Benefit and Process

Benefit

The three-tiered model of MTSS involves general education, other specialists-including, among other professionals; school psychologists, speech pathologists, ESL teachers, special educators, reading/language arts consultants, math consultants, counselors and social workers.  These individuals have a crucial supportive role in implementation of MTSS when they serve as resource for general educators in the implementation of specific instructional strategies, assessments and supports.
Students are provided interventions as part of this process that often remediate the issues prior to a need for referral to special education.  With the change of Connecticut’s Guidelines for Identification of a Learning Disability, data collected during the MTSS process provides the required evidence-based analysis of identified gaps between student performance and expected outcomes as districts can no longer determine eligibility on IQ-acheivement discrepancy formulas alone.
MTSS benefits not only students with learning disabilities, but students with other disabilities as well by insuring collaborative work within the district to insure that instructional practices are more responsive to students’ needs.

Process

Students can be referred for an evaluation for a specific learning disability at any time, including during any tier of SRBI instruction.  Connecticut Special Education Regulations require that students who demonstrate unsatisfactory behavior, attendance or progress in school must be promptly referred to a PPT.  State regulations also require that before a student is referred to a PPT “alternative procedures and programs in regular education shall be explored and, where appropriate, implemented.”  Documentation of early intervention strategies are required on appropriate paperwork for students suspected of having a specific learning disability to assist in ruling out that a student’s difficulties were not due to a lack of appropriate instruction in math, reading or writing.  MTSS while similar to the implementation of early intervention strategies is a much more comprehensive, systemic process used to document a student’s response to appropriate instruction.

If a student is referred prior to participating in the required MTSS process and it is suspected that a specific learning disability may exist, the student must additionally participate in a diagnostic placement during the same period of evaluation.  The diagnostic placement is required to provide scientific researched-based interventions.

If you have questions about this process feel free to reach out to Shawn Dimmock(sdimmock@ashfordct.org)or David Eichorn(deichorn@ashfordct.org).