Expert Instruction Template

00:00:05 Speaker: Welcome back to Expert Instruction, the Teach by Design podcast, where we dive deeper into the research surrounding student behavior by talking with the people, implementing these practices where they work and the students they support. I'm Megan cave, I'm Danielle Triplett. We were just talking hilarious. We were just talking about how we have these, like, these are our NPR voices. Yes. I'm Audie Cornish. Yeah. I need a different name. I can't think of a good one. Right. You can be Steve Inskeep. Okay, great. I'll take it. Well, here we are. We're back. Um, recording with all of you guys today, and we're back with our friends Billy Joe and Noah, who joined us back in November. Um, as we were, as we started to dive a little bit further into tier two, uh, data and the practices around that inform those data. it's great to have them back. And they're so knowledgeable and share so much with us. It's true. And when we got off the horn with them on in November, uh, Billy Joe was the first one to say, you know what we what we really need to talk about next are the ways that we support adults to implement tier two support. Um, and she's not talking about the professional development that we offer and the training that happens. And the more formal kind of manuals that you have to read through all of that. She's talking about real life, actual support that we provide to adults. Um, and so Danielle and I were like, yeah, let's do it. So that's what we're talking about today. We're talking about, um, beyond what we do for students and the ways that we support them. We're talking specifically today about the ways that we offer support to adults to implement tier two practices. Yeah. Yeah. And doing it in a systematic way, in a systematic way, and being really intentional about it. Right. And I'm looking at my notes here of um, one of the things is tier two should be a shift from all the little corrections, the referrals, the lost instruction to something that's more proactive, preventative with performance feedback on our school wide expectations. Like that's what we're doing here, right. And so we want to take that, um, off the teacher's plate in a way to say you're already probably working with these kiddos. And sometimes we think, well, we can handle this kid, but we're thinking of it in a new way and shifting our mindset to saying, what if we handle it in a way that's more proactive, more preventative, um, and really building, you know, reminding us that the heart of this work is about building relationships. Oh, for sure. And so having that, you know, intentional care and connection with our kiddos in, in a way that that's what tier two is really aimed at doing. Yeah. And Billy Joe was, um, so smart to point out that when we're asking adults to implement tier two support with the students in their classrooms, we are actually asking them to do something different. Yeah. And it could be in some cases that we're asking them to do something more. But what we talked about today is that that something more is actually something intentional and that it doesn't grow. So what she had talked about was, oh, I can handle Danielle. Yeah. I actually need help with Megan. Right. Um, but what we're talking about instead is saying instead of handling Danielle. Yeah. Because when you handle her, that handling kind of turns into nagging. Yes. And then that nagging might turn into something a little more intensive. And now we've we've escalated the behavior. Right. So instead, what we're talking about is like a proactive approach. And while it may feel like more now, it's going to be less later, right? And it's actually supporting that kiddo rather than maybe just this. That's right. Catching all the wrong things they're doing. It's like, let's go back to that, uh, positive side of things. Yeah, yeah. And so the two of them really talk to us today about helping to, um, reframe some of these supports, um, so that teachers feel like they're not going at it alone, that they're doing it with the support of a full team of other educators in the building. Um, and that we can actually implement these things by anticipating where the problem areas are going to be. What are the challenges that we're going to face and how are we going to handle them? And so once we figure out all of those logistics ahead of time, things can run a little bit more smoothly and we can find ways to adapt when it doesn't. So, um, so yeah, I was really excited to talk to them about this stuff today. It's always so good to hear their voices of experience. Mhm. Um, and really lean into the coaching that they can offer all of us. Yes. And the real stories and examples they had from classrooms, they've worked with teachers, they worked with even one educator. She shared a story about who then, as a parent, was able to advocate for her own kiddo in a different way. You know, so it's just it's really cool. You're going to love this episode. Listen. And everybody. Yeah.

