A multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) serves as a framework for schools to identify and meet the diverse needs of students. They are designed to provide a range of targeted supports to all students based on their individual academic, behavioral, and social-emotional needs. This results in more equitable resource distribution—students who need more get more. The tier of support each student receives is routinely reevaluated based on new information. This holistic approach requires teachers, administrators, and staff to collaborate to build positive learning environments.
The comprehensive nature of MTSSs makes them particularly effective as a way to improve academic outcomes for all students. Research shows that MTSSs help to reduce internalized student behavior challenges, like anxiety, and externalized behavior challenges, like defiance. An MTSS framework can positively influence the physical well-being of students by reducing stress levels, which can in turn help improve sleep and immune function. Research also shows that MTSSs increase student self-awareness and empathy as well as teacher self-efficacy. Each of these facets of MTSSs are important to the process of improving student well-being and academic performance.
MTSS frameworks are typically made up of three tiers:
A multi-tiered system of supports, which shares common elements with Response to Intervention (RTI) and Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS), provides schools with a comprehensive, coordinated approach to meeting the diverse needs of all students. These support systems may include a variety of elements ranging from mindfulness exercises and learning accommodations to equity-focused practices and counseling. Early identification of needs and intervention are also emphasized so that students who may be struggling with academic or behavioral skills receive appropriate supports in a timely manner. Key components of the identification and intervention process include the following:
MTSS frameworks provide students with comprehensive support and guidance to foster their academic, social, emotional, and physical development. Each system recognizes the influence of factors, such as cultural context and personal interests and talents.
MTSS frameworks recognize the unique differences in individual students and target any necessary interventions accordingly. Addressing needs in this manner helps students experience a more inclusive, resilient school community.
MTSS resources and supports are tailored to each student’s needs as related to their particular context and development. Each student’s individual progress is monitored so that the support they receive can be adjusted as a part of their larger trajectory toward success.
A variety of models on The Innovative Models Exchange reflect the diversity of approaches to the use of MTSS frameworks in schools.
Adelante Student Services supports all students to rise up by aligning academic, behavioral, and social-emotional approaches to ensure students and their families are provided integrated and responsive interventions attuned to their specific needs.
ARISE’s founders and staff believe that all children deserve a quality education that doesn’t replicate inequitable and oppressive institutions. As a result, they’ve developed a rigorous, high engagement, authentic learning experience for all students. In order for every student to meet the high expectations that ARISE holds, a thorough system of support is critical. While the entire school is designed to make the educational experience highly personalized, attentive, and responsive, Adelante Student Services, in particular, provides intensive support to help students move forward.
Adelante is a Spanish adverb that means movement and commonly expresses two ideas: “salir adelante” and “sacar adelante” (in English, ”get ahead”). These two sayings encourage the development of self and the overcoming of obstacles. They are often used to push a person’s development.
Adelante Student Services works within the whole school community to create the conditions, procedures, and resources to support struggling students academically and socio-emotionally.The Response to Intervention system includes the following structures: Academic Mentorship, Advisory, and Restorative Justice Praxis. ARISE offers site visits, coaching, and professional development to support implementation of their model.
Building Assets, Reducing Risks (BARR) is a strengths-based approach that leverages strong relationships and data-driven decisions to boost achievement for all students.
BARR’s mission is to create equitable schools so that every student, regardless of race, ethnicity, or economic status, has access to a high-quality education where adults know them, recognize their strengths, and help them succeed. The BARR system transforms both the student and staff experience. Cohort-based classes, social-emotional learning (SEL) time, and personalized support are the markers of BARR for students K–12. Through these offerings, students develop personal relationships with peers and staff, feel understood as individuals, and become more connected in the school environment. Student support teams, a whole child focus, and response to intervention (RTI) are the respective complementary components of BARR for staff. BARR’s multi-tiered system of support enables teachers, staff, and administrators to utilize insights from relationships to design individually targeted interventions that address the academic and non-academic reasons why students may struggle in school.
The BARR system is implemented through BARR’s 8 Interlocking Strategies: BARR’s 8 Interlocking Strategies
BARR is shown to be effective in urban and rural schools alike, driving higher math and reading scores, decreased failure rates, improved student experience for all students, and narrowed opportunity gaps for students traditionally underserved. BARR Model One Pager
The Da Vinci RISE High model uses a responsive and holistic approach—including flexible scheduling, blended learning, credit recovery, and wraparound social services—to meet the unique needs of students navigating foster care, housing instability, and other circumstances that have disrupted their schooling.
