Essential Components
What are the New Jersey Tiered System of Supports (NJTSS) Essential Components?
The nine essential components are the core of the NJTSS framework. The first three create a strong foundation for instruction and intervention. The remaining six work in tandem with the foundational components to provide schools with a structure for meeting the academic, behavioral, health, enrichment, and social-emotional needs of all students. The essential components also align resources to provide the right interventions to the right students at the right times.
Foundational Components
What is Effective Leadership?
 Effective district and school leadership teams, along with two other essential components (Family and Community Engagement, and Positive School Culture and Climate) create the foundation for a strong NJTSS framework.
Key features of effective leadership teams:
- Inclusive Membership: Include administrators, staff, students, and families, as well as staff members from multiple content areas and roles.
- Regular Collaboration: Meet consistently and work together effectively.
- Representative: Reflect and represent the populations of their school community.
- Clear Vision: Create and communicate clear vision statements.
- Resource Coordination: Coordinate interventions and resources across all three tiers.
- Data-Driven: Establish criteria for data-based decision making and use it to drive problem-solving.
- Multi-Layered: Include various levels of leadership teams from the district level to the intervention team level.
- Sustainable: Regularly transition new staff for continuity and sustainability.
- Supportive: Provide professional development and resources.
Sample Leadership Team Structures
| District Level | Building Lead | Building Level | Intervention |
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| Members | Members | Members | Members |
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Director of Curriculum, Director of Special Education, Supervisor, Principal, Assistant Principal |
Principal, Assistant Principal, School Psychologist, Literacy/ Math Coach, etc. | School Psychologist, Literacy/Math Coach, School Counselor, 504 Coordinator, Teacher, etc. | Coaches and interventionists. |
Resources:
- : The Center on Multi-Tiered System of Supports has shared a downloadable School Teams Tip Sheet and Infographic for quick reference.
- : The National Center for Intensive Intervention (NCII) has a host of readings, learning modules, guides, charts, and assessments to help school, district, and state administrators with MTSS.
- : The Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) has a recorded webinar that presents strategies for developing leadership at the regional, state, and district levels.
Professional Learning Series:
Visit the Professional Learning Page for videos and resources.
What is Family & Community Engagement?
Family engagement means building and maintaining strong relationships between school districts and families to make NJTSS work successfully. When schools and families work together, they share valuable knowledge about students to ensure each child gets exactly what they need to succeed.
Family includes parents, grandparents, guardians, caregivers, or anyone invested in a student's education and well-being.
What Makes Engagement Successful?
- Full Participation: Families and community partners are involved in all tiers of NJTSS.
- Two-Way Communication: Districts offer multiple ways for families to share and receive information.
- Decision-Making Partners: Families participate in data meetings and intervention planning.
- Accessible & Inclusive: Districts accommodate cultural, linguistic, and scheduling needs so everyone can participate.
- Multiple Touchpoints: Engagement includes events, newsletters, surveys, texts, social media, workshops, virtual meetings, and more.
- Positive Relationships: Districts build trust with families beyond intervention meetings.
Engaging Families in Each Tier
| Tier 1: Universal Support | Tier 2: Targeted Support | Tier 3: Intensive Support |
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Resources:
- : A downloadable document from Swift Schools that provides a plan for including families in conversations around data.
- : A video that gives actionable strategies for meeting and engaging with families before, during, and after intervention meetings.
- : A step-by-step guide on how to host a community conversation with community partners.
Professional Learning Series:
Visit the Professional Learning Page for videos and resources.
What is Positive School Culture and Climate?
School culture is created from the combination of the school experiences of staff, students, and families. School districts want to ask the question, "How does it feel to be a part of our school community?" For NJTSS to work successfully, school districts need to make sure their schools have positive school culture and climates that support everyone's well-being.
School districts should use multiple data sources to assess school culture and climate.
What Makes School Culture & Climate Positive?
| Physical Environment | Communication | Feelings | Behavior |
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Resources
- : A survey designed to help schools identify school climate strengths and needs as well as create improvement plans using data.
- : CASEL created a printable guide with focus areas, timelines, goal setting plans, checklists, and other tools to help districts start implementing school-wide SEL.
- : The National School Climate Center (NSCC) defines school climate, describes its five domains, and explains their importance.
