5
Kicking Off the Needs Assessment Process
In this chapter, we walk you through a process that will help you build an understanding of your current systems and their impact on all learners so you can begin to identify what needs to change. This starts with reviewing current strategic initiatives, a document review process, asset mapping, and completing a systems inventory. Each step in this process will help you to better understand your current system so you can compare it with your vision for a system that better meets the needs of all stakeholders as they engage in authentic, deeper learning experiences.
My Reflection in the Mirror (Kristan)
There is not much that makes many of us feel more vulnerable than looking in the mirror. As I land head first in midlife, I often frown when I catch my reflection. In my head, I still feel like I am in my twenties, but my body betrays this idealized vision. My slumped posture reflects my sore knee and back, my gut is more prominent than in years past, and I see the wrinkles framing my eyes. Yet, as I near 50 years of age, I have begun to appreciate these features. My knee aches partially because it helped me climb the Himalayas, my back hurts as a result of many years of dancing, my waist is thick because of the privilege of eating island cuisine daily, and my wrinkles are a reflection of the many laughs I have had with loved ones and many days spent under the sun. This appreciation does not mean I should not address the things I see in the mirror.
To be healthy and live longer, I need to take care of myself. I need to start walking more to ease my knee pain, I need to stretch more and have a better posture to lessen my backaches, I need to be consistent with my Zumba and pickleball routine to stay in shape, and I need to apply more moisturizer and sunblock to help heal my skin. As I see my flaws, I both appreciate them and address them. Similarly, in our schools, we must look in the mirror. This process should be one of reflection, appreciation, and inquiry. It must help us create the path toward improvement by understanding where we currently stand. It must be an accurate reflection.
Where Do I Start? (Katie)
I have always been a long‐distance runner. There is something so peaceful about being the first one up, pulling on sneakers, plugging in earbuds, and hitting the pavement. I first got hooked on running in freshman year of high school, and from then, I didn't stop until I got pregnant with twins. I know that many people run when they are pregnant, but I just didn't do it. And so in the nine months of carrying my babies, I got woefully out of shape. A couple of months postpartum, I dreaded running again. I knew it would be hard because I hadn't run in over a year. It seemed like too much work to get back to running 20 miles at a time. Walking a mile to start seemed pointless. Why start if that's all I can do? Spoiler alert: You have to start there.
So often, district and school leaders think about everything they have to accomplish and it is so difficult to know where to start. We are staring down the proverbial 20 miles of frameworks and initiatives. There is so much to do: create multi‐tiered systems of support, implement UDL, become more culturally responsive and trauma‐informed, learn how to facilitate blended, remote, hybrid, and concurrent learning. It is so overwhelming that we feel maybe it's just easier to wait until there is a better time to start. That is a trap. Don't do it. Now is the time to start. But where can you begin?
Seeing Our Current Systems
Let's roll up our sleeves and get started. You have a team and you have a vision, but that won't be enough. If anything is true about the past couple of years, it is that the inequities of our systems have demanded our collective attention. This is not to say that individuals have not spent their lives working to dismantle these systems, but discussing equity and access wasn't always a dinner table conversation in every home. And now it is.
When writing strategic plans, schools and districts often start by reviewing the vision, or the “why” of the work. Nearly every vision we have read embraces success for all learners. The key word is “all.” This is critical but it's not enough to have a vision. Our vision statements, which strive for success for all, are out of reach if we continue to design systems and instruction the way we have always designed them. We cannot serve all students until we design learning that embraces the brilliance and lived experiences and identities of our Black and Brown students, learners with disabilities, multilingual learners, students who are economically disadvantaged, LGBTQ students, students who experience trauma, and students who need more social, emotional, behavioral, or academic support than we currently provide.
As you have learned from previous chapters, facilitating meaningful and sustainable systems‐level change related to MTSS is a complex process. It requires an understanding of the components associated with the evidence‐base for MTSS, effective implementation practices, and a system‐wide approach (Eagle et al., 2015). An effective districtwide MTSS needs assessment guides action toward systems‐level change on many levels, focusing on multiple drivers.
