Principals, YOU are the most essential component in successfully implementing any initiative. At the same time, building a collaborative team of teacher-leaders is the key to long-term success. Just as a structural engineer collaborates with architects to build a strong foundation for a home, principals need to build a coalition of teachers to design and implement an effective Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) to meet the needs of all students.

A robust and continuous MTSS (Multi-Tiered System of Supports) program has been proven to lead to more positive school environments, more robust core instruction, and effective interventions. However, getting the cart rolling and everyone on board is not an easy task. 

"We must recognize that the status quo is comfortable for many adults. But comfort should never come at the cost of our students' potential."

- AJ Crabill, Former School Board Member and Author

Throughout the 2022-23 school year, as our school partners created intervention plans, they have been using the Branching Minds intervention library to find and document student supports. We’ve surveyed the data about the most used interventions in our library, how they are used, and what that can tell us about current trends in MTSS interventions.

Branching Minds is excited to partner with The Jed Foundation (JED) to bring essential resources to high school classrooms through the Branching Minds Support Library. Informed by direct research with high school students about what they need as they graduate, these new support cards offer concrete tips, tools, and resources on a comprehensive range of topics geared toward helping students manage the transition out of high school. Carefully curated and evidence-based, these resources provide teachers and students with accessible and actionable advice to aid in this critical — and often difficult — transition. 

Do you ever feel like Goldilocks when creating student plans? It’s challenging to find the intervention that is “juuust right” to help each student grow. That’s why Branching Minds offers a curated Intervention Library filled with research-based supports matched to a student’s unique profile. Here are five ways the Branching Minds library helps you find and implement “just right” interventions for your students.

Although educators meet frequently to discuss student needs, teacher supports, and interventions, how often is there a discussion around implementing those supports with fidelity? Our goal is to serve the needs of our students. However, without fidelity monitoring in a Multi-Tied System of Supports (MTSS), we don’t know if the student actually received the high-quality instruction or intervention that we planned! There is often a big difference between a plan on paper and what happens in the day-to-day life of a school. A consistent plan to monitor and improve the quality of your intervention implementation could be the missing ingredient in your students’ success!

We all have strengths and weaknesses, but in K-12 education, student weaknesses are often a focus of attention, while strengths fade into the background. Over the past decade, there has been a movement in education to capitalize on student strengths while using instructional practices that promote growth in areas that might need improvement. 

For parents,* the education journey for their child can be a rollercoaster of emotions. From the excitement of new beginnings to the concerns that they are making the best decisions for their child’s well-being, every parent's heart is deeply intertwined with their child's learning experiences. The impacts of decisions parents and families must make regarding their child’s education can be long-lasting, reaching far behind students' K-12 lives. 

Accelerated learning is currently one of the hottest keywords in education. It is hailed as the hero to address “learning loss” and large instructional gaps. Some states have even gone as far as adopting it into their educational policies, hoping to help students catch up to grade-level benchmarks.