A Child Study Team (CST) —also referred to as a Student Support Team, Pupil Personnel Team, Student Intervention Team, Child Assistance Team, or MTSS/RTI Team—plays an essential role in the student support process.
Typically comprised of staff members with specialized training, members of a Child Study Team liaise with teachers regarding students who need additional learning or behavioral assistance. In addition to evaluating students, Child Study Teams recommend strategies to meet a student's needs and collaborate with caregivers on an integrated approach to their social, emotional, and academic well-being.
Whether you're forming your school district's first Child Study Team or looking to improve your existing CST processes, this article will equip you with knowledge and tools to effectively support learners.
Use the CST Action Planning Template and intervention planning data protocol below to design your CST structures and practices.
Table of Contents
Key Takeaways:
A Child Study Team (CST) is a local school team that evaluates and develops plans for students in need of additional academic or social-emotional services. Child Study Team members may consist of various staff members and educators, including: a school psychologist, school social worker, a child’s classroom teacher, principal, special education teacher, school nurse, speech/language therapist, guidance counselor, or learning disabilities teacher-consultant (LDTC).
The roles and responsibilities of the Child Study Team will vary based on school and district needs. In general, CSTs are responsible for the planning and delivery of educational programs for students who may need support beyond a general education setting. For example, Child Study Team members might:
Set a strong foundation for how your Child Study Team will support students using the Action Planning Template below! You can also access this CST Action Planning Template as a Google Doc.
Reflect on your school or district's goals or priorities for the Child Study Team process and record any focus areas that come to mind in the box below. This could include improvements you want to make to your existing processes, or general goal setting if you are just getting started with CSTs.
Use the questions below to guide your thinking and conversation around optimizing your CST.
When and Where?
Who?
What?
How?
Norms
Data is a critical part of the Child Study Team intervention process. Let’s walk through a typical Child Study Team cycle, focusing on how to use data to identify, support, and monitor students.
Imagine that your school or district is holding its first-ever cycle of CST meetings. In preparation for this meeting time, the first step is to make a list of students who should be referred to the CST or enrolled in Tier 2 based on data.
To do so, you might cross-reference data across grades, assessments, behavior, social-emotional learning (SEL), and attendance. Which students may be eligible for additional support or special education services? Which students are already receiving supports? If they aren't, what interventions should we provide? Make a list of those students to bring to the first CST meeting.
Discussion Questions:
Pro Tip: If your school district uses Panorama Student Success for CSTs, you can use Success to filter student data across academics, SEL, behavior, and attendance. Once you've identified students for CST, you can share a "smart group" of those students with school personnel to ensure the students remain on everyone’s radar.
Once you have a newly identified student (or students) eligible for Tier 2, you may spend time during the CST meeting reviewing and planning supports for the student.
For example, let's say you have a student, Finley, who is displaying behavioral difficulties and has self-reported no strengths in SEL (learn more about how to measure SEL). Looking at both of these areas can offer a more holistic picture of what is going on for Finley.
Your team may decide to create an intervention plan for Finley with the goal of supporting a specific area of SEL, emotion regulation. For example: “Finley will successfully participate in 80 percent of each week’s partner activities without any physical escalations.”
Discussion Questions:
Pro Tip: If your school district uses Panorama Student Success, CST members can create individual or group intervention plans in one platform. These plans will display on the student's profile.
Over the course of the intervention cycle, it's important for adults to regularly monitor student progress. (Learn more about the fundamentals of progress monitoring.)
With the example of Finley, an adult on CST can set aside time on Fridays to add progress monitoring updates. These updates can consist of qualitative or quantitative notes so that relevant school personnel can gain context on how the intervention is playing out.
Examples of progress monitoring notes:
1/22/21 : “Week 1: Finley was excited to have Skyler as a peer buddy, and quickly got to work in the lab. They didn't need to use their non-verbal signal to ask for breaks, but mentioned that they really wanted to be the person who lit the bunsen burner, and didn't want to be the one to take notes. In their social skills group, we worked on naming our needs, which Finley was really clear at. ~60 percent positive participation.” (Progressing)
2/19/21: “Week 5: Finley has been extremely positive in class since beginning to use their signal more frequently. They’re self regulating, sharing what made them frustrated, and how they wanted to help solve it instead of fighting. Skyler gave them a shout out at the end of the lab, and Finley was visibly proud. They are starting to become a model for their peers in the lunch bunch.” 100% positive participation. (Progressing)
Discussion Questions:
Pro Tip: If your school district uses Panorama Student Success, CST members can make progress monitoring updates on intervention plans right on a student's profile, which are visible to anyone on the child's team.
At a future CST meeting, you might discuss the progress made by students and decide to "exit" students from intervention and mark the goal as "met" for particular students.
Here are a few potential actions to take based on student progress:
To wrap-up the CST meeting, your team might also spend a few minutes analyzing the school-wide efficacy of interventions. This can highlight best practices, interventions that are working well, and/or interventions that can be discontinued over time.
Discussion Questions:
Pro Tip: If your school district uses Panorama Student Success, navigate to the Interventions Summary page for a school or district-wide overview of interventions in progress, intervention effectiveness, and other important data to optimize CST practices.
Frequently Asked Questions:
1. What is the purpose of a Child Study Team (CST) in schools?
The purpose of a CST is to evaluate and develop plans for students who may need additional academic or social-emotional support beyond the general education setting. CST members collaborate to identify students' needs, recommend interventions, and monitor progress to ensure student success.
2. Who typically serves on a Child Study Team?
A Child Study Team may include various staff members and educators with specialized training, such as a school psychologist, school social worker, classroom teacher, principal, special education teacher, school nurse, speech/language therapist, guidance counselor, or learning disabilities teacher-consultant (LDTC).
3. How does a Child Study Team determine which students need support?
CSTs use a data-driven approach to identify students who may benefit from additional support. They analyze data across academic performance, behavior, social-emotional learning, and attendance to screen and identify students who may need intervention or referral to special education programs.
4. What is the process for creating intervention plans within a Child Study Team?
The process typically involves setting SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, timely) goals based on students' needs, designing targeted intervention strategies, assigning responsibilities for implementation, and regularly monitoring progress. Plans are tailored to meet each student's unique needs and goals.
5. How does a Child Study Team monitor the effectiveness of interventions?
CSTs regularly monitor students' progress toward their goals through progress monitoring data, observation, and feedback from teachers and caregivers. Based on the outcomes, the team may adjust interventions, exit students from support programs, or escalate support as needed to ensure intervention efficacy.