Professional Learning Series:
Visit the Professional Learning Page for videos and resources.
Instructional Components
High-Quality Learning Environments
High-quality learning environments, curricula, and instruction work together within the NJTSS framework to provide comprehensive services to all students. This includes general education students, students with IEPs, and multilingual learners.  These environments encompass physical classroom spaces, social relationships and interactions, and temporal elements like schedules and routines.
Key features of high-quality learning environments:
- Evidence-based: Researched instructional practices and curricular materials with developmentally appropriate scopes and sequences.
- Culturally responsive: Incorporates students' backgrounds, languages, and experiences into learning.
- Standards-aligned: Based on New Jersey Student Learning Standards (NJSLS).
- Flexible Design: Adapts within and between the tiers to meet changing student needs.
- Supportive: Offers accommodations, supports, and scaffolds for all students. Sets high expectations for all students.
- Promotes independence: Builds students' abilities to learn and work on their own with confidence.
- Multiple Pathways: Offers a variety of ways for teachers to present information and for students to demonstrate learning.
Three-Tier Framework Overview
| Tier 1: Universal Support | Tier 2: Targeted Support | Tier 3: Intensive Support |
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Resources
- : TeachingWorks offers a host of resources about high-leverage teaching practices that support student learning in addition to social and emotional development.
- : The Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) developed a one-page overview of the Guidelines.
- : The Center on Multi-Tiered System of Supports created an infographic outlining essential features of Tier 1 instruction.
- : The Center on Multi-Tiered System of Supports also created a guide to strengthen Tier 1 instruction.
- : The IRIS Center at Peabody College offers resources on designing effective classroom environments in multiple areas: early childhood environments, physical environments, social environments, and temporal environments.
Professional Learning Series:
Visit the Professional Learning Page for videos and resources.
What is Universal Screening?
Universal screening is the backbone of NJTSS and the starting point for data-based decision making. Universal screening involves systematically assessing all students multiple times a year to identify students who may be at risk academically or behaviorally. Districts should also use universal screeners to check on the health of Tier 1 instruction and curricula.
Key features of universal screening:
- Regularly Scheduled: Given 2-3 times per year (typically the beginning, middle, and end of year).
- Universal: Given to all students.
- Brief: Takes only a few minutes to administer and score.
- Standardized: Given the same way in the same format every time.
- Evidence-based: Uses reliable, valid and standardized measures.
- Dual-purposed: Identifies at-risk students and the health of Tier 1 core programming.
- Comprehensive: Covers ELA, math, behavior, attendance, social-emotional learning, school climate, and other areas.
Resources
- : Reading Rockets has step-by-step instructions on implementing universal screening.
- : The Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions & Supports provides a list of universal behavior screeners and their descriptions.
- : The National Center on Intensive Intervention offers a chart that compares the effectiveness of academic universal screeners.
- : Attendance Works created an attendance tracking tool to jump-start universal screening for chronic absences.
Professional Learning Series:
Visit the Professional Learning Page for videos and resources.
What is Data-Based Decision Making?
Districts that use data-based decision-making practices examine data at multiple levels and from multiple sources to make decisions about instruction, interventions, and resources for students. They use a universal screener for everyone as a starting point to identify at-risk students in various areas. Then they give diagnostic assessments to flagged students to determine which skills students need to learn and the best interventions to support their learning.
Key features of data-based decision making:
- Wide Variety of Assessments: Includes universal screeners, progress monitoring probes, diagnostic assessments, state assessments, classroom assessments, formative assessments, summative assessments.
- Drives Instruction in Multiple Levels and Tiers: Informs and guides decision making across all three tiers of NJTSS and across district, building, grade, and classroom levels.
- Clear Rules: Has established rules that define movement between the tiers and determine when to change interventions.
- Continuous Cycle: Operates regularly throughout the school year allowing for fluid movement between the tiers.
- Organize and Accessible: Data are organized and accessible to staff.
Data by Type
| Academic | Behavior | Attendance | School Climate |
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Data by Tier
| Tier 1 | Tier 2 | Tier 3 |
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Resources
- : The Center on Multi-Tiered System of Supports put together a step-by-step guide with resources, tools, checklists, and handouts to get started with data-based decision making.
- : The Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports gives a thorough overview of data-based decision making, along with videos, tools, templates, and more.
