Parents, teachers, students, administrators, and central office personnel posing for a group photo following at AL-MTSS information session.

On Monday, Athens City Schools and the Alabama Department of Education held an information session about the Alabama Multi-Tier System of Supports Cohort.

This Cohort exists to provide all the resources a school system needs to ensure the success of students and teachers.

“Athens City Schools has a very long history of working with the Alabama State Department of Education in order to make sure that the needs of all of our students, faculty, and staff are met in order to bolster our community partnerships,” said Kristie Shankles, education specialist over AL-MTSS.

ACS committed to a five to eight year partnership and, as part of the partnership, the resources that the Alabama Department of Education has will be available to ACS.

MTSS will aim to “to build upon the trusting and caring environment” that ACS has already established with its Portrait of a Graduate by “providing all of these students and future students the opportunity to be successful, regardless if their path is college, career, or workforce,” said Shankles.

Many things in education take a reactive or a “wait to fail” approach, but the goal of MTSS is to be proactive in supporting students and teachers.

MTSS will ensure “we’re reaching the needs of our students, our faculty and staff and our community” rather than having a wait-to-fail model and “maximize the success for all students in order to strengthen and prepare our students to enter the college career workforce,” said Shankles.

She went on to explain, “it’s very critical to make sure that we align supports from our local and our regional agencies to meet the needs of your school district.”

MTSS emphasizes the network it takes to create a proper educational environment.

“We recognize that the power of collaboration with our parents, and our community stakeholders, this process encourages collaboration amongst our educators, our family, and our community members,” said Shankles.

As part of the understanding that no one person can be tasked with educating a student, MTSS supports parental involvement in all steps of the educational process.

“We know that our parents play a critical role in supporting what their children are learning in school and research is clear that the more that parents are involved in student learning, that the higher the student achievement, educational motivation, classroom engagement, and overall increased attendance,” said Shankles.

As a proactive program, MTSS encourages the early recognition of students in need to allow educators to offer the correct level of tiered support the student needs.

“MTSS is not a separate program. It’s not a class, it’s not an intervention. It is a framework. It’s not a quick fix, as far as I say it’s a five to eight year partnership,” said Shankles. “The goal is to address instruction and support based on the student needs in a very proactive manner. This framework helps educators by providing the information or data needed to identify students who might need additional support early.”

Rather than waiting for a student to fail, MTSS can support a student’s success.

“By using a progress monitoring approach to meet the student educator needs it eliminates our wait to fail method,” said Shankles. “In supporting the whole child, we recognize that it is important to help our students understand and manage their emotions, build resilience, and problem solving.”

The MTSS framework will allow educators to focus on student strengths, and maintain greater flexibility to adjust the support as needed.

“We are so proud that the commitment that the State Department and Athens city schools have taken,” said Shankles. “We know that this is just the beginning of ensuring success not only for your school district, but for students across the state of Alabama.”