The School Counselor's Guide to Multi-Tiered Systems of Support

Emily Goodman-Scott, Jennifer Betters-Bubon, Peg Donohue, Emily Goodman-Scott, Jennifer Betters-Bubon, Peg Donohue

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781351385619
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy
• Index: Psychology

The School Counselor's Guide to Multi-Tiered Systems of Support is the first book to provide school counseling practitioners, students, and faculty with information and resources regarding the alignment and implementation of Comprehensive School Counseling Programs (CSCPs) such as the ASCA National Model and Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS).

This innovative text provides a strong theoretical and research base, as well as practical examples from the field, case studies, and relevant hands-on resources and tools to assist school counselors in comprehending, facilitating, and strengthening the implementation of CSCPs, particularly through MTSS alignment. Furthermore, chapters include pertinent information from the CACREP standards and the ASCA National Model.

This book is an essential resource for pre-service and practicing school counselors, as well as their leaders, supervisors, and faculty looking to better understand and utilize the overlap between CSCPs and MTSS, to strengthen school counseling programs to better serve students, schools, and communities.

1 Multi-Tiered Systems of Support

The What, Why, and How for School Counselors

George Sugai, Tamika P. La Salle, Susannah Everett, and Adam B. Feinberg

Introduction

Schools represent one of our most important systems for the social, emotional, academic, and behavioral development of our children and youth. More than 98,000 school buildings are distributed across the United States, and provide free public education to more than 50 million students for approximately six hours a day and 180 days a year. For at least 12 years of their lives, children and youth spend more structured learning time with educators in schools than with their families.

Educators are responsible for preparing students for college and career experiences by establishing basic academic competencies (e.g., literacy, numeracy), foundational knowledge (e.g., physical and social sciences, technology, literature), and specialized electives (e.g., music, art, sports). Schools provide equally important opportunities for the development and shaping of the social, emotional, and behavioral competencies of children and youth, often in the context of ever-changing and diverse learning environments (e.g., culture, race, gender, language, disability, socio-economic background).

Schools also provide opportunities for students of all ages to understand and respond to images, experiences, and events occurring around them, both prosocial (e.g., friendships, clubs, athletics) and antisocial (e.g., violence, disrespect, irresponsibility, bullying), often displayed by individuals in influential positions (e.g., politicians, entertainers, athletes). Similarly, economic, political, and environmental tragedies directly and indirectly create significant personal challenges for many family and community members. In sum, schools can serve as important positive, predictable, and safe places for all students, especially for those who may be traumatized, injured, and/or socially isolated (Sugai, Freeman, Simonsen, La Salle, & Fixsen, 2017).

Given these incredible academic, social, emotional, and behavioral responsibilities, educators, including school counselors, must use every minute of the school day wisely to ensure that all students can experience maximum success. As such, school counselors and other staff members must (a) select and become experts in the use of the best interventions and practices available, (b) work as a team to maximize the impact of their collective strengths, and (c) explicitly and actively participate across classroom and non-classroom settings to ensure that every student has opportunities to maximize their academic and social development.

Thus, the overarching purpose of this chapter is to highlight the important role that school counselors, in particular, contribute to the success of every student in every classroom within and across schools. Specifically, new and veteran school counseling professionals are provided with information and resources regarding the alignment and implementation of Comprehensive School Counseling Programs (CSCPs) (e.g., the American School Counselor Association [ASCA] National Model, 2012) within a Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) approach.

In this chapter, we describe how a MTSS approach provides a working structure for maximizing the individual and collective competencies of educators and, in particular, school counselors. We specifically address five questions:

1 What is MTSS?

2 What influenced the development of MTSS?

3 What are the operating characteristics of MTSS?

4 What is considered when implementing MTSS within CSCP?

5 What is the role of school counselors in MTSS and CSCP implementation?

What Is MTSS?

The conditions and challenges of contemporary schools have become more diverse, complex, and demanding, for example, widening gaps in socio-economic status, lower levels of student school readiness, contemporary workforce demands, and shifts in family structure and functioning (Weist, Garbacz, Lane, & Kincaid, 2017). Today’s students and school staff members also must maintain high levels of academic engagement and prosocial interpersonal exchanges while also experiencing daily and real social pressures (e.g., substance use, discrimination, antisocial and violent models, crime, natural and human-made disasters and acts).

