The First Week of MTSS: Start With the Kid, Not the Spreadsheet

Every August, somebody hands a school team a color-coded tier chart and says, “Implement this.” Cute. By Friday there’s a folder, a meeting invite, and zero kids helped. I’m a nurse. I’m a teacher. Neither one lets you skip the assessment. So here’s the week I’d run.

Monday: Get the baseline. Pull what you already have. Attendance, grades, referrals, benchmark scores. Don’t build anything new yet. You’re triaging, not decorating. Find who’s already struggling, not who might be someday.

Tuesday: Talk to the kids. This is Kid Talk. Five minutes. One student. Three questions: How you doing? What’s getting in the way? What would help? Write down their words, not your spin. A kid will tell you exactly what’s wrong if you actually ask. Wild concept.

Wednesday: Set your vital signs. I’d never chart a patient without vitals, and you don’t run MTSS without them either. Pick three or four things to track every week: attendance, missing work, one academic check, one climate check. If a number doesn’t change what you do next, cut it. That’s not data. That’s decor.

Thursday: Match the support to the need. Tier 1 is what every kid gets: clear routines, high expectations, and restorative repair when something breaks. Tier 2 and Tier 3 come after Tier 1 is actually running. Every intervention gets a start date, a check-in date, and an exit point. No timeline? No intervention. That’s a wish.

Friday: Close the loop. The team meets and goes name by name. Who got a conversation? Who’s flagged? What’s the next step? One page. An owner and a date next to every name. No owner, nobody’s doing it.

Week one isn’t about launching a system. It’s about proving your system can actually see the kids in front of it. That’s it. That’s the whole reality check.

Want help setting this up for your school or district? Book a consultation on the Consulting page. I’ll bring the structure and the sass.

Gail Jackson, LPN, B.B.A, M.S., M.A.