How Lincoln County Schools Improved Student Outcomes with Data-Focused MTSS

Lincoln County Schools #2

State: Wyoming | Type of School: Rural | Students: 378

Diversity: 85% White, 10% Hispanic, 2% Native American/Alaskan, 3% Two or more 

Free or reduced lunch: 81%

In every school, you will find teachers multitasking to get it all done. They are most likely eating their lunch and making copies simultaneously. The teachers from Thayne Elementary in Wyoming are no different. With limited time and resources, they were doing the best they could to implement MTSS. 

“We all wanted the same things. We all want the kids to be successful, but we were just doing it different ways and a lot of work,” says K-3 Reading Interventionist and Title 1 Coordinator, Jodee Nelson.

THE CHALLENGES:

Time-Consuming and Scattered Data Collection

Thayne Elementary’s teachers felt the lack of organization and were not getting the results they wanted within their Multi-Tiered System of Supports.  “Some of us were putting just bare-bones stuff in a spreadsheet, while other teachers were putting narratives in the spreadsheet. Some had things color-coded. Some had things that no one else had. 

Gathering data for weekly team meetings was time-consuming. Teachers had to go into the progress monitoring tools and benchmark assessments to pull data, often unsure of what data was actually helpful. 

Their team felt hindered in making the data-based decisions that are essential to the MTSS process. “We were all just kind of throwing in what we thought was important, but … we all thought different things were important.”

THE RESULTS:

Focused and Data-Driven Meetings

Now, thanks to the Branching Minds MTSS platform, the educators of Thayne Elementary can spend their valuable time together making data-based decisions with the right data. Using the progress monitoring data and student profiles, the team can see if progress is being made within the intervention groups and adjust intervention plans if needed.

“One thing that we've been very successful with is those MTSS meetings that we have monthly with each grade level. We've been able to really hone in on certain things, and we can keep those meetings very data-driven. We're actually spending less time meeting.”

Even better, their focused work has impacted student outcomes. “Our scores have really made a significant jump since we've used Branching Minds. We had so much success in both our ELA and math and our proficiency. We were definitely more focused and data-driven last year than we ever have been.”

Thayne’s success is contagious, inspiring other schools within the district to become more data-focused with Branching Minds.