The Science of Doing: Implementation to Excellence (Learning Entry 3: MTSS Teams as the Engine)

MTSS Teams as the Engine: Driving Systems-Level Change

By Janine Gacke

March Series: The Science of Doing: Implementation to Excellence 

Estimated read time: ~7.5 minutes 

Implementation is not what we intend; it is what people experience.

Grounding Wonder: How do leaders and teams align implementation actions with current reality without losing people, purpose, or progress along the way?

Teams Carry What Individuals Cannot

As implementation moves beyond initial learning and early coaching support, systems often encounter a different kind of tension. Practices are in motion, expectations are more visible, and variability across classrooms and teams begins to take clearer shape. At this stage, the question is no longer whether individuals understand the work, but whether the system is equipped to carry it.

No single leader or educator can hold implementation alone. The complexity of sustaining practice across classrooms, roles, and contexts requires structures that extend beyond individual effort. Teams exist to meet that need. They provide a space where patterns can be noticed, where barriers can be surfaced, and where decisions can be made in ways that reflect the system rather than isolated experience.

Research on collective efficacy underscores the importance of this shared capacity. When leadership is distributed across teams and educators engage in coordinated problem-solving, systems demonstrate stronger and more consistent impact on student outcomes (Goddard et al., 2015; Leithwood et al., 2020). Implementation, in this sense, is not an individual responsibility to be managed. It is a collective function that must be supported through intentional teaming structures. Seen through this lens, teams are not an additional layer within the system. They are the mechanism through which the system learns and responds. To learn more about Teaming that Holds: Leadership’s Infrastructure, check out our January Series.

Implementation in Practice: What Teams Are Positioned to Notice

Within multi-tiered systems of support, teams occupy a critical position between classroom experience and system-level decision-making. As practices move into daily use, teams begin to encounter patterns that are not always visible through individual observation alone.

These patterns often emerge as subtle signals:

• variation in how practices are implemented across classrooms
• uncertainty about roles or expectations within a team
• uneven access to resources or support
• information that does not consistently reach decision-makers

In many systems, these signals are initially interpreted as isolated challenges. A classroom struggles with consistency. A team revisits the same question. An intervention appears to work in one context but not another. When viewed individually, these moments can feel disconnected or difficult to address. However, when teams are positioned to examine these experiences collectively, a different picture begins to emerge. What appears as individual variability often reflects broader system conditions. Differences in implementation may point to differences in training, access to materials, clarity of expectations, or alignment across roles.

I have sat with teams reviewing data where the most important insight was not the outcome itself, but the variation surrounding it. In one setting, a practice was embedded and produced consistent results. In another, the same practice appeared misaligned. The initial impulse was to identify who was implementing correctly. Yet the more productive shift occurred when the team began asking what conditions differed across those settings. Implementation science reinforces this shift in perspective. Outcomes are shaped not only by the selection of practices, but by the degree to which systems provide the support necessary for those practices to be used as intended (Fixsen et al., 2005). Without structures that allow teams to surface and interpret these patterns, variability can persist without clear direction for improvement. When teams are able to notice and name these patterns, the work of implementation becomes more coherent. Strain is no longer experienced as an isolated challenge, but as information the system can respond to.

Leadership & Coaching Practice: Ensuring Noticing Leads to Response

The presence of effective teams alone does not ensure system improvement. What matters is how the system responds to what those teams surface. Leaders play a critical role in establishing whether team-based noticing leads to meaningful action. When teams identify barriers or inconsistencies, leaders who are attentive to implementation respond by clarifying expectations, reallocating resources, and ensuring that decision-making processes are visible and consistent.

These responses do more than resolve immediate challenges. They communicate to teams that their work matters within the system. When feedback from teams leads to visible adjustment, engagement deepens. Teams are more likely to continue surfacing challenges, knowing that those challenges will be met with support rather than judgment. When feedback does not result in a response, however, teams may begin to narrow their focus or disengage from broader system concerns. 

