How to structure an MTSS team for meaningful outcomes

Whether your MTSS team is effective largely depends on how you’ve structured it. Defined roles, usable and accurate data, and fully integrated mental health support are all necessary if you hope to achieve meaningful results. By assigning clear and structured MTSS team roles and responsibilities across tiers, you can do more than just have frequent meetings without seeing progress. You can start driving real change in students’ lives.

https://educate.iowa.gov/pk-12/student-supports/integrated-supports/mtss

This practical guide outlines the key stakeholders and decision-makers you need to involve to ensure a successful MTSS team and strategy. From a district-level team to your school-wide team to the student-facing team, working together and defining roles enhances collaboration, allowing every student to benefit.

Why MTSS team structure directly impacts student outcomes

The structure of your MTSS team has a direct impact on your outcomes. Research shows that tiered systems, when implemented with fidelity, drive not only academic growth but also meaningful, positive behavioral change. Without clear roles in place, you will see delayed interventions, tier overload, and inconsistent (or worse, nonexistent) follow-through, which allows students to fall through the cracks. Research consistently shows that early and systematic support will improve outcomes, especially when clear criteria and regular progress monitoring guide your decision-making. When ownership around MTSS is unclear, students are more likely to remain in a tier longer than they should.

Coordination is even more critical for students at the secondary level. With this age group, you’re dealing with additional logistical and instructional challenges. Research suggests that intervention coordination is far more difficult when you don’t have an intervention plan in place.

MTSS challenges at the secondary level can include:

• Departmental silos
• Not having dedicated, consistent times for intervention
• Staffing issues for intervention groups
• Lack of curriculum programs to accommodate small-group formats
• Inadequate teacher and aide training
• Not prioritizing effective MTSS teams
• Complex and varied student schedules
• Multiple educators for one student within the structure of MTSS

The link between your team, intervention fidelity, and student progress shows that strong outcomes rely on role clarity, not from adding more programs. When MTSS team members have defined roles, it means:

• Interventions can start earlier
• The “wait-and-see” approach is reduced
• Supports aren’t reinvented each semester or year
• Tier 2 supports are designed and monitored consistently
• Tier 3 decisions are made based on multiple concrete data points (rather than just one behavior or a single failing grade)

Core roles every effective MTSS team needs

MTSS teams can look different depending on factors like school size and resources, but there are still core roles you’ll need to fill. The goal isn’t to have endless people involved, but to ensure every essential function has an owner and a clear framework that drives results.

MTSS coordinator (the system owner)

The MTSS coordinator is the primary point of contact for the entire system. Their role ensures your framework functions cohesively across teams and tiers. For many schools, this is someone like the assistant principal or an instructional coach, school psychologist, social worker, dedicated department lead, or MTSS lead. While MTSS may seem like everyone’s responsibility, there must be a designated responsible party.  

The MTSS coordinator role involves:

• Overseeing tier alignment
• Taking responsibility for meeting cadence and data flow (instead of relying on memory or multiple spreadsheets)
• Ensuring fidelity across academics, behavior, and mental health
• Taking ownership of turning the vision into efficient day-to-day practices in classrooms and counseling offices
• Ensuring interventions don’t happen in isolation
• Acting as a bridge between leadership, intervention plan development, implementation, and follow-up

School administrator (decision authority)

There should always be one person in the room with the authority to say “yes” to things like student schedule changes, staffing adjustments, and resource allocation. This is often a principal or assistant principal, but it can be anyone authorized to make decisions that actually benefit students.

The MTSS school administrator role involves:

• Removing intervention barriers like scheduling conflicts and staffing gaps
• Ensuring space is available for small groups
• Aligning MTSS goals with schoolwide priorities
• Using a system to ensure you’re not implementing duplicate or parallel initiatives that compete for time, resources, and attention
• Ensuring your systems can survive challenges like staff turnover

Academic intervention leads

It’s also important to have at least one person on the team who has a deep understanding of instruction and interventions throughout core subjects. This might be a reading or math specialist, department chair, or instructional coach. Without individual academic voices, interventions might not connect to classroom instruction, or plans could be too vague to be fully or effectively implemented.

The MTSS academic intervention leads role involves:

• Representing Tier 1 instruction
• Guiding Tier 2 and 3 academic support to ensure decisions are based on what’s happening in classrooms
• Bringing in assessment data
• Interpreting progress-monitoring results
• Having experience with and knowledge of evidence-based practices guiding interventions that fit students’ needs

Behavioral & mental health representatives

For your MTSS platform to function effectively, it requires more than just academic data. It’s also important to consider student issues like behavioral concerns, trauma, and basic mental health needs. 

From school counselors and psychologists to social workers and behavioral specialists, it’s critical that mental health is part of the discussion. Otherwise, decisions can default to academics even if stress, trauma, and mental health symptoms are part of what’s impacting a student’s success.

The MTSS behavioral mental health representative role involves:

• Aligning Tier 1 social-emotional learning (SEL) curriculum
• Setting expectations and efforts that align with academic work, so students feel supported across settings
• Designing Tier 2 targeted supports that include small groups to reduce anxiety, improve attendance rates, and enhance or develop students’ social skills
• Coordinating Tier 3 interventions that include referrals to external mental health providers when appropriate

Data & progress monitoring support

The data and progress-monitoring support role owns and manages MTSS data systems. This could be a data coach, school psychologist, MTSS coordinator, or other staff member with strong systems and data skills.