It is time to review your current system to determine areas of strength as well as areas of need. It is helpful to begin by reflecting on your current initiatives to determine if they are serving your journey toward your vision. In every school and district in the world, there are numerous initiatives or things the system is doing focused on improving some aspect of how the schools function. Strategic initiatives are the projects and programs that support and will achieve your strategic objectives. We recommend reviewing all current initiatives with your core MTSS leadership team. Resources and staff energy can only be stretched so far. It is important to consider existing initiatives and how inclusive practice work aligns to meet the needs of your students. You can use the activity in Table 5.1 to guide this work.
Table 5.1 Reviewing Initiatives.
| Step | Process |
|---|---|
| Brainstorming (10 minutes) |
|
| Sorting (10 minutes) |
|
| Assessing the Initiatives for “Fit” (40 minutes). Note: Depending upon the number of existing initiatives, this protocol may take longer. | Once the categories are firmed up, place initiatives under these categories. The following list is a series of questions. Discuss your answers as a group. Ensure that one member of the team records this discussion. For each initiative, answer the following prompts:
Please remember that some initiatives are mandated and you will need to plan for their integration even if they do not align perfectly with your district vision. Based on the results of this discussion, you may have difficult decisions to make. For example, you may need to decide if you should continue an initiative. If so, the following should be considered:
|
Source: Adapted from Curtis et al (2009).
Document Review
Once your team has identified your current initiatives, it is time to complete a document review to better understand the current strengths and needs of the district. To best understand the lived instructional design in your system, it must be evidenced in tangible artifacts of practice. There are a number of documents that your district can review as an initial form of self‐assessment. Your process should never “create” resources but rather reflect on those that exist already. In this process, you not only collect them but engage with them. As you collect and examine your documents, ask yourselves the following questions:
- What story do they tell?
- Is each document aligned with your current vision?
- Is each document supporting a robust tiered system of support?
Table 5.2 provides a sample of important documents to review as you reflect on your current systems and structures. We do not suggest you review all documents but choose those that align with your vision and your current systems or lack thereof.
Once you identify the documents you want to review, you must have a discussion about the implications of this review. During this process, the team reviews the documents through the lens of MTSS. The review team must have an existing understanding of MTSS and use this to assess their current practices.
Table 5.2 Sample Document Sources.
| Core Documents | Additional Documents |
|---|---|
|
|
Source: Adapted from Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (2022).
As an example, imagine the MTSS team reviews the master schedule of a high school in the district as well as individual teacher schedules. When scheduling for a tiered system of instruction it is recommended that there be dedicated intervention, and/or enrichment blocks for all students that are provided by qualified personnel, including classroom teachers and special educators, Title 1 educators, English language learner educators, and the like. For students in need of additional support in a targeted area, the intervention block is an opportunity to review, relearn, and master the skills in that area. For students who have demonstrated proficiency in the curriculum being taught in their classrooms, or who need an additional level of challenge, the enrichment block provides an opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of key concepts and to apply and integrate learning from core content. Additionally, schedules in multi‐tiered systems need adequate time for common planning. Planning time helps improve instruction by allowing teachers to share best practices, examine data, discuss students' work, engage in instructional related PD, and plan curriculum and lessons together. In order for common planning to contribute meaningfully to student outcomes, sufficient time should be built into the schedule.
There are numerous barriers that prevent the development of master schedules that provide adequate time for tiered scheduling for students as well as common planning for educators. Hanover Research (2014) argues that the most common challenges include building consensus among stakeholders and ensuring adequate common planning and professional development time for educators to prepare to meet the needs of all learners.
In the review process of examining the high school schedule, the team recognized that the schedule did not allow authentic tiered support to be available to all students, nor did it offer common planning for all educators. The following section summarizes the document review of the high school schedule review. It does not represent the full scope of the document review; rather it is intended to demonstrate the framing of how the team viewed the high school schedule in relation to building robust tiered systems of support. The necessary schema needed for this activity was an understanding of MTSS schedules.
Document Review Sample: High School Schedule
Before completing the document review, all members of the core leadership team reviewed the state MTSS guidance to build a shared understanding of the components necessary to build an inclusive and equitable system. They understood that in order to build a strong MTSS, their schedules had to prioritize and allocate time to support all educators and students and include adequate time for core instruction, assessments, intervention time, team meetings, and planning. The team used a set of criteria from this guidance to form their review lens. The following are the components of their schedule that they assessed:
- Did the schedule support student achievement and equity, providing supplemental support for students academically, behaviorally, socially, and emotionally when they need it?