00:04:37 Speaker: well, Billy Joe and Noah, thanks so much for joining us again. Um, to keep talking about these tier two systems and practices and of course, our theme data. Um, but before we get into some of the things that we're going to talk about today, let's just kind of do a quick recap and remind people about where we were when last we spoke. Um, our episode back in, gosh, what was it? November. November. Oh, Lordy. November. Um, we focused on, uh, the ways that tier two can actually, um, address some of the things that schools, the realities that schools are facing right now, which is, um, behavior levels are on the rise, both, um, those low level chronic behaviors and some of those more significant ones. And we talked a little bit about what that why that might be the case. Um, we also know that we've got a teacher workforce that's experiencing a collective burnout. And, um, there's just so much of their time and energy that's being devoted to so many other things aside from teaching curriculum. Um, I think we're seeing a decrease in that workforce because of it. We also talked about how resources are limited at schools, how time is limited, like it can start to paint a bleak picture. Mhm. Um, and so we can't do a lot of things around here. We can't solve all the problems. But we do work in a space where we talk about multi-tiered systems. And so by talking about tier two we can offer people a place at least to start finding some some air to breathe here. So, Billy Joe, you gave us a really excellent definition of tier two, um, last episode. Maybe you can just start by reminding us what is tier two supports and how do they how do they fit within this multi-tiered system? Yeah, happy to do that. Thanks for having us back again. I'm glad that we're getting a chance to extend the conversation to this side. So yeah. Same. Yeah. So tier two really is about dosing up what we do at tier one. Um, critical features are uh, making sure that we're reteaching specific target skills to students, um, and then providing additional opportunities for them to practice and receive feedback on those skills. Um, and so ideally, it's really aligned and embedded with all of the things that we are doing at tier one. Um, but just in a intentional, um, and more frequent type of way. Love that. Yeah, I've been using that definition a lot lately. Um, uh, just that it's it's a place where you offer everyone more opportunities to practice what you're doing at tier one. Um, and you're more intentional about that. it's a really nice way of thinking about, um, how it fits and that it's not something additional. It's just like a, like a dose up. Um, it's just an increase in the opportunities for practice. Like it's it's it's not like you're there forever. It's a place you kind of visit and get the support you need. But ideally it's a short term thing. That's a way to build those skills and, you know, give kids support they need, give adults the support they need. Right. Like that's I think seeing it as not a punishment, not not not a punitive thing. It's a, you know, there supports available to everybody. Yeah. We all need those. I think we also talked about last time how, um, there's an efficiency component to these, um, to these supports that the idea is that it is, uh, structured in such a way that there is a standard sort of protocol, um, where students can get access quickly, they can receive the support that they need, that there is a data, progress monitoring. element to it so that you can see when students are experiencing success and when they're not, so that you can then move them, um, based on what you see, that you can fade them off of the tier two support back into just school wide, or you can layer up and offer some more individualized supports if you need. So there's an efficiency component to to these supports. That's really nice. I want to remind people of the language that Noah used, which was plug and play, and I love that so much because it's what it should be. When we talk about making it more efficient, is that it's not something you're building this plane while you fly it, it already is there, and you're ready to plug the kids in to get those supports they need. Noah, do you want to? I don't want to steal your words from you. And yet we bolded it in our notes here because it really stood out to us. Yeah. No, you you you've got it spot on. Uh, Danielle, I, I think that, um, when we talk about tier two, I think the thing that we focus on sometimes is, um, kind of what that thing is and how to implement it. But really we want to be focusing on efficiency and the reason that tier two ends up being so successful when implemented successfully is because there is that efficiency component that you and Megan are just talking about, that, um, because it's plug and play, because it's something that we can rapidly access. We've already established the core features. We've got the practices down. Then the moment Billy Joe or Noah or Danielle need that additional support and the team goes, okay, we've identified we've used our functional thinking skills and we've identified this is the right support boom. You are rolling within seventy two hours. You've got, you know, kids receiving the support that they need. And so you know, that efficiency piece lends itself to then um, rapid implementation because we don't have to spend all of our time individualizing. As someone who trains in FBA and BSP, we spend a lot of time parental consent, direct observation, teacher interviews, all of the things we have to do and really put in the effort to get a solid behavior support plan in place for kiddos, and that is very necessary for some kids. But when we jump to that, right, that plug and play nature of tier two, we skip over that. Then we start to drain the system way too fast. And so I just love that idea of thinking about it as just that rapid, rapid implementation, the plug and play nature of a tier two intervention that we already have ready. And we can just go quick. Yeah. And one other thing I'll add is thinking about setting up our interventions and our systems in a way that kids and their teachers too, probably are excited to access the supports and also are excited to graduate or fade from those supports. So we kind of talk about wanting kids to be excited to get on and excited to get off. Um, and so building that into our intervention systems is really important so that it's seen as positive, but also seen as something that, you know, you have access to as you need it. And then there's a celebration when you don't need it. Um, that being said, I also think it's totally okay for kids to graduate and finish and then need it again later down the road. I have