In this episode, Joan Schumann, PhD, founding executive director of the International MTSS Association, traces how a fifth-grade year spent watering a teacher's plants instead of doing math turned into a career building integrated systems of support. She and Larissa get into why so many districts say they're "doing MTSS" while running something much closer to a two-tiered model, and why she thinks the research community's incentives are part of the problem. For leaders trying to sort what actually works from what's being marketed to them, Joan names the structural reasons that's so hard — and what a professional association can do about it.

Resources:

International MTSS Association

IMA Action Networks

Team Time — Santa Fe, January 2027

Journal of MTSS

Joan Schumann

The Difference Between MTSS on Paper and MTSS in Practice

Using Universal Screening For Accurate, Objective Tiering in MTSS

The Ultimate Guide to MTSS

Request a consultation

Takeaways:

• MTSS is a different operating system, not another initiative layered on top.
• The alternative to multi-tiered is two-tiered: nothing between core and long-term formalized support.
• A long-term need doesn't mean a permanent need for intensive support.
• Academic gaps often originate in the learning environment, not the learner.
• Researchers are the one group in education not held accountable for collaborating.
• Run true universal screening so support doesn't depend on which teacher notices.
• Build problem-solving teams that put the counselor and the interventionist at the same table.
• Stop using tiers as a new vocabulary for the same sorting behaviors.
• Bring leaders to researchers with the real implementation problem, not the other way around.

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