- Did the schedule ensure that all students have access to Tier 1 inclusive instruction as well as access to advanced coursework?
- Did the schedule allow students to move seamlessly into and out of Tiers 2 and 3 interventions/supports, as appropriate?
- Did the schedule support teacher common planning time, collaboration, and consultation?
For each question, they reviewed effective practices. When examining the question “Did the schedule support teacher common planning time, collaboration, and consultation?” they engaged in a dialogue about the implications of the question. As they reviewed individual teacher schedules and the master schedule, they reflected on and discussed the following questions:
- Do all educators have sufficient time for shared planning?
- If there is common planning, what types of activities occur during these meetings?
- How is common planning time supported to ensure it is implemented well and rigorously?
To help answer those questions, they used tools such as the following guidance from the National Center on Time and Learning (2014). They assessed whether the schedule provided the following:
- 60 min/week for grade‐level meetings (minimum)
- 60 min/week for data analysis (minimum)
- Opportunities for regular content level team meetings
- Partner staff to regularly participate in teacher meetings discussing student progress
- Student support services staff to regularly participate in teacher meetings discussing student progress
- Specialty/elective teachers to regularly participate in teacher meetings discussing student progress
- Opportunities for additional informal/non‐mandatory grade‐level meetings during common planning/prep time
- Opportunities for additional informal/non‐mandatory content level meetings during common planning/prep time
- Additional collaboration time beyond regularly scheduled meetings, such as peer‐observations, coaching, full faculty PD, and so on
Table 5.3 includes their notes as a result of their document review, research, and discussion. After reviewing Table 5.3, you may be thinking, “How on earth is our team going to complete this process?” Worry not—we have felt that too, but the investment in the needs assessment process is critical to building a shared understanding of needs and identifying objectives for strategic improvement. An effective districtwide MTSS needs assessment guides action toward systems‐level change on many levels, focusing on multiple drivers. Think of each element you examine as a potential cog in the machine that will ultimately support all students. This is the work.
Asset Mapping
Selecting staff, identifying sources for training and coaching, providing initial training for staff, finding or establishing performance assessment tools, locating office space, assuring access to materials and equipment, and so on are among the resources that need to be in place before the work can be done effectively (Fixsen et al., 2005; Saldana and Chamberlain, 2012).
In a guide for resource mapping in school districts from the University of Maryland (Lever et al., 2014), the authors note that it is common for schools and districts to lose track of the resources they have available for all learners. They note common reasons for this lack of mapping:
- With everyone being so busy, school staff has not taken the time to share the resources that they are aware of with one another.
- Many times the decision to use a given resource was made related to a particular funding stream, mandate, or as a reaction to a particular incident rather than as part of a systematic mapping process.
Table 5.3 Team document review of master schedule.
Review Documents Review Notes Current Schedules Master Schedule and 10 Teacher Schedules Tiered Scheduling - The schedules do not allow time for evidence‐based instruction and interventions to be delivered across all three tiers in order to meet the academic, social, emotional, and behavioral needs of students.
- The schedules also do not allow for time to administer assessments to determine the specific needs of all students.
Common Planning Time- The schedules do not offer consistent and equitable department, grade, and student‐level team collaboration and critical follow‐up activities
- Common planning time is not inclusive of interventionists, special educators, ESL teachers, and student support staff
- There are no specified times allotted for staff to analyze assessment data and determine the appropriate supports for each student.
Inclusive and Equitable Resources- The budget does not include a focus or narrative that speaks to a prioritization of tiered instruction with the flexibility of movement within the tiers.
- There is not presently enough staff available to provide tiered support in this schedule.
- There is no intervention time built into the schedule.
- Awareness of a given program may be limited to a school or a small subset of individuals within a school, even when services may be available to the larger community.
Over time, it becomes easy to lose track of all the supports and resources that are available, who can access them, how they can be accessed, and the reasons that they are offered. SWIFT Education Center (2017) provides a process for a comprehensive examination of existing resources to help schools consider possible reallocation of resources to best support all students within an MTSS framework:
- Asset‐mapping: Develop an inventory of all currently available resources in the school and district such as personnel, facilities, and curriculum.
- Once a school maps out currently available resources, they may consider how to allocate time as well as the personnel and facilities listed in the asset map.
- Lay out a timeline for all resource allocation in the district. When is the budget developed? When does hiring happen? When are grant proposals written? When will the next district strategic plan be written? When does professional development happen?
