We face an uncomfortable truth about student success. While test scores and graduation rates grab headlines, mounting evidence reveals that our traditional measures tell only half the story. The other half—encompassing mental health, social-emotional learning, behavioral regulation, and sense of belonging—may actually be more predictive of long-term student outcomes than any academic standardized assessment we currently use.
The COVID-19 pandemic served as a catalyst, dramatically accelerating awareness of behavioral health's centrality to educational success. More than 80% of public schools report that the pandemic negatively impacted students' behavior and social-emotional development, creating what researchers describe as "a generation of students struggling with engagement and sense of belonging in ways that traditional ABC monitoring systems were never designed to address" (National Center for Education Statistics, 2022).
This disruption revealed the fragility of traditional educational approaches that compartmentalize academic and behavioral domains. Schools witnessed firsthand how social isolation, family stress, and uncertainty directly translated into learning difficulties, behavioral challenges, and decreased engagement—validating research on the interconnected nature of student wellbeing and academic success.
I had the honor of presenting alongside the MTSS team from San Diego Unified School District at both the Council of Great City Schools Curriculum, Research, and Instructional Leaders Conference in Detroit (Edra, Sakamoto, & Zywicki, 2025) and the California MTSS PLI Summit in Anaheim (Derige, Hoogerhyde, & Zywicki, 2025). Their approach to prioritizing wellness and mental health through Multi-Tiered Systems of Support exemplifies what happens when districts move beyond compliance-driven initiatives toward systematic, proactive wellness frameworks that can serve as a model for others to emulate.
The exceptional team from San Diego Unified brings together expertise spanning mental health services, MTSS implementation, school nursing, and special education. Their collaborative approach demonstrates how breaking down departmental silos and integrating services can create comprehensive support systems that truly address the whole child. If your district is struggling to navigate how to best serve the current middle schoolers, who missed out on foundational skills academically and non-academically during the pandemic, San Diego is your lighthouse.
Universal Screening: From Theory to Practice
Long before SAEBRS became part of the Renaissance Learning ecosystem, I utilized this social, academic, and emotional behavior screener in my own districts and witnessed firsthand its effectiveness in identifying students who need additional support. The tool provides teachers with a brief, reliable method to identify students at risk across multiple domains. SAEBRS has been validated through extensive research demonstrating strong psychometric properties, including sensitivity rates of .88–.94 and specificity rates of .75–.94 for grades 1–8 (Kilgus et al., 2016; von der Embse et al., 2016). The National Center on Intensive Intervention recognizes SAEBRS as meeting their rigorous psychometric criteria for behavioral screening tools, making it a trusted choice for districts implementing comprehensive MTSS frameworks (National Center on Intensive Intervention, n.d.).
San Diego Unified's comprehensive wellness continuum, which includes SAEBRS as a core screening component, demonstrates this evolution in practice. As their presentation at the California MTSS Summit illustrated, the district has aligned their approach with the California MTSS Framework's Whole Child Domain, integrating Inclusive Academic Instruction, Inclusive Behavior Instruction, and Inclusive Transformative Social-Emotional Instruction and Mental Health Support Features (Derige, Hoogerhyde, & Zywicki, 2025). Moving beyond the traditional "ABC" early warning system (Attendance, Behavior, Course Completion), they now incorporate multi-dimensional risk factors including family status, learner profiles, and trauma indicators. Their MTSS framework positions wellness at the center of a thriving system of support, with literacy, math, and college/career readiness radiating from a core focus on student wellness. This continuum of care spans all three tiers: universal supports including schoolwide wellness campaigns and mental health literacy lessons; targeted supports through small groups and drop-in wellness centers; and individualized supports with therapy referrals and wraparound teams. The district's vision—"meeting students where they are with proactive, layered wellness supports from prevention to intervention"—recognizes that equity, belonging, and economic self-sufficiency emerge when wellness becomes the foundation rather than an add-on to academic instruction.