Coaching continues to play an important role at this stage, not only in supporting individual educators but in strengthening team-level interpretation of data and practice. Coaches help teams distinguish between patterns that require system-level adjustment and those that can be addressed within existing structures. In doing so, they reinforce a learning orientation that extends beyond individual classrooms and into the broader system. Over time, these interactions contribute to the development of collective efficacy. Teams begin to experience that their shared efforts can influence outcomes, not because the work becomes easier, but because the system becomes more responsive to what they are learning together.

System & Structure Lens: Communication as Implementation Infrastructure

As teams take on a more central role in implementation, the importance of communication structures becomes increasingly visible. Communication is often treated as a secondary consideration, something that supports the work rather than something that shapes it. In practice, communication functions as a core component of implementation infrastructure. For teams to operate as effective stewards of implementation, systems must establish reliable pathways for how information moves across levels. These pathways allow teams to communicate progress, elevate barriers, and clarify responsibility in ways that extend beyond individual meetings or informal conversations.

When communication structures are well defined, information moves predictably. Teams understand where to bring challenges, how decisions are made, and how responses will return to inform their work. This predictability supports both efficiency and trust.

In the absence of these structures, systems often rely on informal communication. Information may travel through side conversations, isolated emails, or individual relationships. While these approaches can provide temporary solutions, they rarely produce the consistency needed for sustained implementation. Variability increases not because of a lack of effort, but because the system lacks a shared process for learning and responding. Implementation research consistently emphasizes the role of structured teams and communication pathways in supporting sustainable change (Fixsen et al., 2005; National Implementation Research Network, n.d.). Tools such as the District Capacity Assessment (DCA) highlight the importance of these conditions by examining whether systems have the infrastructure necessary to support implementation across levels. The question for leaders, then, is not simply whether teams exist within the system. It is whether those teams are connected through structures that allow the system to function as a coherent whole.

Reflect · Connect · Grow

Reflect (Sense-Making & Grounding)

• Where are teams already noticing strain, variability, or inconsistency that has not yet reached leadership awareness? What signals might be present but not yet fully named?

Connect (Systems Awareness & Patterns)

• How do feedback loops function across levels of your system? Where does information flow reliably—and where does it depend on informal workarounds or individual effort?

Grow (Intentional Direction)

• What communication routine or feedback loop could be strengthened to better support implementation? What small, system-aligned adjustment could ensure that team noticing leads to meaningful response?

Looking Forward

When teams are positioned to function as infrastructure and coaching supports coherent practice, one tension remains. Data: Not as compliance, or as evaluation alone, but as a tool for learning. In the next learning entry, we will examine how systems reclaim fidelity and measurement, not as scorecards, but as instruments for understanding and improving implementation over time.

References

Fixsen, D. L., Naoom, S. F., Blase, K. A., Friedman, R. M., & Wallace, F. (2005). Implementation research: A synthesis of the literature. University of South Florida.

Goddard, Y. L., Goddard, R. D., & Kim, E. S. (2015). Collective efficacy and student achievement: A meta-analysis. Educational Researcher, 44(2), 112–123.

Joyce, B., & Showers, B. (2002). Student achievement through staff development (3rd ed.). ASCD.

Leithwood, K., Harris, A., & Hopkins, D. (2020). Seven strong claims about successful school leadership revisited. School Leadership & Management, 40(1), 5–22.

Metz, A., & Bartley, L. (2012). Active implementation frameworks for program success. Zero to Three Journal, 32(4), 11–18.

National Implementation Research Network (NIRN). (n.d.). District Capacity Assessment (DCA) and Implementation Team Communication Protocol Worksheet. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

This week’s Leadership Knowledge Commons learning entry was curated by guest author Janine Gacke. Her work spans MTSS, Tier 3 behavior systems, Specially Designed Instruction (SDI), and statewide scaling of evidence-based practices. She has led teams through the complexity of interpreting behavior and implementation data in moments that carry high stakes for students and adults alike. Check out her leader and learner profile!