Multi-Tiered Systems of Support have been encouraged as a framework for effectively and efficiently organizing and delivering academic, social, emotional, and behavioral resources and supports, and MTSS is generally described as a prevention-based framework (process, approach, organization) for enhancing the development and implementation of a continuum of evidence-based practices and achieving academically and behaviorally important outcomes for all students (McIntosh & Goodman, 2016). Overall, MTSS is best described as an overarching approach or “umbrella” for a range of tiered systems of support. For instance, Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) is an MTSS application that specifically focuses on maximizing social, emotional, and behavioral outcomes and supports CSCPs (Goodman-Scott, Betters-Bubon, & Donohue, 2016; Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, 2018).

School counselors are assuming collaborative and leadership roles through CSCP and within MTSS to effectively and efficiently support all students (ASCA, 2018). School counselors who engage in MTSS expand their influence at the individual level through enhanced universal screening, progress monitoring, and selection and use of evidence-based counseling practices. At the systems level, school counselors become more involved in whole classroom and school-wide improvement efforts through, for example, evaluating implementation fidelity, using data to monitor student responsiveness, and participating in multidisciplinary teams. In fact, school counselors appreciate that MTSS implementation expands their professional capacity to work collaboratively on positive systemic reform and enhances their roles as advocates and change agents (Goodman-Scott & Grothaus, 2017).

What Influenced the Development of MTSS?

Many influences have shaped the evolution and contemporary descriptions of MTSS. In this section, we describe nine key MTSS influences. We recommend that school counselors pay particular attention to the important historical practices and support systems (italicized) that are still essential to MTSS, CSCP, and the success of school counseling.

1 Disabilities and Special Education

One of the biggest MTSS influences is legislation related to the education of individuals with disabilities. Beginning in the 1960s, children and youth with disabilities and their families were afforded due process rights and safeguards to ensure access to individualized educational experiences that specifically considered the influence of their disabilities on learning. Public Law 94-142 (National Education Association of United States, 1978) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and its reauthorizations codified educational principles related to, for example, free and public education, individualized education plans, least restrictive environment, child find, early intervention, and data-based decision making. Special education focused attention on students who, because of their disability, did not have access to or were not benefiting from the general education curriculum.

A number of special education derived procedures are reflected in MTSS. For example, the individual education program planning (IEP) process includes a number of MTSS-related elements: (a) planning must be team based, (b) long- and short-term objectives and goals must be based on current level of functioning and consideration of disability, (c) intervention decisions and instructional adjustments must be aligned with pre-determined goals and objectives and be evidence-based, and (d) student progress and responsiveness to intervention must be monitored continuously. In addition, a requirement called “child find” established a routine and expectation for regular screening for students who may have a disability that affects their academic achievement.

2 Curriculum-Based Measurement and Precision Teaching

In the 1960s, Stan Deno and Phyllis Mirikin led researchers and practitioners in the development and use of data assessment and measurement procedures, known as curriculum-based measurement (CBM), for improving the quality of progress monitoring and instructional decisions for all students, with a particular focus on students with disabilities (Deno, 2003; Deno & Mirikin, 1977). Focused on literacy and numeracy, CBM highlighted the importance of using brief precise measures based on the local (school and district) academic curriculum (Deno, 1985). Application of these measures occurred regularly (e.g., weekly, monthly) to provide timely graphic indications of the student’s responsiveness to intervention and to enhance decision making (Deno, Fuchs, Marston, & Shin, 2001).

Similar to CBM, an approach called precision teaching (PT) was developed to further the applications of formative or continuous decision making, especially for a broader range of academic and behavioral targets for young children, youth, and adults in both general and special education (i.e., mild, moderate, and severe disabilities). Precision teaching researchers and practitioners (e.g., Norris Haring, Owen White, Ogden Lindsley, Kathleen Liberty) developed a number of instructional enhancements for (a) estimating trend lines (e.g., split middle technique), (b) extending predictions based on current trend, (c) using rate (response per minute) as the primary measure of learning and respo...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• About the Editors
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• CACREP Standards Addressed by Chapter
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Multi-Tiered Systems of Support: The What, Why, and How for School Counselors
• 2 Integrating School Counseling and MTSS
• 3 Tier 1: Creating Strong Universal Systems of Support and Facilitating Systemic Change
• 4 Tier 1: School Counseling Core Curriculum and Classroom Management for Every Student
• 5 Tier 2: Providing Supports for Students with Elevated Needs
• 6 Tier 3: Specialized Services for Students with Intensive Needs
• 7 Universal Screening to Support MTSS
• 8 School Counselors Consulting and Collaborating Within MTSS
• 9 Using Data in MTSS to Demonstrate How School Counselors Make a Difference
• 10 Evidence-Based Practices Across MTSS
• 11 Culturally Responsive MTSS: Advocating for Equity for Every Student
• 12 Voices from the Field
• Concluding Thoughts
• Index