What is the key to developing a nurturing, collaborative learning space? It is important to encourage students to actively participate in fostering a learning community where trust and respect are paramount. In this session, educators will explore ways to build thriving learning environments and practice the skills that are foundational to learner success, well-being and self-efficacy. Participants will gain knowledge to create environments that support individual and collaborative learning, and encourage positive social interaction, active engagement in learning and self-motivation (InTASC Standard 3: Learning Environments).

School psychologists are often relegated to the role of tester for special education. Yet, school psychologists’ training and expertise go well beyond that. This presentation will help participants understand the varied contributions a school psychologist can make to a school’s MTSS efforts in both academic and behavioral supports and at all levels. First, participants will learn about a model of school psychology practice that puts MTSS at the forefront. Next, examples of services school psychologists can provide relevant to the four essential elements of the NeMTSS framework will be shared. Finally, potential barriers to school psychologists’ involvement with MTSS will be discussed, along with ways to overcome those barriers. Including a school psychologist on the MTSS team can invigorate a school’s efforts to educate all students effectively, benefiting both teachers and administrators.

After overcoming disjointed PBIS, MTSS and SEBL action plans and fragmented teaming structures, Neligh-Oakdale Public Schools is now committed to piecing these efforts back together to form a piece of art, just like the centuries-old practice of Kintsugi. Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver or platinum. Through this repair process, a broken piece of pottery is pieced back together making something just as beautiful, if not more beautiful, than before. Presenters will share their MTSS journey: where it began, where it went, how they pieced efforts back together and where we are now.

When Garden County Schools began its MTSS journey at the primary level, it soon became apparent that it needed a landing zone for data. Branching Minds is an online software that provides a comprehensive solution for schools, bringing together all the components of MTSS across academics, behavior and SEL, while guiding teachers and administrators through best practices to ensure implementation fidelity and streamline the work. Join this session to hear about the ups and downs of traversing MTSS with Branching Minds in a rural district.

Psychological First Aid for Schools (PFA-S) is an evidence-informed intervention model and part of the National Emergency Management Cycle and Nebraska School Safety Model: Prevention, Preparedness, Response, Recovery. PFA-S is a component of a school district’s Emergency Operation Plan (EOP), which assists students, staff and families during and in the immediate aftermath of an emergency. After this session, participants will learn how PFA-S builds safe and supportive learning environments through school safety best practices in a multi-tiered support system; understand PFA-S’s role in a school district’s EOP and its significance in proactive crisis response and recovery; and discover available resources through Nebraska Department of Education School Safety Taskforce.

In April 2023, the Wakefield Community Schools Board of Education recognized the NeMTSS Framework as its continuous improvement framework by adopting it into formal school policy. In this session, presenters will share unique perspectives from school board members as they learned about the framework and the approach they used to write the framework into school policy. Learn what the policy looks like, how teaming structures were remodeled, and the school’s expectations and aspirations moving forward. Wakefield Public Schools believes its continuous improvement process is strengthened and sustained through engagement, collaboration and partnership with the BOE. The presentation will connect to other Nebraska educators considering or currently implementing the NeMTSS Framework who aspire to engage their BOE in the continuous school improvement process. Presenters will communicate the message to not overlook the BOE as a key player in the continuous improvement process — as its influence, community connections and governance responsibilities are instrumental in providing a quality and accessible education for all students. The BOE is a part of the team!

Effective communication and collaboration between MTSS and Special Education for Transition Age Youth can help improve post-school outcomes. This directly impacts the learning, earning and living for our youth with disabilities. Collaboration between MTSS and special education partners can improve outcomes for employment, education and independent living. This session will explain how building those fundamental transition experiences and connected relationships between students, families and IEP teams can increase the likelihood that students will become meaningfully engaged in their communities and reach their post secondary goals. Regional transition specialists will share post-school outcome data and why teams will accomplish more when there are learning community collaborations connected to supporting the social, emotional, behavioral, and academic needs of each student. Learner outcomes include shared information on transition requirements/procedures and understanding the benefit for communicating between MTSS and special education/transition specialists.

This session will explore research designed to enhance literacy outcomes in rural Nebraska schools. Presenters include researchers leading the Nebraska Workshop on Reading Development Strategies (WORDS) study, as well as participating teachers. Nebraska WORDS represents an ongoing, multi-year collaboration between researchers and rural school districts to enhance literacy skills for K-3 students. The project involves two years of structured professional development focused on the science of reading, which is supplemented with individualized coaching sessions for teachers throughout the school year. Students on individualized reading improvement plans are invited to participate in after-school tutoring. Discover what the team learned after the first year of the project, including findings on student growth in foundational reading skills from the mCLASS DIBELS 8 reading assessment and evidence of the intervention’s effectiveness and acceptability among teachers.

In Nebraska, MTSS is defined as an educational framework for continuous improvement, problem-solving and decision-making that offers a meaningful and effective way to organize instruction and intervention to improve outcomes for all students. Supportive technologies and assistive technologies serve a specific function of providing compensatory supports to address performance gaps that exist between what students are able to do and what students are expected to do, both academically and behaviorally, even while students are receiving interventions to address performance gaps. These technologies may be woven into a multi-tiered continuum of supports that provide increasingly intensive and individualized options that result in greater access to and engagement in learning, as well as improved student outcomes. This session will offer participants a blueprint with specific steps and strategies for effectively identifying, considering and implementing supportive and assistive technologies within an MTSS framework.

Schools and programs examine data to identify social, emotional and behavioral needs; then investigate evidence-based practices to address those needs and provide professional development to staff members to promote those practices. Throughout the busy school year, Nebraska educators attend many professional learning sessions, often acquiring multiple skills at once, and may need assistance implementing new practices in their classrooms. What approach is best to promote these practices and encourage teachers to apply their newly learned skills, so they can, in turn, transform their teaching? In this session, participants will examine powerful practices teachers can use and observe examples of effective promotional activities schools have used. There will also be an opportunity for the group to share ways they have promoted and strengthened implementation of powerful practices on their own campus, allowing attendees to learn from one another.