What We Understand About the Student Support Meeting (SSM) and IST

Mamaroneck has structures in place to support teachers in implementing instructional interventions to remediate and accelerate student progress. Through Student Support Meetings (also referred to as "team meetings") and Instructional Support Team protocols, teachers, support staff, specialists and administrators come together to share data from universal screenings, ongoing informal assessments and student work to inform decision-making. The purpose is to collectively plan for specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely instructional interventions to target areas of need. The team develops an action plan which is closely monitored over a specific amount of time to determine the effectiveness of the interventions implemented. As a case progresses from Student Support Meetings to Instructional Support Team meetings, the level of diagnostic assessment and problem-solving increases to understand and plan for students who are not responding to targeted interventions and who therefore need a specialized approach to learning.

Student Support Meeting

The purpose of the Student Support Meeting is to provide a supportive setting in which referring teachers and/or counselors can describe problems that their students are encountering, and have team members assist by recommending useful and realistic classroom curriculum or instructional interventions. The Student Support Meeting can provide staff with support while providing a structured forum for problem solving. 

Instructional Support Team

The IST serves as a committee to document previous interventions and continued problem solving. The IST assesses student performance, develops an Instructional Support Plan for students experiencing learning difficulties, and monitors student progress with specific interventions across disciplines and grades. Depending on the circumstance, the multi-disciplinary IST can include the following members: general education classroom teachers, special education teachers, speech and language specialist, psychologist, administrator, parent, reading specialist, occupational therapist, social worker, ESL teacher, physical therapist, coaches, etc., to share their area of expertise.

The IST meeting process includes the following:

• Introduce the issue and process
• Hear statement from referring teacher/counselor
  • Share student strengths and interests
  • Share concerns
  • Share pertinent data (e.g. universal screening results, informal running records, conferences notes, classroom observations, student work samples, standardized test results, achievement report ratings)
• Group discussion
  • Ask clarifying questions (i.e., What does student know? What can student do? How does student think? What does he/she do when struggling?)
  • Identify priorities/issues
• Brainstorm interventions
• Select realistic strategies/interventions
• Write an Instructional Support Plan (ISP) that describes measurable interventions
• Determine follow up, assign responsibilities, and close meeting
• Schedule follow up meeting review interventions
• Parent receives a copy of the ISP