The Da Vinci RISE High model was designed to provide an equitable education for students traditionally left out of the larger educational narrative—those navigating foster care, housing instability, probation, and/or other circumstances that have interrupted their academic journeys. RISE believes that if we build with the needs of the most at-promise youth in mind, we will not only create an empowering school for them, but we will create a school that is well equipped to serve students with a vast array of skillsets and needs. The RISE model takes a responsive and holistic approach to education, acknowledging and adapting learning to accommodate the additional responsibilities and priorities students have in their lives outside of school. To do this, each RISE student co-creates and regularly updates a Personalized Learning Plan outlining their unique pathway to graduation. Plans leverage flexible scheduling, blended learning, mastery-based grading, and holistic wraparound support to ensure students meet their academic goals while managing their personal needs.
Da Vinci currently operates three RISE High schools serving 250 students in Los Angeles, California. Da Vinci Institute provides workshops to share model best practices. Da Vinci RISE: Student Profile Da Vinci RISE Brochure
St. Benedict’s model gives students tremendous leadership opportunities and fosters a strong sense of community so that students become responsible citizens eager to contribute to the community and the world.
St. Benedict’s model supports students to fulfill their potential as emotionally mature, morally responsible, and well-educated citizens. To do this, they create meaningful student leadership opportunities, social-emotional support systems, and community-building structures. The success of the model hinges on the idea that students are responsible for their own development as well as that of their peers. While the model was developed explicitly to serve students of color and students from low-income backgrounds, it has the potential to support students from all racial, religious, and socioeconomic groups.
The St. Benedict’s Prep model is implemented at the flagship site in Newark, NJ, serving 950 students, of which 85% identify as students of color and 80% receive financial aid. St. Benedict’s students far outpace Newark in graduation rate and college enrollment and persistence. The Father Mark Payne Institute offers site visits, professional development, implementation workshops, and ongoing support for schools interested in implementing the model.
The Arthur Project uses clinically focused mentors and the science of relationship-based learning to support students in maintaining their mental health as they navigate the many demands of middle school life.
The Arthur Project utilizes graduate social work students to provide structured, holistic support to youth throughout middle school. The therapeutic mentoring model was designed to provide greater access to wide-ranging support for middle school students by connecting them with clinicians-in-training who serve as their mentors for the duration of middle school. This process is facilitated by weekly meetings between mentors and individual students where the focus is on healing, growth, and exploration.
Core to The Arthur Project is a focus on the power of effective relationships with caring adults informed by best practices in youth development, mentoring, and mental health. By pairing them with healing-centered, trauma-informed, culturally responsive mentors, the model helps middle school students recognize their value in the community and the world during a formative time in their lives. Adolescent development research indicates that middle school is a crucial time for school engagement and that ninth-grade status is the single-best predictor of whether a student will complete their secondary education. In support, The Arthur Project seeks to strengthen the crucial transition from middle school to high school.
The Arthur Project currently works in three middle schools in New York City, but the model is designed to be scalable so that more young people have access to services that support mental health. The Arthur Project uses its experience and expertise to consult with schools that want to adopt its model. The ultimate goal for the model is to prepare more youth for lifelong success beginning with the developmental window that opens in middle school. The Arthur Project Theory of Change
The Whole Child Model integrates multiple tiers of support throughout the school day to build a safe and supportive school climate as well as the intrapersonal and interpersonal skills young children need to regulate their emotions, manage stress, and handle conflicts productively.
The Whole Child Model makes students’ socio-emotional growth foundational to everything a school does. It is a trauma-informed, social-emotional learning model rooted in an understanding that children’s academic success is inextricably linked to their overall well-being, and in the belief that we can—and must—attend to the development of the whole child. The model helps students build the intra- and inter-personal skills they need to regulate their emotions, manage stress, and handle conflicts productively. It does this through a multi-tier system of supports that together develop a safe and warm school environment for everyone—including students and their families.
The Whole Child Model is currently implemented in over 30 schools across Washington D.C., Texas, and Tennessee. Students in Whole Child Model classes demonstrated significant growth in various social-emotional factors such as perseverance, social awareness, and self-efficacy. Free resource toolkits, as well as some Cohort Learning Communities, are available to schools interested in implementing the Whole Child Model.
The following resources can help deepen your understanding of MTSS and promote the design and implementation of a high-quality model, whether it’s one from The Innovative Models Exchange or one of your community designs.
This overview explains the various elements of the MTSS framework, and how it works, and includes examples of schools and districts using the framework to support students and educators.
This CASEL guide explains how the impact of the MTSS framework is amplified when used in conjunction with SEL.
As a part of the Design Principles for Schools project, this explanation of Integrated Support Systems taps into what researchers have learned about the brain and development in recent decades, and includes a case study.
The IRIS Center is a hub for online resources on the MTSS framework, including videos, podcasts, and learning modules. It currently offers a free self-guided and self-paced online PD Certificate for Educators who want to learn more about evidence-based instructional and behavioral practices.
This brief is one of several resources available from the Center on Multi-Tiered System of Supports, an organization focused on helping schools implement an MTSS framework from a strengths-based perspective.