- : The NCII offers guidance on using informal data as a tool for data-based decisions.
- : NCII also offers online learning modules to help educators and administrators learn about various components of data-based instruction and decision-making.
Professional Learning Series:
Visit the Professional Learning Page for videos and resources.
What are Collaborative, Problem-Solving Teams?
Collaborative, problem-solving teams are groups of school staff and family members that work together to make instructional decisions about students and curricula. They bring a variety of backgrounds and expertise together to look at students and the NJTSS framework holistically.
Key features of collaborative, problem-solving teams:
- Multiple Data Sources: Teams use a wide variety of data from multiple sources to make informed decisions.
- Diverse Membership: Teams include families, teachers, administrators, support staff, interventionists, content area specialists, Child Study Team members, etc.
- Clear Communication: Teams establish meeting schedules and use pre-planned agendas for efficient collaboration.
- Data-Driven Approach: Use data to drive discussions, solve problems, and make decisions as well as examine NJTSS strengths and weaknesses.
- Defined Roles: Each member has clearly defined roles and responsibilities.
- Holistic Perspective: Teams examine the needs of individual students and the NJTSS framework as a whole.
- Tiered Approach: Teams work within all three tiers of the NJTSS framework.
Team Examples by Tier
| Tier 1 | Tier 2 | Tier 3 |
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School Climate Team
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School Support Team
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Wraparound Team
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(Adapted from Brown-Chidsey & Bickford, 2016)
Resources:
- : The National Center for Intensive Intervention (NCII) offers multiple tools to help run MTSS meetings.
- : NCII also offers a step-by-step guide for running team meetings. It includes instructions for before, during, and after the meetings, as well as sample roles and checklists.
- : The Center for Multi-Tiered Systems of Support has an MTSS teams guide that includes sample roles and responsibilities as well as other resources to help school districts create or strengthen their collaborative teams.
Professional Learning Series:
Visit the Professional Learning Page for videos and resources.
What is Progress Monitoring?
Progress monitoring, a critical part of Tier 2 and Tier 3, is an ongoing process. During progress monitoring, educators regularly assess student learning and routinely analyze student data. Educators then use that data to decide whether to continue a student's intervention or make changes.
Key features of progress monitoring:
- Targeted Students: Used with students receiving Tier 2 and Tier 2 interventions.
- Evidence-Based: Reliable, valid, and grounded in evidence-based assessment methods.
- Standardized and Consistent: Consistent administration procedures and formats ensure accurate and comparable results.
- Brief: Takes only a few minutes to administer and score.
- Targeted: Assesses the same skill or set of skills every time.
- Embedded Schedules: Given weekly or biweekly or consistent data collection.
- Tracking: Measures student growth over time as well as the effectiveness of the intervention.
Resources
- : The Center on Multi-Tiered System of Supports offers a host of progress monitoring tools, from designing the process to training staff to collecting data to analyzing data.
- : The National Center on Intensive Intervention (NCII) created a chart that compares a variety of progress monitoring tools.
- : The NCII also created a progress monitoring tool. School districts can customize, fill in, track, and graph progress monitoring for their students.
- : Intervention Central has put together a list of progress monitoring measures in multiple areas, including reading and math.
Professional Learning Series:
Visit the Professional Learning Page for videos and resources.
What is Staff Professional Development?
Professional development, the final component, is how districts train staff on implementing NJTSS. Staff training should be data-driven, ongoing, and woven into the schedule rather than provided in single-dose sessions.
Professional development should address the question, "What do educators need to implement NJTSS well?"
Staff professional development can include:
- Instructional coaching
- Lesson modeling
- Learning-walks
- Professional development sessions
- Workshops and seminars
- Professional Learning Communities
- Mentoring
- Observation and feedback
- Peer observation
- Online courses and webinars
Possible Topics for NJTSS Professional Development:
| Implementation | Curriculum and Instruction | Data |
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Resources:
- : The Center on Multi-Tiered System of Supports compiled a list of professional development tips and resources.
- : The Michigan Multi-Tiered System of Supports Technical Assistance Center offers free online professional development.
- : The National Center on Intensive Intervention created a guide for coaching and ongoing professional learning.
- : Learning Forward is an organization that offers resources on planning high-quality professional development and measuring its success.
Professional Learning Series:
Visit the Professional Learning Page for videos and resources.