seen that as a myth where, you know, we don't we don't want kids to have celebrations or graduations because what if they need it again? And it's like, great. So what? Like I celebrated, I met that goal, and then I might need it again down the road because my behavior has slipped a little bit. So, um, that's another piece around here too, is really making sure that they're seen as positive, um, both in terms of accessing them and also, you know, not needing it. Well, Billy Joe, you talked about um, that hopefully, um, staff are excited about being able to offer these supports to students that they work with. And so that was something that you had identified after we talked last week or last month, last week. I'm telling you, today felt like it was five days already. Knows what time. I've only been at work for three and a half hours. It feels like I've been here for five days. Um, that was something we talked about at the end of our episode. Um, last in November, um, was what are the like? How do we make tier two supports something that's interesting for adults. I mean, what we're really looking to explore is how do we and what you guys are describing? I mean, it's like these gold standard schools where tier two would be in place and there's excitement around it and it's built. Our listeners might be in a different stage of implementation and needing to kind of get there. And so sometimes it feels like to get there is just more work for the adults, Like they don't maybe trust that. Like, oh, there's this plug and play system that we're just going to nominate a kid and they go there. Right. So sometimes in our excitement around getting students that support, we overlook that the fact that we might be asking the adult to take on more work to support those especially low level behaviors in the classroom. So we want to talk and explore, like what's the benefit for the adults, um, in this aspect of it and how should why can I get that, you know, the idea of buy in or why they'd be interested in this and how we can get from like maybe at a if they're just interested in doing this to what you're describing, where it's in place, it's ready to go and it's well supported. You're at Billy Joe. Go for it. He's always offering you up first Billy Joe. That's funny. Well, um, when you ask this question, I, um, think back to a really specific time. Um, when I was working in a school that was just starting to pilot. In this case, it was check in, check out. And, um, the school had previously, you know, kind of had some interventions that were not full FBA, individualized plans, but they were very individualized kind of tier two. So that was the history which I can check out was the opposite kind of of what Noah was sharing around efficiency. Um, um, and they also had historically kind of identified students who really had pretty intensive needs for their intervention that they were calling check and check out. And so we were trying to, um, change that. Right? We were trying to build a check and checkout system that is more like what Noah was talking about that was efficient, aligned to school wide expectations. Um, and as part of that process, we were recognizing that maybe some of the problem in the past had been identifying students whose needs were already beyond tier two. Um, and so we started to look at data a little more closely, look at things like, uh, teacher handled or minor kind of incidents of behavior to identify kids before teachers were coming and saying, hey, I need a lot of help with this student. And so as we started to do that and find through the data, we identified a handful of students. And so we went to those teachers and said, hey, you know, Danielle, you've got a student in your class, Noah. And Noah. Looks like Noah might benefit from a little extra support. What do you think? And the teacher was really quick to say, oh, I can handle Noah, right? Um, right. And that was a really eye opening moment for me when we think about tier two, because handling turns into nagging. It turns into negative relationships. It is not necessarily preventative or skill focused. And sometimes the problem is okay enough that they're, you know, we handle it. And other times the problem does turn into something more intensive. And so that really stuck with me of this idea of I can handle it. And so what we what I recognize in that moment was exactly what you were saying, Danielle, which is that the teacher perceived the support that we were going to offer for that student to be more work than what she was doing in a reactive, kind of handle it sort of way. Um, and I think that was because two reasons. One, oftentimes the supports that were provided were insufficient for those students who really had more intensive needs. So we were kind of trying to put a bandaid on a broken bone. And the the program or interventions itself were really teacher heavy, right? It was individualized. It had a lot of components. There were a lot of things to manage. And so it was more work than handling it. And so I think the first piece is really scaling back what it is that we're doing so that we can create those habits. If we have tier one in place and we're teaching safe, respectful, responsible or whatever expectations are, then dosing that up. Really? Is that right? It's doing a little bit more of that, doing it in a positive way with the cue that might look like a point card or some pull out teaching that's happening in a skills group. Right. And so, um, really building on that efficiency piece in that linkage piece and catching kids when the needs were small, um, helped kind of shape the, the nature of the impact. And so once we were like, hey, you know, can you trust us on this? Like, it's not going to be more work. Um, it is initially, even if it's efficient, it's building new habits for the adults. Right. So it's like