of the education system and how teaching and education works, but not a single parent that I've ever met has ever wanted their child to not be successful. 00:29:39.376 --> 00:29:41.921 That's just kind of not a thing. 00:29:41.921 --> 00:29:48.016 Those parents tend to not be around and you tend to not ever meet them in all honesty. 00:29:48.016 --> 00:30:01.131 So the fact is, if we're doing MTSS right and we are providing the interventions, their children are going to be successful, which that's a benefit to them. 00:30:01.131 --> 00:30:13.926 Parents want their kids to be successful, and another thing is that it gives parents clarity to understand exactly what their child is struggling with. 00:30:14.567 --> 00:30:22.935 A lot of times when I talk to parents, they will say that they don't understand why their child isn't doing well in reading. 00:30:22.935 --> 00:30:24.423 Well, they're getting all this extra help. 00:30:24.423 --> 00:30:25.627 Why aren't they doing well in reading? 00:30:25.627 --> 00:30:28.174 It's not that their child isn't doing well in reading. 00:30:28.174 --> 00:30:30.167 It's that they didn't learn their letter sounds. 00:30:30.167 --> 00:30:36.888 And when you explain it and you break it down to them, then they go oh, oh, okay. 00:30:36.888 --> 00:30:47.035 And then when they ask the school what can I do to help my child read, just reading with the child is not going to help. 00:30:47.035 --> 00:30:48.778 Can we just all agree on that? 00:30:48.778 --> 00:30:49.506 That? 00:30:49.506 --> 00:30:55.126 A child who is struggling in reading, just reading to them more, is not actually going to teach a child to read. 00:30:55.126 --> 00:31:01.266 We have to actually zone in on the skill that they're missing. 00:31:01.266 --> 00:31:02.868 We have to do that. 00:31:02.868 --> 00:31:16.112 And what better way to get a child to progress than to get the parents to help and give extra help on top of what we're doing in school. 00:31:16.112 --> 00:31:28.589 So instead of when teachers hear the parents say, when you know when they're sitting in conferences, and all that, when the parent says, well, what can I do to help my child improve? 00:31:28.589 --> 00:31:46.192 Instead of giving them a website to go to or saying, well, you could make flashcards or what have you, we can pull out these MTSS data charts and show your child knows these 20 sight words right here. 00:31:46.192 --> 00:31:51.145 They have to learn these 100 sight words in the next nine weeks. 00:31:51.145 --> 00:31:55.528 And here's some flashcards already made. 00:31:55.528 --> 00:32:02.392 Can you work on these flash cards with your child every evening or three times a week or whatever it is. 00:32:02.392 --> 00:32:09.176 That is something that a lot of parents are willing to do Obviously not all parents. 00:32:09.277 --> 00:32:17.161 We know that some parents are not very involved for a lot of reasons, and that's not, it's not blaming. 00:32:17.161 --> 00:32:28.990 We know that there are some parents that are getting home right before bedtime and they're doing the absolute best they can no judgment on them at all, none whatsoever. 00:32:28.990 --> 00:32:39.576 But a lot of times those kids are going to after school care and those parents could request that the child be worked with to work on those flashcards. 00:32:39.576 --> 00:33:04.079 We got to start thinking outside the box and if we want to get the kids extra help outside of their intervention time, then we have to start really including parents so that they can help support their children or, quite frankly, just so that they can understand a little bit more of why their child is experiencing frustration. 00:33:04.079 --> 00:33:23.385 Maybe they need to understand that the reason your child doesn't want to write the grocery list for you is because they really can't spell the words and we're working on teaching them the letter sounds and so when you want them to write something down for you, help them. 00:33:23.385 --> 00:33:29.829 Help them to sound out the individual sounds in the word we can give the parents. 00:33:29.829 --> 00:33:49.365

When we work through MTSS and we're working on very specific goals, we can give parents very specific ideas that they can work into their lives to help their children and, honestly, that all comes back to helping parents feel more connected with the school and the education of their children. 00:33:50.326 --> 00:33:59.134 There have been a lot of polls that have gone out that one of the biggest complaints that parents have about schools is that they don't feel connected. 00:33:59.134 --> 00:34:02.333 They don't feel like they know what's going on in the schools. 00:34:02.333 --> 00:34:05.846 They don't feel like they know what their children are learning. 00:34:05.846 --> 00:34:15.311 If their children are struggling and are in MTSS, they're really sending an excuse for the parents not to know what we're working on. 00:34:15.311 --> 00:34:18.737 That's actually kind of fundamental, don't you think? 00:34:18.737 --> 00:34:30.552 If a child is struggling, shouldn't we be telling the parents what they're struggling with in the hopes that the parent can do something and is willing to do something? 