2026 MTSS Mini Summit

Student behavior is often treated as separate from the core work of schools, with behavior systems focused on reacting to discipline problems. In reality, “behavior” affects nearly every outcome districts care about.

Drawing on decades of experience helping districts scale MTSS and PBIS, Dr. Brian Gaunt will reframe behavior support as a proactive, worthwhile investment rather than an unavoidable cost. Learn how integrated academic and behavioral supports can help your district drive stronger engagement, attendance, and long-term student success.

A referral model for behavior support tells you who needs help after problems arise, and it often misses altogether the students who are quietly disengaged. Universal behavior and SEL screening helps teams spot needs earlier and respond more consistently.

Learn how to use screening data alongside attendance and discipline indicators to strengthen Tier 1 supports, identify students for Tier 2 and 3 behavior intervention earlier, and build a proactive system that helps prevent and mitigate behavior issues before they escalate.

Improve your climate, improve your outcomes. A positive school climate sets the stage for more effective teaching and learning, higher attendance, improved behavior, increased graduation rates, and increased teacher retention. And, a focused effort to improve school climate and connectedness bears dividends in all areas of life, not just within the school but across the communities that our schools serve.

In this session, we will discuss how to use data to accurately assess school climate and to guide interventions at the universal, targeted, and individual level.

Districts invest heavily in supporting student behavior, yet still watch students struggle or fall through the cracks. Screening data sits unused. Interventions aren’t delivered consistently. Threats are documented in three different places, or none at all. These fractures are rarely due to practitioner commitment; it's about infrastructure.

In this spotlight conversation, Branching Minds CEO and Co-Founder Maya Gat walks through how Branching Minds addresses operational gaps: automated tiering that surfaces the right students at the right time, guided intervention tools that ensure targeted support, and meeting automation that reduces administrative burden. And when behavior escalates to its most serious form, Canopy Case Management ensures that suicide risk screenings and behavioral threat assessments are documented, tracked, and followed through with the consistency that high-stakes cases demand.

Attendance is core to student success in every area, yet chronic absenteeism is often treated as an isolated compliance issue rather than a signal for support.

In this closing panel, we will discuss how to identify root causes, build momentum across schools, and implement practical behavior and attendance strategies that improve outcomes over time.