Meet Sarah
Sarah Brown, Ph.D. is the President of System Impact Consulting and co-author of the books, Effective Universal Instruction: An Action-Oriented Approach to Improving Tier 1 and MTSS for Reading Improvement: A Leaders’ Tool Kit for Schoolwide Success. During her career, Dr. Brown has had experience leading teams focused on high-quality customer education at FastBridge Learning and Illuminate Education and supporting MTSS and the FastBridge Product at Renaissance. Prior to joining corporate teams, Dr. Brown served in roles including as the Bureau Chief leading special education and MTSS implementation for the state of Iowa, district special education director, professional learning administrator, and school psychologist.
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I served as a school psychologist in Illinois and Iowa in districts implementing MTSS before it was cool. I had the opportunity to collaborate with exceptional teachers, leaders, and support team members.
Later in my career, I served as the district-level Special Education administrator for a district in Minnesota, where I supported teachers and leaders to improve systems for supporting students with disabilities to achieve at high levels and be college- and career-ready.
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I served at regional agencies in Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota. I spent the most time at Heartland AEA 11 in Iowa, known for early and expert implementation of data-informed practices throughout their systems.
It was at Heartland where I learned how to design and deliver engaging and impactful professional learning through the wealth of resources and professional training we were provided.
I served as a school psychologist, special education trainer, and led internal professional learning for Heartland AEA 11. In my time there, I also facilitated a statewide collaborative to improve implementation of Child Find practices.
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As the Chief of the Bureau of Learner Strategies and Supports, I led MTSS and Special Education for the state of Iowa. Among other things, our team led PBIS, school mental health services, special education, and MTSS implementation for the state. We were fortunate enough to have several large federal grants supporting the important work of our bureau.
My favorite part of my time at the Department was partnering with team members within the department and across the state. The Iowa AEA system is unique and provides a strong infrastructure of expertise and support to implement evidence-based practice in impressive ways.
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When my family moved to Minnesota for my husband’s career, I left the Iowa DE and joined CAREI, at the University of Minnesota. I had the opportunity to partner with districts to conduct MTSS and Special Education program reviews, collaborate with partner districts, and serve on a grant supporting leader and educator use of FastBridge data.
I have served as an adjunct professor for Specialist and Doctoral students at 3 universities in Iowa, Minnesota, and Illinois. Courses I’ve taught include:
Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Academic and Literacy Assessment, Curricula, and Instruction
Educational Research
Assessment and Information Management for Leaders
Applied Behavior Analysis
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I shifted to the private sector in 2018, when I joined the FastBridge Learning team, serving as the Senior Director of Learning and Development, where I developed and scaled a profitable professional learning model.
I successfully managed the FastBridge Learning and Development team through an acquisition with Illuminate Education and subsequently served as the Executive Director of Professional Learning with Illuminate. During that time, our team developed and scaled a professional learning model that served 4 unique products, had high training satisfaction rates, boasted strong profit margins for professional learning and had a lot of fun while doing it!
After another acquisition and merger into Renaissance, I had the opportunity to focus on MTSS as the Senior Director of MTSS Solutions, partnering with Product, Sales, Services, and Marketing to establish Renaissance as an MTSS leader.
Recently, I also served as the Product Leader for FastBridge, given my experience and deep expertise with the product and educational assessment best practices.
I continue to contract as the MTSS Advisor for Renaissance and have seen their tools, such as FastBridge and eduCLIMBER, support educators and students in meaningful ways.
MTSS FAQs
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MTSS stands for Multi-Tiered System of Supports. It is a framework for using data to align resources to meet the needs of all students. MTSS ensures equitable outcomes for all students through preventative practices, data-informed decisions, evidence-based curriculum and instruction, and collaboration.
