How Plainview-Old Bethpage Made Its MTSS Work Visible Districtwide

"We knew that we didn't want to be a district of schools. We wanted to be a school district." — Dr. Mary O'Meara, Superintendent, Plainview-Old Bethpage UFSD, NY

At a glance, things were going well for Plainview-Old Bethpage Central School District in New York. The district had great AP offerings, college courses and one of the most comprehensive special education programs in the county. However, for Superintendent Dr. Mary O’Meara, it wasn’t okay that students could slip through the cracks because they were doing just okay, “Could be your 89-average student... slips to an 82 average and then by the third marking period, maybe a 78. And it’s those incremental little slips that don’t usually raise any red flags.”

Their district motto “Every student matters, every moment counts” sums up why there needed to be a change. After hiring for an MTSS position, the team in Plainview-Old Bethpage worked hard to bring the work of meeting the needs of all students under one umbrella. Theresa Donohue, Executive Director of MTSS, Data & Assessments, started in the fall of 2023, and has been overseeing the MTSS implementation for the last 3 years.

The Challenge: Unproductive Meetings and Limited Visibility

Inside each of the schools MTSS was happening in some fashion. Data was being used but it varied and was inconsistent. Maybe in one school, data was being reviewed but only for students in intervention class. Middle school and high school teachers were putting supports in place, but it wasn’t very systematic.

As well, there wasn’t a structure for meetings. Often the elementary teams were spending all day in a meeting but they weren’t getting through the list of students recommended for intervention, so teachers stopped bringing up names. The students that needed support weren’t getting the attention they needed.

Most importantly, the hard work that teachers were doing was not visible.

• Goals were set in meetings and then written down in a spreadsheet that weren't referenced until the next meeting. Theresa shares that "There were goals that were being made, but we had no way to know when or where they were."
• There were interventions running in classrooms but no one could account for it.
• For district leaders there wasn’t an easy way to answer whether a student was actually making progress or if there was a set plan at all.

Then to add to the other struggles, data discussions were difficult with teachers. "The elephant in the room was the word data," says Theresa Donohue.

When Theresa joined the team, the district was already on its way to dedicating time and energy into building out their MTSS infrastructure having committed to the work in their strategic plan, restructured the district office by cutting an Assistant Superintendent position to ded one person to the work, and started with one area to focus on, SEL.

The Result: The Work Became Visible

When it came to making sure the work of MTSS wasn’t just theory but practical, the district partnered with Branching Minds to help facilitate the work, even before hiring Theresa. Now 3 years later, the hard work is paying off.

All buildings within the district run on the same calendar, screeners, data reviews, and every single student is reviewed, not those that are just in intervention classes or receiving services.

Visible Work and Meetings Leading to Action

In the past, visibility into this kind of data wasn’t even possible. Now, Theresa and other district leaders can see the work that is being done. Goals that used to live in spreadsheets, someone’s cloud or even their brain, now live in one place, and everyone has access.

The district set a goal for fidelity for their MTSS process and documentation. After the principals were trained, they utilized Branching Minds AI Powered Meeting Assistant to ensure that meetings were recorded and action took place about each student that needed support.

Meetings have been transformative for the work. With a more structured meeting schedule, the grade level teams are able to do a lot of the student problem solving. Meetings now end with clear next steps attached to each student.

• This last year, the district held 1,202 student support meetings, nearly double from the previous year.
• Because of this intentionality, student goals went from 355 → 1,236 in a single year, and they continued to meet the goals at the same rate.
• The staff nearly doubled the amount of progress monitoring plans in place.

• Staff completed 71% of their MTSS to-dos, up from 41%.

From Afraid of Data to Using It: A Culture Shift in Plainview-Old Bethpage

This MTSS work would not even be possible without the professional learning that Theresa initiated for teams throughout the district. Through Nassau County BOCES, the team was trained in DataWise protocol, and learned how to talk about their data without it being about pointing fingers.

They saw the shift throughout the district, for example, one veteran teacher is now able to look at their data and see that they are actually making a difference in student growth on their Spring NWEA assessment.

Looking Ahead: Reaching Every Student Subgroup with MTSS

Even with this amazing growth in the last 3 years, Theresa and her team are ready to narrow in their focus into subgroups within the district, like the high level students that aren’t growing.

"Using MTSS as a way to really move the needle on groups within groups. I think that's where I see things moving." — Theresa Donohue

Both Theresa and Superintendent Dr. Mary O’Meara are excited about what this work means for the district and knows that collaboration and sharing ideas helps the work move forward.

"Come to Plainview-Old Bethpage. Great community, wonderful bagels, excellent pizza — we feed you when you come. And really, we love working with other districts. We've had several districts come here. I would really say: find a partner who's done the work. When you're trying to do something, find someone who's doing it successfully." — Dr. O'Meara

🔽 Hear more from Theresa in the Schoolin’ Around episode, How to Scale Up Your MTSS District-Wide.

  • 33 min

What MTSS Progress Really Looks Like

Schoolin' Around

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