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Family Welcome Letter from MTSS Director Faith Cole

The following letter was sent to all District 97 families on Wednesday, Sept. 18, from Faith Cole, the district's director of Multi-Tiered System of Support.


Dear District 97 Families,

I hope the 2019-20 school year is off to a great start! My name is Faith Cole, and I'm incredibly honored to be serving as the new Director of Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) for District 97. I want to take this opportunity to introduce myself, share an overview of MTSS, and and provide links to web pages we have created to help families learn more about our MTSS team and framework.
 
All of our students, regardless of need and achievement level, deserve to be supported academically and socially and to develop a sense of belonging and confidence. My job as the Director of MTSS is to support—through the use of data and best practices—staff and administration in the process of identifying and supporting every student, including those that struggle with their learning, those that are at grade level or those that need to be enriched.
 
We know this is a lot of information to digest in one email, so please know we are planning to share updates about our work throughout the school year to help you stay connected and informed. We have also set up a direct link to the MTSS pages on our website (http://www.op97.org/mtss), which we hope will help families learn more about your school's MTSS team, their problem-solving process, and our guidelines and expectations.
 
Please don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,
Faith Cole
Director of MTSS

What Is Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS)?

Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) is a framework that organizes building-level resources to address each individual student’s academic and/or behavioral needs within intervention tiers that vary in intensity (National Center on Response to Intervention, 2018). Support is provided from all angles, including but not limited to parents, teachers, staff members and community partners. The framework of MTSS allows for the early identification of learning and behavioral needs and timely intervention for our students.
As the needs of our students are changing, our practices need to also change to ensure that we are offering an equitable and inclusive educational environment for all students. District 97 has begun the work around MTSS, and is looking to make significant changes around accountability while streamlining the process for this work. Our belief is that, “It will take all of us to reach all of them.”

A detailed overview of MTSS is available at https://bit.ly/2kFfez2. We have also created an MTSS flowchart that details our system for supporting students' needs.

Goals of MTSS

  • Accelerate and maximize student academic and social-emotional outcomes through collaborative, data-informed problem solving to provide strategic support and high quality instruction.
  • Enhance capacity of District 97 educators to successfully implement and sustain MTSS with fidelity in every school, providing equitable opportunities for all students to learn at high levels.

Who Is the MTSS Team?

Each school has an MTSS team is made up of grade level teachers, administration, interventionists, gifted and talented teachers, and other support staff, which can include the social worker, nurse, psychologist, special education resource teachers and parents.

The MTSS team meets every six to eight weeks to reflect on teaching practices in the classrooms. Formal and informal data is collected during this window to determine what adjustments need to be made with teaching practices, including: reading, math, writing and behavioral needs.

The team identifies:

  • Which students are making expected progress (on target for one year’s worth of growth).
  • Which students are expected to make 1 and a half years worth of growth.
  • Which students need a stronger understanding of the concepts taught.
  • Which students have a minimal understanding of the concepts taught.
  • Which students have a strong understanding/mastery of the concepts and would benefit from enrichment activities.

Who Is the Director for MTSS?

Faith Cole began her new role as the district's director of MTSS in July 2019. She has worked in District 97 for 15 years, including five years as principal of Mann Elementary School and two years as an assistant principal at Julian Middle School. She also spent two years as one of District 97's Teacher Leaders for Mentoring and Instruction, and was a kindergarten teacher and Title I reading teacher at Irving for six years. Her family currently resides in Oak Park, which is where she was born and raised.