TPC _Journal-Vol6_Issue_3-MTSS-Full_Issue

The Professional Counselor /Volume 6, Issue 3 287 of academic competencies as well as of the protective factors to support school success for every student. School Counselors’ Contributions to a Multi-Tiered System of Supports Access to accurate and real-time data about student behaviors enabled school counselors to more effectively develop tiered interventions for students and environments in need of support. The PFI data were collected three times a year at the close of each marking period. Behavioral data gathered through the revised ODR form were updated in the SIS weekly. Attendance data at the elementary school sites were available daily. Access to these real-time data allowed school counselors to continuously monitor students’ social-emotional and academic progress. It also enabled counselors to easily evaluate whether their interventions were creating the desired impact. In this continuous process of data-based decision-making, the same set of data indicators, examined at different points throughout the school year, informed school counselors’ decisions about which interventions were needed and also served as outcome data to evaluate interventions at each tier. Schoolwide, Tier 1 interventions included delivery of success classes to all students. School counselors developed a developmental guidance curriculum with 10 lessons per grade grounded in the evidence-based programs zones of regulation (Kuypers, n.d.) and second step (Low, Cook, Smolkowski, & Buntain-Ricklefs, 2015), with weekly lesson content guided by areas of improvement demonstrated in the PFI data and behavioral data represented in discipline referrals. In addition, a school counseling program “Expo” was held at the end of each year, and parents and guardians were invited to the school to see artifacts generated by students in success class . Additional schoolwide interventions included the character trait of the month project, focused on the development of positive qualities such as respect, honesty and courage, and a parent newsletter sent out by the counseling department explaining what could be done at home to enhance the development of social-emotional competencies (i.e., informing parents and guardians of the character trait of the month, suggesting a “conversation starter” about current classroom activities, and recommending related books to read with their children). Students who were struggling academically and for whom PFI and ODR data indicated a need for additional behavioral support and social-emotional competency instruction received Tier 2 services through small group counseling sessions. School counselors facilitated groups on topics related to PFI indicators such as self-regulation, resilience and motivation throughout the year. The school counselors used discipline data, often in combination with report card indicators reflecting students’ social-emotional competencies, to determine membership in targeted small group counseling sessions and continued participation in this targeted intervention. Subsequent ODR data was reviewed to evaluate changes in students pre- to post-intervention, as these data have been demonstrated to be sensitive measures of the impact of schoolwide interventions (Irvin, Tobin, Sprague, Sugai, & Vincent, 2004; Rusby et al., 2007). School counselors also created progress monitoring tools to assess social skill development during a group cycle. As with academically focused tiered instruction, teachers were asked to briefly rate student growth so that small group instruction could be modified in a continuous formative assessment process. The continuum of counseling services also included development of a Summer Boot Camp Transition Program. School counselors collected quantitative and qualitative survey data from sixth graders in the district about their experience in moving from elementary to middle school, which indicated that some students were anxious about this transition and wanted more support and information about the process. To proactively address these common issues, the school counselors created a series of four week-long summer boot camps that were free of charge and open to all district