I have to remember to prompt them and I have to remember to do my things. But sometimes even collecting a little data on look how many times you've been correcting this student, right. Look how often you've been responding to them and kind of helping them think about just shifting that reactive handling behavior to a proactive. Yeah, there's a little cognitive lift at the start to build that new habit on the adult's part. But if what we ask them to do is actually efficient and aligned with what they're already doing with tier one practices, then the load is not that great and the impact can be pretty powerful. I love that example. Billy Joe I think it's definitely moving away from the notion of like doing more for students to the adage of like, work smarter, not harder. And, um, I think about it as a like tier two is being more of like a workload reduction as opposed to an increase. And just like Billy Joe was just saying, where we're shifting away from all of the little corrections and, um, referral writing behaviors and lost instruction because of all of those little moments, right? You pile that up and then you have a thirty second interaction at the end of the period where students are now starting to understand if we think about like a daily point card to check and check out, right. Students starting to get performance feedback. They're getting, um, that dosing of understanding, you know, let's say generic, safe, respectful, responsible. Our expectations within the school. We're getting so much more feedback on that. And so you start to see students change behaviors, but you're having to work in a much smarter way. And so as a teacher, if we just tell you that this is going to be something where I want you to do more for students than we, we miss the mark because we've, you know, reduced those power struggles. Um, we've increased instructional time because students are starting to understand and take accountability for their behavior. And so it just looks a lot different there. And I also think that it kind of takes it away. I work a lot in middle and secondary these days. Right. So it takes it away from being like a one teacher, one kid, one classroom thing where I, as Billy Joe and the teacher in the classroom, um, have to figure out a data system and a tracking method and, like, how am I going to correct this behavior now? I move away from all of that behavior management side of things. And there's a team and we're working towards the same goal. And it's efficient and it's quick and we can all provide the same level of, you know, reinforcement and accountability along the line. And that just makes it so much more efficient for the adults, because I'm no longer having to do all of those other things. Now I shift it to something where I've got a goal and I've got data, and I can move in the right direction. And I think it sometimes gets lost in the shuffle. But how much that proactive intentional kind of positive interaction and skill focused, like, what do we want kids to do? Um, to be successful goes so far in their motivation as well. And then that relationship is, you know, for staff and kids becomes really powerful and positive. I often ask people when I'm in rooms with educators, you know, how many of you have had that student who would do something for you that they wouldn't do for anybody else? And like people, you know, they raise their hand and said, why is that? Is it because you, you know, taught them rocket science. No, it's because you had a relationship with them, right? They trusted you. And so really trying to catch those relationships before they're so far gone, um, and kind of build that intentionality in that space around care and connection, um, is really an important piece in addition to the skill, you know, kind of skill focused aspect, because that's where we are, you know, students and teachers are willing to be vulnerable is when they have those relationships and trust each other that, you know, we're going to make mistakes, but we can repair those mistakes and focus on our successes. We've spent a lot of time in a lot of episodes talking about building relationships with students. And the what you guys are sharing is that tier two can offer such an intentional way of building relationships with students that you've struggled to build a relationship with in other ways. Um, which is a nice it's a nice thing to remember. And at the same time, too, I think it is worthwhile to explore that. We are asking teachers to take on a bit of a role within the behaviour management that we're trying to, um, put in place in a school. Right? Like if you're doing check in, check out at the elementary school, at an elementary school, you're asking a teacher to spend some time at the end of the period or at different times during the period to check in with specific students, which is a thing that they wouldn't necessarily do, uh, in that way, in that same way. Um, otherwise. So how do you set up a system? Because, you know, we're all about we love systems here. How do you set up a system so that these tier two supports aren't just supporting students, but that we have some supports in place to help the adults in the building implement them with some level of fidelity. So this might sound silly, but that's okay. Noah and I have worked together a lot and so I think you will agree. Um, I think about adults, uh, and what they might need, really similarly to the way I think about kids and what they might need. Um, and I always tell, uh, you know, my school psych graduate students when I'm training them, um, we don't do things to people. We do things with people, and we don't do things that, you know, to kids that we wouldn't want done for ourselves. And kind of seeing that parallel. Um, and so I think one of the first things to look at is to kind of understand what adults need functionally