The district's implementation of wellness centers across elementary, middle, and high schools exemplifies the tiered support model in action. Elementary schools leverage existing SEL curricula like Second Step and Leader in Me while incorporating family wellness programs. Middle schools provide wellness team members who offer drop-in wellness spaces, skill-building workshops, and mentorship programs. High schools feature fully staffed wellness centers providing self-regulation education, care navigation, and behavioral health workshops. As the district emphasizes, this creates "a dedicated space for students to self-regulate, connect with trusted adults, and engage in wellness practices—available to all students as part of a healthy school culture" (Derige, Hoogerhyde, & Zywicki, 2025).
What San Diego Unified demonstrates is how systematic implementation of universal screening can drive more targeted, effective interventions while ensuring no student falls through the cracks. This approach moves beyond reactive crisis management to prevention based on predictive factors.
Comprehensive Framework Implementation
In "Portrait of a Graduate: How to use whole child MTSS to provide the academic and non-academic support every student needs for success," we outline how a comprehensive MTSS system must include universal screening that reconciles academic and non-academic data to allow educators to see the whole child without bias, resources to identify skill gaps and implement interventions at multiple levels, progress monitoring to ensure interventions work at sufficient rates, and reliable tools to evaluate effectiveness across districts (Zywicki, Kulich, & Chintala, 2025).
As Posamentier (2021) argues in advocating for social-emotional learning as "the fifth core," universal SEL should not be thought to replace targeted mental health interventions but to serve in complement to them, commonly under an MTSS framework. This approach follows the prevention paradox principle: "a large number of people exposed to a small risk may generate many more cases [of an undesirable outcome] than a small number exposed to a high risk." Universal SEL protects against emotional distress for young people, enhances positive attitudes and prosocial behaviors, and enables them to manage mental health challenges.
Evidence-Based Interventions
A recent Education Week article illuminates a behaviorist’s perspective on intervention, showing that effective intervention requires understanding that concerning behaviors often communicate unmet needs (Haring, 2025). Current research demonstrates that MTSS effectively organizes behavioral supports across universal (Tier 1), targeted (Tier 2), and intensive (Tier 3) levels while emphasizing data-based decision making, fidelity, and progress monitoring (Bradshaw et al., 2012; Simonsen et al., 2022).
Large-scale experimental studies show that Tier 1 PBIS can reduce behavior problems and suspensions, though effects vary across outcomes and depend on implementation fidelity (Bradshaw et al., 2012). National data linking PBIS fidelity with discipline outcomes suggest schools implementing PBIS with fidelity are less likely to suspend students with disabilities (Simonsen et al., 2022).
Check-In/Check-Out (CICO) represents the most studied Tier 2 behavioral support in MTSS. Component analysis research has clarified which elements, including morning "check-in," daily feedback, and reinforcement at "check-out," drive impact (Campbell & Anderson, 2011). Systematic reviews indicate that "function-modified" CICO—linking supports to behavior function—yields stronger outcomes than one-size-fits-all versions (Klingbeil et al., 2019).
Meta-analytic evidence demonstrates that Function-Behavioral Assessment (FBA)–based interventions produce large reductions in problem behaviors for students with or at risk for emotional and behavioral disorders in school settings (Gage et al., 2012). Classroom studies demonstrate that special educators can be trained to conduct trial-based functional analyses and deliver differential reinforcement of alternative behavior with high fidelity, producing reductions in challenging behavior (Flynn & Lo, 2016). The Prevent–Teach–Reinforce (PTR) model packages FBA-linked, team-based planning into a standardized school process, with randomized controlled trial evidence showing improved social skills and academic engagement while reducing problem behavior (Iovannone et al., 2009).
A Convergence of Critical Support
What makes this moment particularly significant is the unprecedented convergence of support from multiple sectors. Recent research published in JAMA Network Open reveals that 30.5% of surveyed public schools (n = 1019) now operate under district policies mandating mental health screening (Cantor et al., 2025). When students are identified with anxiety or depression, schools demonstrate substantial commitment to intervention: 79.3% notify parents, 72.3% provide in-person treatment, and 53.0% facilitate referrals to community mental health professionals.
What should stop every educator in their tracks: The U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center, in collaboration with the Center on PBIS, recently concluded that "MTSS frameworks represent the most effective approach to creating both physically and emotionally safe learning environments."
Their research demonstrates that "Multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) like Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) can provide a framework for a BTAM team to extend options for prevention and intervention" (National Threat Assessment Center & Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, 2025).