- Identify sources of data that you'll have for monitoring the effectiveness of your implementation and adjusting the course as necessary.
- If necessary, lay out implementation over several years, perhaps three to five, to allow for more gradual reallocation of resources. Stage the implementation so staff can get comfortable with it and become effective step by step.
The process of resource allocation begins with resource mapping. Resource mapping is a system‐building process historically utilized by communities, organizations, schools, and service centers to align resources, strategies, and outcomes available (Crane and Mooney, 2005). Resource Mapping in Schools and School Districts: A Resource Guide (Lever et al., 2014) provides a framework for this process. Examine the following questions as you map out available resources:
- What do you want to map? While it can be helpful to have a resource directory that includes a broad array of resources and programs, it is also important to be realistic about whether your team can identify and maintain a directory that extends beyond the school building. Use these reflection questions to help guide the process. What kind of resources do you want to map (e.g., assessments, curriculum, personnel)? Do you want to know what is available in the school building, or do you want to know what is available within the community?
- What is the scope of your mapping project? If you include community resources that are available outside of the school building, how broadly are you reaching out (e.g., neighborhood, community, district, state, national)?
- What other guidelines do you want to place on your team's mapping process?
- What format will you use to record the assets/resources? What will your map look like?
- How will you share this work?
- Who will have access to entering/updating the data?
- Where will the database be housed?
- Who will have access to the final product?
Systems Inventory
Drafting a systems grid is a great place to map your assets. Here you look at how the systems are supported with real data from your schedule and staffing models. It is broken into group size, time of support, support duration, associated staffing, materials, and assessments (see Table 5.4). Of note, we want to pause and say that in a true MTSS, all students, regardless of disability designation or IEP status, should have access to Tier 3 if their assessment data indicates the need.
You can start the process by completing a template (see Table 5.5) where you identify your current systems. These systems are those that are currently and broadly in place. In other words, these cannot be reflections of isolated examples. But rather, if we were to come in unannounced, would we see these across all schools and classrooms? You can choose to conduct this system's inventory for specific domains, levels, and subject areas.
Next, you may want to use the same template (Table 5.5) to articulate ideal systems. These are the systems you are working to implement in the future. At this point, do not allow current limitations to impact the development of your ideal system. Rather, we want these to be the kinds of systems we would design if we could be free to make changes without any barriers. Similarly, you can conduct this inventory for specific domains, levels, and subject areas.
Summary
Completing a thorough needs assessment process is critical to building inclusive and equitable MTSS. Too often, the process of reviewing initiatives, document review, and asset‐mapping is rushed, which impacts buy‐in and transparency and potentially results in strategic plans that do not address the most critical drivers. Taking time to complete each of these components with your core leadership team is necessary but not sufficient. After completing this phase, share the results of this process with your wider MTSS advisory team and additional teams you identified in the explore phase.
Table 5.4 Sample of tiered systems grid.
| Tier | Group Size | Time | Duration | Staffing | Materials | Assessment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 | Full class 25+ students | 50 minutes/daily | All year | Co‐taught/general ed, and special ed | High‐quality curriculum | 3x/year universal screener/benchmark assessment |
| Tier 2A | 5–8 | 50 minutes/daily (WIN) | Quarter cycles | Classroom teacher | Curriculum‐based intervention components | Curriculum‐based measures |
| Tier 2B | 3–5 students | 50 minutes 3–5 days/week | Quarter cycles | Interventionist (Title 1 reading teacher) | Evidence‐based intervention | Diagnostic and biweekly progress monitoring |
| Tier 3 | 1–3 students | 50 minutes/daily | Semester cycles | Reading specialist/special educator | Specially designed instructional materials | Diagnostic and weekly progress monitoring |
Table 5.5 MTSS systems template.
| Tier | Group Size | Time | Duration | Staffing | Materials | Assessment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 | ||||||
| Tier 2A | ||||||
| Tier 2B | ||||||
| Tier 3 |
Reflection Questions
- How close are we to our vision, based on our current systems?
- How can the initiatives review, document review, and asset‐mapping process inform our understanding of where we presently stand within a tiered system of support?
- How might we capitalize on our existing assets as you work toward our vision?
- What data and systems do you anticipate need to be shifted based on your inventory of existing practices?