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RtI stands for Response to Intervention. It is a framework for identifying and providing support to students who are struggling with academic or behavioral issues. According to the National Center on Response to Intervention, "RTI integrates assessment and intervention within a multi-level prevention system to maximize student achievement and reduce behavior problems. With RTI, schools identify students at risk for poor learning outcomes, monitor student progress, provide evidence-based interventions and adjust the intensity and nature of those interventions depending on a student's responsiveness, and identify students with learning disabilities or other disabilities."
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A Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) and Response-to-Intervention (RtI) are both frameworks used to ensure all students receive support to be successful. While there are some differences between the two conceptually, in application schools tend to call their practices RtI or MTSS, or even something else, based on state and local initiatives and history. If you’re reading this and thinking that you use practices described as MTSS, but call it an RtI, that’s OK! There is more overlap than differences, and in practice, schools implement the two fairly interchangeably. I don’t get too hung up on what we call it.
Having said that, there are a few main differences between the MTSS and RtI concepts:
Scope: MTSS is a broader framework that includes academic, behavioral, and social-emotional supports for all students, while RtI is typically focused primarily on academic success.
Implementation: MTSS is implemented as a school-wide framework that involves all students, while RtI is typically implemented in individual classrooms or for individual students, typically those who are struggling to meet grade level standards.
Focus: RtI models often are associated with intervention provided as part of Child Find practices for special education services. While data collected within the MTSS Tiers of support may aid in Child Find, the goal of an MTSS is not Child Find.
MTSS and RtI share common practices such as universal screening, progress monitoring, and evidence-based intervention to support student success. While there are nuances in the MTSS and RtI concepts, school implementation is impacted by local context, as opposed to the differences described here.
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The tiers within a Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) represent all the resources available to support students. This includes things like instruction, standards, curriculum, and assessment.
Tier 1: This includes the supports provided to all students. Tier 1 includes evidence-based instruction and support provided universally. The goal of Tier 1 is to ensure that all students are receiving high-quality, equitable, and differentiated instruction toward grade-level standards.
Tier 2: This level of support is provided to students who need additional help beyond what is provided in Tier 1. Tier 2 supports are targeted interventions, usually provided in a small group setting. The goal of Tier 2 is to provide students with additional support to help them gain missing skills and meet grade-level standards.
Tier 3: This level of support is provided to students have significant skill gaps and require the most intensive, individualized intervention. Tier 3 resources are those that are most intensive and sometimes include the use of specialized instruction or services.
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Both Tier 2 and Tier 3 includes resources to support accelerated learning for students not successful with Tier 1 resources alone. Tier 2 resources typically include supplemental intervention targeted toward skill gaps identified through universal screening and are delivered in small group settings immediately following that screening. Tier 3 resources are more intensive and individualized and are often times guided by more diagnostic assessment and use of programmatic data and progress monitoring data.
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Students with emerging English skills require services that support their access to grade level standards, as well as supports that leverage the strengths they bring to learning to maximize their progress toward language proficiency. Attention to language comprehension skills is essential to accelerate progress.
An MTSS is uniquely supportive to this group of students in several ways. It’s focus on data-driven decisions allows educators to use all data about student’s proficiency, growth, and language development when allocating resources to their success. Additionally, the focus on evidence-based practices and early intervention allow schools to support all student’s needs, regardless of the services they qualify for. Finally, the focus on system improvement and data use within an MTSS means that bias within systems are identified and acted upon, better supporting all students, including those who are multilingual.
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MTSS can be used to support gifted students by providing them with challenging and enriching learning opportunities that are tailored to their individual strengths and needs. This is typically done through acceleration.
Within Tier 1 instruction, high-achieving students receive differentiated instruction within the regular classroom setting to accelerate their learning and ensure they aren’t spending all instructional time practicing skills they already have mastered.
Students identified as gifted may also have unique needs that require specialized supports and acceleration beyond what is typically provided with Tier 1 supports. In those cases, schools provide coursework for grade levels above where the student is currently placed, grade acceleration, and/or access to gifted and talented programs.