Parent-Teacher Team
Interventions are most successful when parents are involved early and often in the process. Best practices would suggest that a process exists for notifying parents and obtaining support for problem solving. In addition to notification, parents should be invited to participate in problem solving process, share strategies that they have seen work with their child, and have some say in which intervention will be implemented. If parents do not attend, either the teacher or related service provider should interview them before the conference, and follow up with a communication home to inform the parents of what was discussed and what intervention was selected.
Grade or Content Area Team
The entire MTSS process is largely driven by grade-level teams). Oftentimes, each classroom teacher considers the students in her class to be her sole responsibility. Through the grade-level team process, the goal is to have staff members collectively consider all students as one group to be supported together. Teams concentrate their energy on using data to answer three questions: a) What do the students need to learn?, b) How do educators know when students have acquired the intended skills?, c) How do educators respond when students are discrepant from expectations? In addition, teams collaborate to study research-based best practices to challenge the status quo continually and engage in a continual improvement process with a focus on results.
School/Building Team
Building leadership teams serve as the overarching management group for facilitating and evaluating implementation in a particular school. Building leadership team has a similar role as district leadership team. Smaller districts may consider having one team instead of both district and building leadership teams. Membership includes parent and community involvement, as necessary.
When forming a school problem-solving team, care should be taken to ensure that there is a balanced representation of grade-level staff. Larger school buildings may consider having more than one school team when the size of the school outstrips the workload of one team. In addition to balanced representation among grade levels, there should also be balanced representation of regular and special education staff. The school team must work to dispel the notion that referrals to the team will result in an evaluation for special education services. We recommend that one general education classroom teacher from each grade be trained in the school team process and be a standing representative for the grade. For example, if the school team is discussing a fourth-grade student, then the fourth-grade teacher trained in school team attends the meeting, but the others do not.
Special Education Team
In moving to the special education team, the school team acknowledges that special education resources may be warranted to address a student’s educational problems. When taking a case to the special education team, all the due process and procedural protections available under IDEA are provided. One of these protections is asking parents for written permission to have their child evaluated with the intent of determining special education entitlement.
District Team
District leadership team guides the implementation process. The district leadership team is responsible for consensus building, formulating a long-term action plan, explaining how other district initiatives fit within the MTSS framework, setting standards for fidelity of implementation, assisting buildings with conducting a self-study of existing practices, and giving “permission” to abandon ineffective practices. The district leadership team also formulates a plan for how to communicate the district action plan to key stakeholders, such as parents, community, and cross district stakeholders.