Meetings are meant to be an engine of productivity in the workplace, but let’s face it—you must have been in one of these meeting situations at least once:

• Wondering why you are in a particular meeting and checking your inbox or doing work while checked out entirely from the conversation;
• Struggling to keep your eyes open as the conversation droned on and on in the room about something so unrelated to your work;
• Found yourself stuck in a meeting where it wasn’t clear what was being decided;
• The meeting gets off on a side tangent, and you spend the entire time talking about something that doesn’t move the work forward;
•  You have something to say but are unsure whether it’s the right time or place;
• All of the above!

Meetings constitute a large part of our work and an essential part of the work of educators as they come together to make decisions that in most cases impact students’ life and future. And to be honest and realistic, nobody wants to sit in boring, unproductive, and poorly facilitated meetings—your time as a professional and, most notably, as an educator is way too valuable for that! 

School and district teams need to take a systematic approach to run team meetings as in the business world. 

So let’s unpack meetings, their best practices, and how to apply them in the MTSS context.

Meeting Lifecycle

There are only three phases of any meeting’s lifecycle:

• Before the meeting:
  • Planning an agenda
  • Scheduling a meeting
  • Researching attendees (when applicable)
  • Preparing presentation or discussion material
  • Assigning pre-meeting homework when applicable (reviewing data, reading documents, etc.)

• During the meeting:
• Preparing to join a meeting (dialing into a zoom call, planning a commute, or meeting room transfer for in-person)
• Deciding action items, respective owners, and timelines
• Taking brief meeting notes

• After the meeting:
• Writing detailed meeting notes
• Sharing notes with attendees and colleagues who were not part of the meeting
• Entering information into some system of record for tracking purposes
• Completing your action items
• Following up on others’ action items

Meeting Norms & Best Practices

Meeting norms can be subjective and vary from one organization to another and from one team to another, but the foundations remain the same.

At Branching Minds, we crafted our meeting expectations from input provided by the entire team after participating in a survey assessing our meeting culture and a series of workshops on how to make our meetings better. Those meeting norms are designed to help us achieve greater productivity while allowing us to live our values best. 

Here is the comprehensive list of norms for showing up in meetings to consider:

*Ostentatious listening is when team members demonstrate they are actively listening by repeating what has just been said, and making eye contact. Watch this video by Charles Duhigg, starting 01:28, about the characteristics of perfect teams.

Applying Meeting Norms Within an MTSS Framework

While the initial perception is that adopting an MTSS (Multi-Tiered System of Support) practice adds additional meetings, it actually refocuses meetings—we don’t meet just for the sake of meeting; we meet with a clear structure. As MTSS meets the needs of the entire student body, these processes ensure that no student “falls through the cracks.”

➡️ Related Resource: Communication Planning for MTSS

In an effective MTSS or RTI model, there are different meeting processes, structures and objectives that allow effective problem-solving at the school, grade/content team, and individual student level. These meetings have different functions and agendas, as follow:

The School Leadership Meeting

This meeting is conducted three times a year, similar to a universal screener. The goal of this meeting is to understand the school-wide health and wellness around MTSS. The School Leadership team reviews school-level data (assessment scores, tier demographic distributions, tier movement and referral rates, etc.) to answer the question, "Is this a healthy school?"

The Grade/Content Team Community Meeting

This meeting happens monthly, during a dedicated grade team meeting time. This meeting aims to discuss and problem-solve for students the teachers are concerned about because they aren't making sufficient progress, typically students' recieving Tier 2 support, and to check in on students' receiving Tier 3 support. Grade/Content teams create/review these students' intervention plans and refer students for a Student Check-in Meeting if needed.

The Individual Student Support Meeting

This meeting provides the time and space for individualized deep dive problem-solving for students not making sufficient progress when supported by the Grade/Content Team Community Meeting.

➡️ Related Resource: MTSS Resources for School Leadership

Example of How to Apply Standard Meeting Norms in an MTSS Meeting

Meetings are critical for educators to get together and collaborate to help students succeed, and many people spend most of their time in them. However, at the same time, many feel that the meetings they attend are ineffective and a waste of their time because of lack of structure, unclear purpose, poor facilitation, absence of data and lack of preparation, etc. Creating effective meetings by utilizing agendas, meeting roles, and many of the norms and tactics we listed above can ensure that something frequently done can also bring significant value.

Sources:

The National Center on Intensive Intervention - Intensive Intervention Meeting Facilitator's Guide

The National Center on Intensive Intervention - Implementation & Intervention Data Teaming Tools

Lucimeetings

The New York Times - What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team

For many educators the acronym MTSS is new, but for most, the work of MTSS is actually quite familiar. Most educators can agree that:

• All students deserve effective core instruction
• As students’ needs increase, so should the support educators provide them
• Every child is unique and should be known and cared for holistically
• Using both quantitative and qualitative data in service of understanding and supporting every students’ needs is essential to achieve positive outcomes in school and life

These commitments have been part of almost every school district’s mission, goals, and plan in some form across the country for decades. MTSS, or multi-tiered system of support, may be a rebranding of these commitments and best practices in education, but what it comprises is in no way a new initiative. 

Today March 26th, 2021 is International #SELDay. International SEL Day represents an opportunity to celebrate the importance of social-emotional learning, and leveraging the power of it as we prepare to reopen our schools and renew our communities.

To celebrate International SEL Day, our team curated a list of some of the most popular and useful resources. We hope you’ll find insights and practicable ideas.

No, it's not 'teacher appreciation week,' but it is the season of love. ❤️

Teachers have a tremendous impact on their students' learning and lives. Although showing them love and appreciation for all the fantastic work they do should not be limited to a season or a day of celebration, it is still worth the spotlight in February when the topic is ever present.