Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Sara Rutz, center, addresses the Houghton-Portage Township Board during a presentation on the district’s Multi-Tiered Systems of Support program. Other members of the team speaking Monday included, from left, Traci Welch, Anna Bradfish, Laurel Givens and Mollie Trewartha.

HOUGHTON — Members of the Houghton-Portage Township Schools’ Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) team gave an update on the district’s progress in areas from academics to mental health at Monday’s board meeting.

The MTSS program is structured like a pyramid. Ideally, core classroom instruction should be meeting the needs of at least 80% of students. Small-group interventions are used for another 15% of students, with 5% or fewer needing more individualized instruction.

High school

At the high school, MTSS efforts have been focused on mental health over the past couple of years.

The Behavior Health Assessment Team meets weekly to discuss students with mental health concerns within the building. About 15 of every 100 students at the school are receiving some sort of support for mental health concerns, said social studies teacher Anna Bradfish.

There are three counselors in the building full-time.

District staff underwent trauma training, and also tried to embed social and emotional learning in a couple of classrooms.

“Next year, we’re looking at piloting social and emotional learning in a special education class, because that’s where we see a higher percentage of students who need mental health supports, then as long as that goes well, integrating that into other classrooms,” Bradfish said.

Staff have also put up posters in bathrooms with tips for de-escalation techniques showing students how to calm themselves if they’re having an anxiety attack, and providing QR codes for other resources.

“If you’re struggling with anxiety, and it’s lunchtime, where are you going to go?” Bradfish said. “You’re going to try to hide somewhere, and likely you’re going to try to hide in the bathroom.”

The high school normally holds a Cabin Fever event similar to the middle school with activities. Many students were not going to it, which was affecting the school’s attendance numbers, history teacher Traci Welch said.

Instead, the school spread out activities throughout March that could help students relieve stress. Classes went outside, did yoga, or in the case of Welch’s AP class, made Easter cards for Little Brothers Friends of the Elderly.

“If you just give somebody an idea and don’t do it with them, they’re not likely going to, so we just said ‘We’re going to do this with you so you can put this into practice and hopefully continue it on your own,'” Bradfish said.

MTSS members are also seeing a correlation between students with multiple flags — attendance, behavior, course completion or other issues — and mental health supports. Thirty percent of those with multiple flags are currently receiving mental health services, Bradfish said.

Many of those students also lack connections through sports, clubs, activities or social ties.

“It’s very clear to us that if you’re not connected in some way to our Gremlin community in a really meaningful way, that you are more likely to have multiple flags,” Bradfish said.

Attendance was at 67% in the third quarter, up from 62% last year. Where about half of seniors were chronically absent in the third quarter of 2021-22, that percentage has dropped to 40% this year.

Students who receive additional mental health services on a regular basis, staff are required to contact parents, Scullion said. The provider also gives feedback to the family, which can include techniques for things the children can work on at home, or referrals to outside mental health services.

At the moment, the building is acting more as a “triage center” to address the mental health needs of students in the top two tiers. But there isn’t much of a building-wide strategy for how to catch problems before they snowball, Bradfish said.

Welch said the social and emotional learning could provide that once it advances beyond the pilot stage.

“Those little SEL skills are what hopefully will catch them more at the Tier 1 level, that they’re not going to go into the Tier 2 or 3 level,” she said.

Middle school

At the middle school, teachers had revamped the positive behavior system. As recognition for doing the right thing, students had been given tickets, which were entered into a raffle for prizes. This year, the tickets are being treated like cash, which allows students to exchange them for root beer, popcorn or other treats.

“The kids have been excited about the fact that they actually spend, versus just put in for a chance,” said sixth-grade math teacher Mollie Trewartha.

The middle school also held Cabin Fever events in February, where students get to choose from a series of activities, such as swimming, skating or baking. The district is also planning end-of-the-year celebrations.

As for data, the middle school is finishing testing through FastBridge, which the school uses to analyze students’ reading and math abilities. Course-pass rate shows the percentage of students earning a D-plus or better in English ranged from 85% in sixth grade to 95% in eighth grade. In math, sixth and seventh grades were both above 90%, while eighth was at 78%.

Trewartha and Principal Julie Filpus said the math number could be part of a “quarter 3 slump,” which has happened in past years with students.

Trustee Brad Baltensperger asked why there would be such a difference in the impact on the math and English numbers.

Trewartha said as a math teacher, since the start of the pandemic she has seen struggles with gaps in math knowledge and larger variations in skill level.

“That’s been one of the challenges as a math teacher is how do I fill those gaps and at the same time prepare them for the next grade level,” she said. “And the kids are all over the board.”

Once more data from math testing comes in, Board President Amanda Massaway said, she’d like to get teachers’ perspective on whether that number was an anomaly or something that would require more resources to address.

Behaviorally, the numbers were similar to the elementary school. Ninety-seven percent of students had zero to one office referrals.

Elementary school

In the elementary school, 96.4% of students were in Tier 1 for behavior, meaning they had no or one major office referrals during the school year, said elementary school computers teacher Sara Rutz.

The latest reading data isn’t in yet, but the Tier 1 composite had improved from 69% at the start of the year and 76% in January. The goal for the end of the year was 80%.

“We’ve historically been high,” said Superintendent Anders Hill, also part of the MTSS team. “We had a dip with COVID, and we’re starting to see those numbers come back up, which is really exciting.”

The elementary school launched “team shout-out cards.” Teachers were given a class set of postcards, and sent a postcard to each child’s family over the course of the year mentioning something special about the child.

“I was at one person’s house, a child in my class, and they had a card on their fridge from the month before that I had sent,” said third-grade teacher Laurel Givens. “So that is something that a lot of parents are appreciating.”

The MTSS also held a parent roundtable in January, where they answered questions for the parents and vice versa.

This summer, the school will hold a reading challenge to get kids reading at least 15 minutes per day. Students will be eligible for small prizes, such as an ice cream or bookmark, to incentivize reading.

Where the district has been measuring reading progress through the Acadience test, there hasn’t been anything similar for math. The first-grade has been piloting one program; third and fifth grades are trying out another one.

“We’re hoping to get some good data, so that we can know how to better help kids in math as well as we can reading,” Givens said.

Next steps

Rutz said the MTSS team and administration are collaborating both at the building and district level to provide stronger orientation programs for teachers new to the district.

The MTSS team is also rolling out an internal website for staff that contains all of the MTSS resources — reward tickets, behavior lessons, mental health resources and more.

Parents are also being added to MTSS teams to improve communications from staff. Ideas such as the postcards are also being shared between the district buildings to provide continuity.

Massaway applauded the team.

“I love that you’re willing to try new things in the spirit of continuous improvement … Thank you for having the courage to tackle these things,” she said.

In other action, the board:

• Passed a resolution approving the Copper Country Intermediate School District’s proposed budget for 2023-24.

• Scheduled a public hearing on the Houghton-Portage Township Schools’ budget for 5:45 p.m. June 19.

• Approved the hiring of Jeff Finger as assistant varsity hockey coach, Eli Luoma as head junior varsity football coach, and Nathan Erva as assistant JV football coach.

• Designated Buck Foltz as electoral representative for the CCISD’s June 5 biennial election. Brent Burns was designated as alternate.

• Approved a co-op agreement for gymnastics. The agreement has been in place for a number of years, but requires re-adoption anytime a district is added — in this case, Dollar Bay-Tamarack City Schools, Hill said.