as well, like what are the things that they, that teachers are needing, right. Because when we get into patterns, whether it's sending kids to the hallway or nagging or, you know, whatever it might be, Um, you know, I've said it a lot of U of O graduations, and I've never seen one of those teachers, you know, brand new baby teachers say, I'm going to send all my hard kids out into the hallway or special ed or. Right, like, that's not why we get into this field. And yet many adults find themselves in systems and classrooms without the skills or the knowledge to be successful. And so then they are in survival mode as well, right? And so one of the first things that I think about is, you know, how do we plan our supports for adults and what they might need kind of in the same way that we think about and anticipate the things that kids might need, right. So where are the times and the prompts, and what are the things that are going to be difficult to navigate or remember or um, and really kind of proactively thinking about that and building your intervention to account for as much of that as possible. If we can predict it, we can prevent it. Um, and that's true for kid behavior, but also adult behavior. Right? Um, and then from there, there are those pieces, just like with interventions for kids, where we might need to do some more individualized supports for a given teacher or grade level of teachers or, um, you know, group of teachers I think about in the middle school setting, related arts can be tricky because they might have twice as many kids in their class as a, you know, core area teacher and a whole bunch of kids on an intervention, right? Check in, check out or something. Um, and so thinking about, you know, what do we anticipate a lot of our adults might need to do this. Well, and then also planning for those unique, um, situations. And so I can provide some specific examples. But I also want to give you a chance to share his thoughts too. And then we can share a little bit about what it looks like. No, you you I mean, you and I have worked together forever. So whatever you're saying is typically something I'm going to agree with. Um, but yeah, I mentioned it before, but I think it just makes it so much easier on the adults when you are not the only person responsible for this kiddo and shaping behavior. And the next step. Right? And so, um, when, when we can work, you know, when check in, check out whatever tier two intervention you're running. We want to have someone who's kind of that tier two coordinator who has shared ownership over the student and outcomes, and it's not on the teacher anymore to have to collect your own data, review your own data, make iterative changes based on your data, um, to constantly correct, um, you know, Megan's behavior, whatever is happening. But now we've got someone who is going to kind of take the lead on it. And so teachers participate in the plan. They are not responsible for the plan, right? They're participating in the intervention. But it's not all on you. And so we we have shared ownership over the outcomes for our students in our school. And, um, this is a way to be able to give teachers that tool. Um, but at the same time, um, not make them have to, to be responsible for every last aspect of it. I think, you know, kind of back to the piece about designing the systems. That's it. Right. It's actually sitting down and working through the system. So, um, again, I think we all have educators or innovators and we have a lot of experience with interventions. Um, but what we do if we want to do tier two really well is plan out from the beginning. What does this look like? What does this look like from before the bell rings through the end of the day, what does it look like? You know, over time, for a student experiencing the intervention, what does it look like from possible concern to exit the intervention? Right. And so that that's what building a system is, is actually planning out how we're going to navigate the day to day. And the entire intervention for any given student who's participating. Um, and that's where the piloting and we talked a little bit about that last time. That's where that's really helpful because it's hard to anticipate everything, um, from the onset. But, you know, when we work with schools to take a really comprehensive approach, we ask that, right? What is the beginning of the day look like? Like if we're talking about check and check out where do students get their car? You know, their cards. Who do they check in with? Okay. That's great. Everybody kind of plans for that. What if they show up half an hour late? Now, what if every student who shows up late? We have to figure out an individualized way to get them their card, or they don't access the intervention that day? Right. That's not a system anymore, right? What if they have to leave early? Right. What if how do we add the points up at the end of the day? Um, and so part of it is anticipating. That's what I mean when I'm saying like, anticipate those places that are likely to be bumpy. Right. And try to plan for those substitute teachers is a favorite one. Right. Like how do we we know that's going to happen. And so what do we do? You know, we've had schools do things like they're pink hot pink cards the day that a student has a sub. And so not only is that a cue to the kid, they get double points all day long because it's way harder to maintain your behavior with a substitute teacher. But also it's a cue when they're on the playground and the playground is giving them some feedback like, oh, they've got a sub, let me give an extra positive, right? Or let me, you know, connect with that hand off with that teacher and say, wow, I was really proud of how they did at recess right in front of the kid. So we can anticipate some of the things that are likely to be challenges