TPC _Journal-Vol6_Issue_3-MTSS-Full_Issue

278 Karen Harrington is the Assistant Director at the Center for Youth Engagement at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Catherine Griffith is Associate Director at the Ronald H. Fredrickson Center for School Counseling Outcome Research and Evaluation and Assistant Professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Katharine Gray is a leadership coach at Unique Potential Consulting and Leadership Coaching in Hopkinton, MA. Scott Greenspan is a doctoral student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Correspondence can be addressed to Karen Harrington, Furcolo Hall, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, Karen.harrington07@gmail.com. Karen Harrington, Catherine Griffith, Katharine Gray, Scott Greenspan A Grant Project to Initiate School Counselors’ Development of a Multi-Tiered System of Supports Based on Social-Emotional Data This article provides an overview of a grant project designed to create a district-wide elementary school counseling program with a strong data-based decision-making process. Project goals included building data literacy skills among school counselors and developing the infrastructure to efficiently collect important social-emotional indicators through a revised system for recording disciplinary infractions and a new research-based behavioral component for the district’s standards-based report cards. This enhanced system for accessing and analyzing social-emotional indicators resulted in broad systemic changes in the district, including extending a number of grant initiatives to the middle and high school levels, restructuring data teams to adopt a multi-tiered system of supports, and establishing school counselors as leaders in data-driven discussions about student success. Keywords : school counseling, data-based decision making, multi-tiered system of supports, social– emotional, elementary school This article reports on an Elementary and Secondary School Counseling Program (ESSCP) grant project designed to build an elementary school counseling program in a district that previously had not employed school counselors at that level. The new school counseling program was organized around an innovative shift in the district’s multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) model that expanded to integrate social-emotional and behavioral data with academic indicators. School counselors used the new social-emotional data to help answer the question of why students were struggling academically when scholastic deficiencies were not the primary cause. The grant project also focused on developing strong data literacy skills among elementary school counselors so they could serve as leaders in data-based discussions. These complementary grant goals transformed the data team process as school counselors, teachers and administrators began to use data to better understand the complex relationship between social-emotional factors and academic achievement. These practices resulted in systemic changes throughout the district as data-driven elements of the elementary school counseling program were adopted at the secondary level. The purpose of this article is to: (a) highlight the importance of engaging in data-based decision making regarding students’ social-emotional needs in schools, (b) provide an overview of the specific elements that comprised the new MTSS model in the school district as a part of this grant-funded project, and (c) underscore the importance of building human capacity to enable school-based data teams to meaningfully integrate academic and social-emotional data to promote improved student outcomes. Limitations of this project, directions for future research and implications for school counselors also are discussed. The Professional Counselor Volume 6, Issue 3, Pages 278–294 http://tpcjournal.nbcc.org © 2016 NBCC, Inc. and Affiliates doi:10.15241/kh.6.3.278