The MTSS data and progress monitoring support role involves:

• Ensuring data is usable, timely, and actionable
• Creating a strategy that keeps data organized and not buried in multiple platforms or systems
• Keeping team meetings focused on decisions instead of reports
• Encouraging teams to spend more time planning supports rather than simply reviewing numbers
• Tracking student movement across tiers over time, which would include information about who’s entering, exiting, or remaining in each tier
• Analyzing movement to see which supports are working and which need to be altered or adjusted

Aligning MTSS team roles across all 3 tiers

Once you’ve identified and assigned MTSS team members and roles, you must also take steps to ensure that your tiers don’t become siloed. The goal isn’t to have a team for Tier 1, a separate team for Tier 2, and a crisis response team that deals with students at the Tier 3 level. It’s to have one coherent and seamless structure that identifies clear roles and aligns them across all three tiers.

Tier 1: Universal systems & prevention

Tier 1 MTSS teams should focus on building a preventive foundation that benefits the majority of students. When your Tier 1 is strong, it includes academic, social-emotional, and behavioral wellness initiatives. This results in fewer students needing more intensive Tier 2 or Tier 3 support interventions. By treating emotional health as an essential part of everyday learning, it ensures early intervention prevents further crises.

The Tier 1 MTSS team typically focuses on:

• Schoolwide SEL initiatives: SEL initiatives in high school may include setting consistent expectations, fostering relationships, and providing proactive behavior supports that reduce the number of office referrals and improve student engagement.
• Universal screening: Regularly reviewing academic, behavioral, and mental health indicators helps you catch early concerns. This may involve using screening scores, attendance data, and other information on student behavior.
• Building teacher capacity: Teachers need coaching, professional development (PD) opportunities, and tools or resources that help them respond to the diverse needs of each student in their classroom, before situations escalate.

Tier 2: Targeted, scalable interventions

At the Tier 2 level, student support teams should have access to targeted interventions that are clear, consistent, and easily manageable for teachers, other school staff, and faculty. 

Effective Tier 2 systems should successfully move as many students as possible back to Tier 1 rather than allowing needs to escalate to the point of pushing some into Tier 3. When Tier 2 interventions are well-targeted and implemented appropriately, this becomes possible.

The Tier 2 MTSS team typically focuses on:

• Developing clear criteria for student movement into Tier 2: This can be based on data points such as screeners, grades, attendance, and behavior. It’s essential that decisions don’t become the sole responsibility of a single teacher.
• Defined ownership of small group supports: Everybody needs to have a definitive understanding of who’s running which intervention, when, and using what curriculum or strategies.
• Coordination between academics and mental health services: This may include pairing reading interventions with anxiety groups or combining executive functioning support with other student needs to enable them to access learning effectively.

Tier 3: Intensive, individualized support

Students in Tier 3 will have the most complex needs. At this level, there’s a higher risk of professional burnout, especially when MTSS team roles and responsibilities aren’t clear.

The Tier 3 MTSS team typically focuses on:

• Developing referral pathways: It’s essential that everyone understands who can initiate a Tier 3 review, the data required, and how to determine the appropriate supports (including special education, evaluation, counseling, or wraparound services that may benefit a student).
• Offering access to external providers: Being able to coordinate with community mental health or telehealth partners is crucial, as it enables students and families to avoid navigating multiple or confusing systems on their own.
• Creating an effective system for family communication: Identify early on who contacts families, how often, and when they should be invited to planning MTSS meetings. Avoid only calling when things go wrong to prevent frustration and confusion.

Common MTSS team structure mistakes (& how to fix them)

More schools than you may realize are frustrated by MTSS team structures that are ineffective or inefficient. Common pitfalls include:

• Counselors and psychologists are overwhelmed by counselor-to-student ratios 
• Schools don’t prioritize mental health in Tiers 1 or 2, leading to compounded problems that could likely be avoided
• Not having an administrator or someone else with the authority to make important decisions at MTSS meetings
• Not developing clear exit criteria for Tiers 2 and 3

Strengthening MTSS with scalable mental health support

Even with a well-structured MTSS team, it takes more than just internal staff to meet the growing mental health needs of students today. From clinician shortages to packed caseloads to insufficient school-day minutes, providing adequate Tier 2 and Tier 3 support is increasingly difficult. This is where external mental health partners can be a game-changer. When properly aligned within the MTSS framework, these partnerships can offer:

• Support for Tier 2 and Tier 3 interventions through virtual or in-person therapy
• Coordinated skills-based programs that align with and complement your school’s existing efforts
• Reduced wait times for students with urgent needs
• Expanded access without taking on the cost of hiring internal staff support or asking current staff to increase their caseload

Talkspace partners with organizations and schools to offer online therapy for students, improving access to care and supporting your designated MTSS team. If you’re ready to explore how scalable mental health support can strengthen your MTSS framework and the impact you have on students, request a demo from Talkspace today to learn more.

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Sources:

1. Nitz, Jannik, Fabienne Brack, Sophia Hertel, Johanna Krull, Helen Stephan, Thomas Hennemann, and Charlotte Hanisch. 2023a. “Multi-tiered Systems of Support With Focus on Behavioral Modification in Elementary Schools: A Systematic Review.” Heliyon 9 (6): e17506. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e17506. Accessed January 3, 2025.
2. “Multi-Tiered System of Supports.” n.d. Department of Education. https://educate.iowa.gov/pk-12/student-supports/integrated-supports/mtss. Accessed January 3, 2025.
3. Durrance, Samantha. 2023. “Implementing MTSS in Secondary Schools: Challenges and Strategies.” Region 6 Comprehensive Center. SERVE Center at UNC Greensboro. https://region6cc.uncg.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/ImplementingMTSSinSecondarySchools_2022_RC6_003.pdf. Accessed January 3, 2025.