and try to preplan those as much as possible. Kids are going to lose their cards if you're using paper cards. So preplan the response to teachers keep extras in their desk. Um, you know, or do they have to go and round that up, or is there no more intervention for that day? What about traveling to specials? Right. The card gets lost. So do we want people in music and library just to have their own little Yahoo? Here's your, you know, card just for this. That's got the safe, respectful responsible rating. Or do we want the cards to travel. So thinking through like those things that are bumpy for teachers where they have to problem solve, right. Where does the card go when the student comes in? Do you need to see it so that you remember to give them feedback? Um, you know, or can it be on their desk or private location? So kind of and again, we build our system for most, right? This is what we think is going to work for most of our students and staff. And then maybe we need to make a modification on a case by case basis because of a student preference or a staff member preference or something like that, just like we would when we think about interventions on the kids side. Billy Joe, this is perfect. And our next question is really all about some adaptations that are more efficient. So you've really touched on that. And I mean, I just got to say from a teacher's point of view, like, we love color coding, right? So the idea of the hot pink for this, you know, some day or, you know, different colors or something like make it fun, make it visual like that stands out to people and it does. It creates that system. But we're curious to kind of move into some more like adaptations you've seen schools do to their tier two practices that really support the adults. So what else? Because you guys are out in buildings. We're Megan and I are not. We have office jobs and we're we're looking to you to like, tell our listeners more about what they can do to really adapt this to support. You were just about to give a whole training about adaptations and modifications at tier two. What were you going to say to that? Um, yeah. No, this morning didn't go the way that I was expecting it to, but we pivot. It's okay. We yeah, our our our whole thing was around, um, a lot of what Billie Jo actually just mentioned, which was thinking through, um, what are the collective bumps in the road that are getting in the way? It's funny because as she was talking, actually, the thought that I was having is like, this is just one more reason why we we standardize it and make it so plug and play. Because when you've got all of like, if every single one of us had our own unique point card, right? It's so much harder when one of them is missing and a kid shows up late that day and you're like, okay, now I got to go print another one or find Jimmy Stack or whatever. So as Billie Jo was talking, I was like, there's just one one more example as to why we make this so efficient and make it easy on everyone because you find those bumps in the road, and those are what start to drag the system down and make it feel like more work than when we all do the same thing and we're all moving in the same direction. Um, I also feel like, um, when we're thinking about, you know, efficient adaptations or tweaks or however you want to look at it. Um, we we are we're trying to figure out ways to make it as easy as possible for the adults to implement. Um, and so whether we're talking about intensifying for students or we're talking about just trying to, um, adjust to our given context, I think it's really important to understand who you are working with and what their needs are. And we always want to start with the data. Right. And so Billy Joe brought up adult function of behavior earlier. And so you kind of have to think about what is not working for our system or where am I hearing the rub? Um, when teachers are talking about what's not working super well for them and target that. And so, um, I think that the more that you can move to efficient, uh, systems, whether it's, you know, we are all going to be in the hallway. Let's use middle school, for example. At every passing period, we're going to make it to where kids are going to come meet me on their way out the door. And so I'm still doing my supervision. Um, but I'm out there in the hallway supporting students. Or we focus on, you know, Billy Joe and I have, um, had the conversation many different times around one particular grade level or one particular setting where for whatever reason, the data is not coming in and we're not seeing cards get filled out. And so you're you're routinely, as a team, problem solving what is happening within your school and your system. In doing so, we again are trying to make it more efficient and easier on the individuals implementing. And so I think just like the long and short of it is the intentionality and the, um, the ongoing kind of review of fidelity are the two big things that I find that allow schools to make tweaks to what's happening, um, to make life easier on, you know, our folks. I think the other thing that is really worth bringing up here is, um, if you don't have predefined kind of entry and exit criteria for your data decision rules, you run into the issue that Billy Joe was talking about earlier, which is you've got kiddos that are on check in, check out for like the entire school year, even though they've been super successful. Um, and so in order to make it efficient, in order to make it easy on teachers, we want kiddos in and out. Just like Danielle was saying, you're not in there forever. Um, it's not an individualized forever thing, but we want to make sure that we have really good pre-defined entry and exit criteria. So we've got a fading system that allows students to move out. And as a teacher, I don't keep just adding kids to tier