National Initiative for Transforming Student and Learning Supports

Equity of opportunity is fundamental to enabling civil rights;
transforming student and learning supports is fundamental to
      promoting whole child development, advancing social justice,
    and enhancing learning and a positive school climate.

*******************************

2026-2027

Improving Student and Learning Supports:

(1) About Moving from Fragmented Practices to System Transformation

INITIATIVE BACKGROUND

Events over the past decade have made it inevitable that public schools will change in fundamental ways over the next few years. This is particularly the reality for how schools address barriers to learning and teaching and for efforts to reengage disconnected students and families.

It is evident that schools are experiencing an increasing number of learning, behavior, and emotional problems, and considerable concern has been expressed about the capability of schools to deal with the volume of problems. Clearly, schools need better systems of student and learning supports to address barriers to learning and teaching effectively. However, it also is evident and widely acknowledged that student/learning supports continue to be marginalized in school improvement policy and practice. As a result, such supports are developed in an ad hoc and piecemeal manner. Implementation is fragmented and at times redundant. Those involved often are counterproductively competitive, especially when funding is sparse (and when isn't it?).

For many years, we have received a steady stream of frustrated comments about the situation at schools related to all this. And the situation has been exacerbated by recent events.

We know that folks have to address immediate problems as best they can (and will continue to be frustrated, upset, and overwhelmed).

Given the constant demand to respond to pressing problems, the primary tendency has been to argue for hiring more staff. And clearly some of the temporary relief funds were used to add some student/learning support personnel. However, it is also evident that when the relief funds ended most schools were unable to maintain the added personnel.

The bottom line: Schools cannot continue to spend all the time of student and learning support staff responding to the culture of crisis that dominates efforts to address barriers to teaching and learning and reengage disconnected students and their families. To do so means maintaining the marginalization, fragmentation, counterproductive competition, redundancy, and limited outcomes that characterize most schools' approach to providing student and learning supports efforts.

All this needs to change. Yet, most of the widely circulated reports about improving schools pay scant attention to these concerns. And while the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) offers opportunities for change, it also continues the piecemeal approach to addressing barriers to learning and teaching and reengaging disconnected students and families. And proposed changes related to federal involvement in education are unlikely to produce an effective system of student/learning supports.

Direct actions for fundamental systemic changes are needed, To these ends, the National Initiative for Transforming Student and Learning Supports was inaugurated in 2015. (Groundwork was laid by the earlier initiative for New Directions for Student and Learning Supports.)

The aims of this ongoing initiative are to mobilize direct actions for

    • Elevating school improvement policy discussion about ending the marginalization
      of student and learning supports
    • Moving toward transformation of such supports.

The number of inquiries to our Center related to the National Initiative for Transforming Student and Learning Supports underscore the reality that the time has come to make transformative changes in how schools address students experiencing learning, behavior, and emotional problems. Increasingly we are being asked about how to move forward and for assistance in doing so.

The challenge at this time is to escape old ways of thinking
about these matters.
New directions are essential.


MOVING FORWARD IN 2026-27

As the recently released agenda stresses, moving forward involves

    • rethinking student/learning supports and the roles & functions of staff providing such supports

    • approaching learning, behavior, and emotional problems as interrelated concerns

    • using an umbrella concept, such as addressing barriers to learning, to unify the laundry list of programs and initiatives currently being implemented for that purpose (e.g., MTSS, Community Schools, integrated services, social emotional learning as a response to problems, response to intervention, trauma informed practices, suicide and substance use prevention, crisis response, special efforts to close the opportunity and achievement gaps, etc., etc., etc....).

    • adopting a design and a multiyear strategic plan for developing the unified component into a comprehensive and equitable system of student/learning supports.

As the agenda clarifies, here are some first steps that can be taken to improve student/learning supports at school, district, regional, state, and even federal levels.

(1) Establish a Learning Supports Leadership Team (See What is a learning supports leadership team? ) This prototype can be adapted to fit current settings and situations.

(2) Have the team
    (a) map existing resources for addressing barriers to learning and teaching and renegaging disconnected students(see Mapping & Analyzing Learning Supports
and An Aid for Initial Listing of Current Resources Used at a School for Addressing Barriers Learning and Teaching )

   (b) analyze what's working, what needs strengthening, and critical gaps

   (c) develop a set of prioritized recommendations for moving toward a unified, comprehensive, and equitable system of student/learning supports

   (d) present the recommendations for approval.

(3) As soon as a set of proposed improvements are approved, establish a workgroup to develop a strategic action plan that details the who, what, and when of the steps forward.

(4) Assign the Learning Supports Leadership Team to guide implementation of the strategic plan.

Some General Resources from the Center to Aid in Moving Forward

 And we offer free technical assistance and coaching if you need it.

WHAT THE INITIATIVE HAS DONE PREVIOUSLY

Wide ranging outreach has been made to stakeholders concerned about school improvement, especially those focusing on enhancing equity of opportunity for students to succeed at school and beyond. We have summarized efforts through 2024 in a mongraph. See

>Transforming Student/Learning Supports & Enhancing Equity of Opportunity:
A Journey of Lessons Learned

>Stimulating Pioneering and Trailblazing Activity

 Across the country state departments, districts, and schools have explored new directions for providing student/learning supports. The pioneering and trailblazing efforts have helped clarify the type of systemic changes that are required to succeed. They reflect "out-of-the-box thinking."

Early in the initiative, Scholastic, Inc. reached out to enter into a collaboration with our Center at UCLA to move the work forward. Exhibit 2 notes what Scholastic reports about the trailblazers. For more on the Center's collaboration with Scholastic, see https://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/rebuild/rebuilding2.htm


The various efforts have highlighted four key and interacting considerations that must be the focus of new directions thinking. First and foremost, they point to the need to
    • Revisit school improvement policies in order to expand them in ways that will end the marginalization of student/learning supports
    • Adopt intervention frameworks that unify and guide development of a comprehensive, equitable, and systemic learning supports component at every school
    • Rework the infrastructure at school, complex, and district levels to ensure effective leadership, redefine roles and functions, and establish resource oriented mechanisms
    • Develop strategic approaches to enable effective and sustainable systemic change and replication to scale
Taken as a whole, the initiative offers a detailed blueprint for how student/learning supports can be transformed, resources to make it happen, and invaluable examples and lessons learned to aid moving forward. See https://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/summit2002/trailblazing.htm 

                         

***********************************

A Call to Action – Anyone Can Play a Role

Growing awareness and blueprints for new directions, makes this year an advantageous time for action by everyone concerned about ending the marginalization of student/learning supports.
See "Call to action"
https://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/whatsnew/call.htm