Multi-Tiered Systems of Support in Secondary Schools: The Definitive Guide to Effective Implementation and Quality Control

Multi-Tiered Systems of Support in Secondary Schools is a humanistic guide used to produce reliable human capital outputs while ensuring the promotion of socially just practices on campus.

Featuring real perspectives from practitioners, this text shows how to make manageable changes at secondary schools in accordance with public policy mandates and evidence-based practices by developing smart teams and programs, identifying roles and responsibilities, implementing layers of academic support and services, improving behavioural and mental health of students, and creating an inclusive school culture.

This unique guide assists practitioners in implementing systemic change in a bureaucratic system while simultaneously strengthening the health and cohesion of the organisation.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations

Foreword

Acknowledgments

I. New Foundations for Multi-Tiered Systems of Support

II. Evaluating Your School’s Needs and Building Your Team

III. Invest in Resources at Your School

IV. How to Build Your Program

V. How an MTSS Team Works Together

VI. It’s the Format, Not the Forms

VII. Special Education Eligibility and Other Considerations

VIII. High School Recommendations

IX. Family Engagement

X. Behavioral and Mental Health MTSS

XI. Program Evaluation and Feedback Looping

XII. Advocacy and Policy Making

XIII. Trouble Shooting

XIV. Moving Forward Together

Appendix

Glossary

Index

"Education must find its way from a soft science filled with belief, unproven ideas and misguided enthusiasm to a scientist practitioner model in which educators develop, test, modify, and implement effective educational strategies to help today’s students maximize their acquisition of knowledge while simultaneously developing their capacities for thinking, reasoning, problem solving, stress hardiness and resilience. Alison Clark and Katherine Dockweiler have created a valuable desk reference and resource for psychologists, educators and allied health professionals working within secondary schools."
- Sam Goldstein, adjunct assistant professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Utah School of Medicine

"There are very few books written on implementation of multi-tiered systems of support in secondary schools from practitioners who have implemented MTSS successfully in secondary schools. Alison Clark and Katherine Dockweiler utilize practices with strong empirical support and are filling the research to practice gap in the existing literature."
- Catherine C. Gardner, veteran practitioner of school psychology