two. And I can I'll provide a couple of specific examples um, that we've seen to kind of think about or support the notion of adaptations around intervention implementation. Um so and both of these were fidelity kind of things or data. So when we think about um, the data pieces, you know, sometimes um, particularly around fidelity, it's like, oh, no one has time for that. Right? It's hard to go and measure, but sometimes what we can actually do is say, where are the gaps, right? Or where are things not inconsistent? Um, and that's actually the type of information that we use to look at how to support adults. Because if we see patterns in implementation challenges or not seeing data come back, oftentimes it is a function of the adults not having the systems they need. Um, so one school that Noah and I worked with, um, it was a secondary school, uh, they were having difficulty remembering to enter in the scores. Um, we were using an electronic data sheet, um, not a paper pencil. That's what they had selected. Um, and so there was a lot of missing data. Um, and Noah and I were problem solving and recognized that this team of educators, for whatever reason, was a little bit more punitive in the way in which they, um, created accountability. Um, and so we had built the data sheet where it was empty. Right. There was nothing in the data sheet. And so the teachers had to go in and fill out and put twos and ones and zeros. Right. And so if they didn't put anything in there, then it just looked like there was, you know, the student didn't earn anything. It looked more like zeros. And so we actually pre filled all the data sheets with twos. Um, for two reasons. Right. One is if you've done a really good job checking in with your student, creating a positive relationship, supporting them in their behavior, and they earn the highest score, then you don't have to have that extra work of going into the data sheet and making the modification right. So it was reinforcing implementing the intervention because the high score was already in there. The other reason, of course, functionally is those adults were pretty motivated to make sure that kids did not have twos in their system if they did not earn them. And so there was an increase, you know, motivation on the adult side to have the data reflect, um, the accurate scores. Right. Because they didn't want it to look like the student had earned all of their points if they really hadn't, but they were slightly less motivated to enter in points. Is that. So that was an example of modifying the system to make it more efficient and to ideally reinforce that they're actually implementing the intervention, and they don't have to log into the form if they, you know, felt that the student met the, um, the higher score. So just kind of the way in which we default our system, um, worked with another elementary school. They have an early release every other Friday. And so we started with point cards that were consistent. Right? Everybody was using a similar one. And then we realized that on Fridays, the early release Fridays, the point cards were all a mess. Everybody was doing something different. With the change in the schedule. Some people were leaving things blank. Some people were just like sort of making it up as they went of this routine now is replacing this thing. And so that was an example of seeing data come in and saying, wait a minute, right. This Friday, data, especially on these early release days, is not super useful because it's incomplete or it's different or. And so the team went back and said, why don't we just make an early release version of the point card? So on the early release Fridays, all the kids got a standardized but early release version of the card that then was much more consistently completed. Um, so those are examples of ways in which we can modify our system so that we don't do all of these, like individual, you know, follow ups to try to support implementation and actually just make it easier for all the adults and kids, um, that are participating in this scenario. You've got a team that's looking at data and making iterative changes to the system. Um, and I think it's just super important to remember that we don't want to put this just on like one teacher or one person, but that we are working together as a school team and that we're using our data as the driving force to figure out where those gaps are, and then to kind of think logically about how we help support those folks. I am curious, uh, just talking about adults and working together as a group. I'm thinking about, uh, the ways that you might present tier two supports and how and train grownups on how to implement them and how they're part of the system. Are there parts of it that you kind of hype up, uh, in order to kind of get that collective excitement? Are there parts that, um, you already know are, um, are going to be a struggle? And so what are the ways that you address those in your trainings and professional development? I just was curious just a little bit about how you make the proposal, like, this is what we're doing and here's why you might care about that. Hmm. Well, I think, um, you know, there's a lot of stages of this. Yeah, yeah, there's like the initial. Right, like, we're going to roll out this new thing and let's get excited about it. Um, and I think this is where we were talking a little bit before we started the recording about the TFI and kind of the training item. Right. And, um, I think this, this relates to that, but with tier two in particular, um, there's some unique pieces. Right? So one is we need to get everybody on board, like, hey, we're doing this thing. This is because people need to know how to help kids access it, how to refer students to those additional interventions and kind of how they work upfront. So typically, you know, we'll do our initial