MTSS for Behavior and Community Involvement
How is the Community Involved in MTSS for Behavior?
Districts and schools cannot solve issues related to student problem behavior alone. The active involvement of the community in MTSS for behavior is essential for successful implementation. School teams implementing MTSS for behavior actively seek out community members to serve on school planning teams. Districts invite professionals from mental health, child welfare, and developmental, disability services to become a part of the district leadership team. Interagency planning at the Tier 3 level is essential for students needing service coordination and individualized interventions in the home, school and community. The more community involvement that occurs in MTSS for behavior, the better districts and schools will be able to implement all three behavior prevention tiers.
Examples
A local shop owner, who owns a grocery store on the corner by the school, attends school planning team meetings to discuss problems with shoplifting and littering in his parking lot. Together, the school and the shop owner create a plan for interventions intended to prevent problem behaviors in this community setting.
A school planning team teaches the local librarian the school’s social/behavioral expectations and the school creates banners with student input that the librarian can post in all of the major areas of the library. The librarian actively teaches these expectations.
School planning team members attend a community problem-solving meeting to address drug dealing and drug use in the local park. Together, the team creates a calendar of activities and events to be held in the park. This intervention changes the climate of the park and provides structured activities and higher supervision for students in the early evenings after school.
The examples above are all real examples of community involvement in MTSS for behavior. In one urban setting in Kansas, a middle school held a community forum and asked community members to help support the MTSS for behavior effort. As a result, the school was given a number of items, including a refrigerator and a bicycle. These items were used as larger rewards for positive social behavior in a ticket system that included additional raffles twice a year. In Illinois, a car was donated to a local high school for the highest award in a raffle drawing for students who demonstrated the high school’s behavioral expectations.
School planning teams have taught students to write grants for funds to improve the school grounds, and to bring more resources to the school for student reinforcement systems. Volunteers have agreed to provide academic mentoring from nursing homes and community colleges. Other volunteers have written form letters and sent them to companies, celebrities and sports clubs asking for free samples, signatures from famous people, and other items sent by mail.
As was previously noted, the more community involvement that occurs in MTSS for behavior efforts, the better districts and schools will be able to implement all three prevention tiers. The first step in building more community involvement in districts and schools is to conduct a self-assessment of the resources that are available within your community. Action planning efforts can take place at both the school or district level.
Click here for a community self-assessment and action planning tool
Click here to see the Freebies 2003 (Revised 2009) website
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How Are Families Involved in MTSS for Behavior?
Family members are actively involved in many elements of MTSS for behavior. Family members serve on district leadership teams and school planning teams. In some districts and schools, the teams are careful to invite family members who do not work within the district so that different perspectives can be gained.
School planning teams invite parents to complete school climate surveys and send information home to parents about the MTSS for behavior process in the form of newsletters. Other schools hold special events that share information with families about social skills that can be taught at home as well as in school.
Districts and schools implementing MTSS for behavior should be evaluating the level of awareness and involvement that family members demonstrate in the implementation process. Increases in family involvement on planning teams and as volunteers in MTSS for behavior implementation activities/events, family awareness of MTSS for behavior within the school and district, family satisfaction with the school’s MTSS for behavior efforts, perceptions of school safety or school climate, and the number of family members participating in MTSS for behavior are all examples of ways in which districts and schools can evaluate outcomes and impacts of MTSS for behavior efforts.
Click here for an example of a family involvement self-assessment tool
In some schools, families volunteer at the beginning of the school year to assist in implementation efforts at all levels of MTSS for behavior. One school has a volunteer sign-up sheet for families to choose from, that has a description of MTSS activities (and other school needs). Examples of activities families can sign up for include:
- Academic mentoring for students,
- Assisting with community forum events to share information with the public about MTSS,
- Serving on the school planning team,
- Assisting with MTSS for behavior work groups, and
- Participating in events that are intended to be reinforcers for students.
There is also a “freebies” website available that family members or volunteers can access to get samples of form letters and addresses for obtaining many different types of “freebies” (celebrity signatures, professional sports souvenirs, etc.)
Click here to see the Freebies 2003 (Revised 2009) website
Click here to see the statewide PBS-Kansas website
Resource Library: Families and PBS
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How Can a District Build Visibility for MTSS for Behavior?
Part of the action plan that the district team develops must include information about how visibility of MTSS for behavior will be achieved in the district and schools. Districts post information about MTSS on the district website for family and community members to read, celebrate successes in schools, and also include new policies and procedures supporting implementation efforts. Effective district websites share progress, reinforce school successes, and provide evaluation summaries for the public. Schools also post MTSS for behavior information about MTSS for both academics and behavior on the individual school websites, as well. The following links are examples of school and district MTSS for behavior website pages.
Columbia Public Schools (Missouri)
http://www.columbia.k12.mo.us/staffdev/cpspbs/index.htm
Englewood Schools (Colorado)
http://englewood.k12.co.us/pbs/pbs_overview.html
Hazelwood School District (Missouri)
http://hsdportal.hazelwood.k12.mo.us/News/Pages/McNairElementarySchool
reinforcespositivebehaviorprogramwithcheer,staffrole-playingatassembly.aspx
Linn Benton Lincoln Educational Service District (Oregon)
http://www.lblesd.k12.or.us/prog_serv/pbs/index.php
Minneapolis School District (Minnesota)
http://sss.mpls.k12.mn.us/PBS_Resources.html
Springfield Public Schools (Oregon)
http://www.sps.lane.edu/sps/site/default.asp
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