When federal law enforcement independently researches educational practices and concludes that comprehensive behavioral support systems create safer schools, we need to pay attention. This finding provides compelling evidence that investing in student behavioral health serves dual purposes: promoting academic success and enhancing community safety.
Architecture of Student Success Systems
The Secret Service report outlines critical implementation components across tiers. Universal supports require "core, universal (Tier 1) PBIS elements to better understand schoolwide and classroom expectations, acknowledgment and appreciation systems, and response to behaviors" while targeted interventions need "mental health first aid" and "de-escalation techniques." Intensive supports demand expertise in "functional behavioral assessment and behavior intervention planning" as well as "behavioral threat assessment and management (BTAM)" (National Threat Assessment Center & Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, 2025).
Critical to this framework is the systematic use of data for decision-making. Teams utilize "multiple sources of data (e.g., attendance, discipline, academic, staff/student/family surveys, and rates of students experiencing homelessness) to assess strengths and needs within the school community" (National Threat Assessment Center & Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, 2025). This comprehensive data approach enables schools to identify patterns and predict trajectories before crisis intervention becomes necessary.
A great deal of the work I engage in to support many of the nation's largest districts centers on the use of Renaissance's MTSS architecture platform eduCLIMBER, which includes risk-ratio analysis as well as incident and intervention analysis. Research has demonstrated eduCLIMBER's impact on reducing the obstacles and time-consuming challenges of MTSS implementation (Maddock, Eadens, & Torres, 2025). This platform exemplifies how districts can integrate academic and non-academic data to create comprehensive pictures of student needs and systematically monitor the effectiveness of their interventions across all tiers of support.
The Path Forward
The convergence of educational research, law enforcement advocacy, and practical implementation frameworks creates unprecedented opportunity for systemic transformation. As the joint Secret Service-PBIS research concludes, "Together, BTAM and MTSS/PBIS teams can create more cohesive and comprehensive approaches to student safety and well-being and build safer, more supportive environments for all students" (National Threat Assessment Center & Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, 2025).
State departments of education are recognizing this imperative and acting on it. New York State has recently adopted their Portrait of a Graduate framework specifically designed to capture whole child measures, joining a growing movement that acknowledges traditional metrics alone cannot adequately assess student readiness for life beyond graduation. The framework, presented to the Board of Regents in July 2025, positions culturally responsive and sustaining education at its center while emphasizing six key attributes: academically prepared, creative innovator, critical thinker, effective communicator, global citizen, and reflective and future focused. This represents a fundamental shift in how educational success is defined and measured, placing equal emphasis on academic achievement and the social-emotional-behavioral competencies essential for navigating an increasingly complex world.
Similarly, Tennessee has developed comprehensive resources through their RTI²-A+RTI²-B framework, which intentionally connects academic (RTI²-A) and behavioral (RTI²-B) supports rather than implementing them in isolation. As Tennessee's framework emphasizes, "Because students' academic and behavior needs can be related, it is important for schools to implement the frameworks together" (Tennessee Technical Support Center, 2025). Their approach provides extensive resources for behavior intervention planning and school climate improvement, demonstrating how states can build robust support systems that address the holistic needs of all students through aligned leadership, assessment, data-based decision making, and intervention components.
While 38.1% of principals reported ensuring appropriate mental health care for students as "very easy or somewhat easy," 40.9% describe this responsibility as "very hard or somewhat hard" (Cantor et al., 2025). This disparity reflects both the growing recognition of non-academic needs and the persistent challenges in addressing them effectively.
The evidence is clear: non-academic factors serve as powerful predictors of student outcomes across multiple domains. The frameworks and tools necessary for addressing these factors systematically exist and continue to evolve based on research evidence (Zywicki, Kulich, & Chintala, 2025). The critical question facing educational leaders is not whether to implement these approaches, but how rapidly systems can transform to leverage this predictive capacity to benefit ALL learners.
Dr. Robert R. Zywicki is the Superintendent in Residence at Rutgers University's Center for Effective School Practices and a Senior Director with Renaissance Learning. He is the author of the forthcoming All Paths Lead to Graduation: Fulfilling the Promise of an Education in America, published by the MTSS Leadership Network.
References
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