00:34:30.552 --> 00:34:39.255 Because I have to believe that the vast majority of parents are willing to help their children, but they don't know how. 00:34:39.255 --> 00:34:42.608 At least that's what the polls say. 00:34:42.608 --> 00:35:11.012 So I mean I got to kind of believe that to a certain degree, and I mean all the parents that I have talked to they're all very willing to work with their kiddo, read with their kiddo and work on flashcards, work on multiplication facts they're more than willing to do that, but they need to know what that foundational skill is that they need to be working on to make the most impact for their child. 00:35:11.012 --> 00:35:21.990 Because if the parents are at home working on something that is light years ahead of where the child is, all we're doing is causing frustration for that child and the parent. 00:35:22.311 --> 00:35:33.442 And finally, when it comes to parents getting some benefit from MTSS, we want parents to understand that their child is important to us. 00:35:33.442 --> 00:35:50.001 I don't even know how many times I have sat in meetings or seen emails from parents or messages from parents accusing teachers or counselors or schools in general school districts that they don't care about the kids. 00:35:50.001 --> 00:35:56.291 We care about the kids, about the kids. 00:35:56.291 --> 00:36:15.469 I've been one of the people that has received those emails and it shocks me, because when I am working for a school district, the kids are my number one focus. 00:36:15.469 --> 00:36:18.916 I spend hours, every every minute of every day, doing things to try and help the students. 00:36:19.577 --> 00:36:20.878 Parents don't see that. 00:36:20.878 --> 00:36:31.152 They just know that their baby is struggling and their baby doesn't want to go to school because their baby is frustrated, and why wouldn't they be? 00:36:31.152 --> 00:36:39.277 Why wouldn't a child be frustrated when they have made it to the third, fourth, fifth, 5th, 8th, 9th, 10th grade and they can't read? 00:36:39.277 --> 00:36:45.577 Why wouldn't they be frustrated when they've made it to high school and they can't spell the word? 00:36:45.577 --> 00:36:48.451 Because that's a problem? 00:36:48.451 --> 00:36:51.556 And kids aren't dumb. 00:36:51.556 --> 00:36:57.967 They know when they can't do something that they are expected to be able to do. 00:36:57.967 --> 00:37:29.530 They know that and parents want their kids to be successful and they need to know that their child is important, is a priority to us as teachers, administrators, whoever you are, whatever you're doing in the school district, the parents need to know that, and involving them in MTSS is a huge step in the right direction. 00:37:29.550 --> 00:37:40.826 Imagine a parent who is frustrated and feeling like nobody cares that their child is struggling and they are invited to a meeting where a panel of teachers come together and talk about yes, their child is struggling in reading. 00:37:40.826 --> 00:37:46.925 This is why and here's some strategies that we can try and let's talk about, here's some ideas. 00:37:46.925 --> 00:37:51.815 Maybe this other resource would work better and they see that and go. 00:37:51.815 --> 00:38:01.539 There's a panel of teachers talking, there's specialists talking about my kid, there's administrators and everybody in this room is talking about my child. 00:38:01.539 --> 00:38:06.916 That proves to a parent that, no, their child is important. 00:38:06.916 --> 00:38:14.056 They are important and we're not going to sit on our laurels and just let their child fail. 00:38:14.056 --> 00:38:16.253 We're not going to do that. 00:38:18.806 --> 00:38:21.233 And that's how we get parents backing us up. 00:38:21.233 --> 00:38:25.809 That's how we get parents back involved in the school culture. 00:38:25.809 --> 00:38:34.250 That's how we get back to having volunteer parents and all of that the heyday of education where we had parent support. 00:38:34.250 --> 00:38:34.851 We have to get back to that. 00:38:34.851 --> 00:38:35.911 Where we had parent support. 00:38:35.911 --> 00:38:37.954 We have to get back to that. 00:38:37.954 --> 00:38:40.559 Are all parents going to get involved? 00:38:40.559 --> 00:38:41.740 No, they're not. 00:38:43.905 --> 00:38:44.766 But that doesn't mean we can't change that. 00:38:44.766 --> 00:38:59.333 All of the benefits, whether it's for students or teachers or administrators or parents, all of those benefits help all of us within the education ecosystem, but all of us as a society in general. 00:38:59.333 --> 00:39:06.378 The fact is our schools, as I've talked about for a while, our schools are failing us. 00:39:06.378 --> 00:39:10.994 They're failing our students, they're failing our teachers, our administrators, our parents, everybody. 00:39:10.994 --> 00:39:22.188 But we can turn that around if we get our systems in place and working the way they were meant to work, and we can do this. 00:39:22.188 --> 00:39:35.594 If we want the benefits that we've talked about today, we have to put in the hard work of setting up a good system so that our students can benefit. 00:39:35.594 --> 00:39:47.181 So next week we're going to talk about what is the rate of improvement that we should be expecting for our students when they are in MTSS. 00:39:47.181 --> 00:39:58.510 So I can't wait to talk to you next week and until then, may your coffee be strong, your students calm and always your students progressing. 00:39:58.510 --> 00:39:59.414 Bye.