training or if we've been doing it for a while, we'll still like kind of reboot it in the fall, right, with our in-service time. But with tier two, any given teacher may not have a student accessing a specific tier two intervention right away. And so I don't know about you, but, you know, if you tell me something in August and then I don't need to use it until November, Sometimes I'm a little rusty by the time that comes around. Or maybe I wasn't paying super close attention, even though I know it's kind of happening in the periphery. Or maybe I had a kid do it last year, but now there's been some changes, right? So I think there's that piece of kind of initial selling of what's the purpose and why do we do this? And with check and checkout, for example, we do a lot of reminding people that it's not about points, it's not punitive. It really is about the pre correct and about the acknowledgements about building that. Behavioral momentum points are a way that kids access, uh, incentives or motivation. Also a way that we evaluate how it's working through the data. Um, so we kind of hype that up. And I think we can, you know, create parameters around that. But then there's also that piece of when we identify a student who needs that support, we're also identifying their teacher or teachers and making sure that part of our system includes a short conversation with them of like, hey, remember, check and check out or remember our skills groups that we talked about right now, your students going to be starting and this is what it looks like. Um, what concerns do you have? What do you anticipate. And even best case scenario, hey, can you collect some baseline data for us while we're getting permission from the teacher or from the student and their parent couple days, just so we can kind of see how they are without the intervention. I love that because it reinforces the idea that it's not about the points. Right? That's just data. Um, and it kind of starts to build that habit of like doing the rating without the piece of the feedback and the pre corrects. Um, so but in tier two, I think it's really important that we build in those like opportunities to reconnect around the intervention. And then um, one of my favorite strategies is when we have a teacher who has a student who's being successful, having them share what they do and how it works for them. Um, and that goes so far in like, you know, this is pretty simple and this is how I do it. And I don't wait until passing period when everybody's trying to leave and nobody wants to talk to me. I actually do it during this checkout time. That's ten minutes before the end of the period or whatever. Um, to kind of get at some of those things that might impact, um, willingness or feasibility perceptions around implementation. So like if again, I said this earlier, but like if we can predict it, we can prevent it. And so we can do that same thing with our adults. Right. Which is anticipate for a lot of our educators what might be challenging and can we build a system to support that? And then on an individual basis, as we're kind of doing that quick refresh of like, hey, this student is about to start and this is what this might look like, you know, what do you need? Um, and we do these same things for academic interventions too, right? If we roll kids into going to a group, then the teacher's got to remember to send them. And what are we going to do with the work they miss and all those things. So it's not different. But I think, um, kind of that rolling basis, the intentionality. Right. And um, not assuming that someone, because they heard about it in August is going to remember kind of the important pieces or, um, have those habits in place to really get it off the ground. Um, in November, I think is important to kind of build into our system as well. Like how do we do those little teacher boosts, right. To get them ready to go, um, in that proactive positive way as well. You're really reinforcing to this whole conversation is super reinforcing to the idea of recruiting a coach to help you. Oh my God, through these things. Because Billy Joe, as you were talking about, like, what if students arrive at school late? What if they have to go early? I was like, oh, that of course happens all the time, but why didn't I even think about it? You know, in terms of logistics for how to handle a check in and check out program? Um, yeah. Subs, all of those things. All of it. Fire drills. I mean, you think you you don't have to learn on the fly. You can actually recruit some support from people who have done this before. And they're like, these are some common things you're going to want to think through. Let's talk about what this looks like in your building. And so I would just say thank you for sharing all of that with us. All of your little tidbits. Uh, I would also say that you could probably just host an entire hour on, like, things to think about logistics related to check and checkout. Um, and I would go, I'm not even in a school, but I would be like, yeah, what about that? Tell me more. I think she's already given that presentation before, so I think so too. I think she's done it many, many times. She's well versed. But I really appreciate you guys taking the time to be and to be so thoughtful, too, because Billy Joe. Right. As soon as we finished that episode, uh, in November, you were like, but wait, we got to talk about how we're supporting adults exactly to do this work, and it's so thoughtful and it's, uh, really important for us to consider, um, the systems behind the practices that we put in place. So thanks so much for joining us and, uh, for participating with us in this conversation. Really appreciate you both. Thank you for having us. It's always fun. Yeah, it's absolutely a pleasure. Every time. You're so generous with your time. Thanks to you both.