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IL MTSS has found a new home at NIU, thanks in part to Amy Jo Clemens, NIU assistant vice president for Outreach, Engagement and Regional Development and director of the NIU Center for P-20 Engagement. As a former high school science teacher, principal and superintendent, Amy Jo has seen MTSS in action and is a passionate advocate for using MTSS to improve learning outcomes and equity.
We caught up with Amy Jo to ask her a little bit about why she’s excited to have IL-MTSS Network at NIU.
Why do you love MTSS?
It’s the most powerful way for schools to take all their resources and align them to support students equitably, efficiently and effectively. It's proactive and preventative so we aren't waiting until students fall way behind – we are looking at data to anticipate students’ needs and support them to success. MTSS helps schools work smarter, not harder, by building systems that monitor and intervene early with interventions tailored to the student’s particular problem.
How does MTSS use a systems approach to equitably address the needs of every student?
With MTSS, you create a system that monitors the performance of individual students and then intervenes early. System level strategies ensure that all students are monitored and all students have access to interventions that they need. In MTSS we identify a student falling behind and go through a problem-solving process to address the issue. Is it poor attendance, missing instruction due to frequent moves, additional time needed to master new skills, or that they haven’t mastered foundational skills they need to move forward? MTSS helps schools build a system that finds students just starting to fall behind so staff can intervene early with supports tailored to the students’ needs. This is key in an equity-based system.
Can you give an example of how that works in practice?
I can give you an example from my own life! When I was in first grade, I was in speech classes “down the hall” and ended up missing the class time when my teacher taught subtraction. I was very confused and ashamed that I couldn’t subtract when the rest of my class seemed to act like it was easy! My dad realized I hadn’t learned it, and over Thanksgiving break – I remember this vividly – he sat me down, laid out table knives on the dining room table at my grandmother's house, and taught me subtraction. That was the little bit of support I needed to get back on track. Without that “intervention” (i.e. increased time and smaller group instruction) I might have gone on to greater math deficiencies! MTSS helps schools build systems that do this for all students.
Can you say more about how the three tiers work?
The goal is that schools create a system where 80 percent of the students should be getting all they need from their classroom (tier one). In tier one, you have social emotional learning, trauma informed classrooms, as well as academic content and interventions provided to students by their general education teacher in their classroom. The school goal is to then have about 15-17 percent of the students on tier two, where they get a little extra help, maybe an hour a day, in an area where they’re struggling. Only about 3-5 percent of the students can be on tier three, getting regular individualized interventions tailored for their needs. In a well-designed system of supports, every student gets what they need, which is what makes it equitable for all. |
