Branching Minds University: Courses for District Leaders and Educators

The School of Belonging, created by David Levine, author of Classrooms of Belonging, is designed for educators and other professionals who are passionate about creating schools and classrooms grounded in caring, compassion, connection, and belonging. Across four interconnected courses, participants will explore the conditions, skills, and practices that help create emotionally safe and empathic learning communities  where students feel safe, understood and listened to. The School of Belonging approach invites  course participants  to look beyond behavior to better understand the needs and experiences of young people, build trusting relationships, and create opportunities for every student to discover and express who they are and what they bring to the world.   Read more

Learn how to align your MTSS framework with your school improvement efforts so your priorities show up in daily practice. This course helps leaders connect improvement goals to team routines, data use, and instructional decisions. You will leave with a clear understanding of how MTSS enhances the structure and process of school improvement and implementation practices. Read more

Every day, students who could be in class are missing school - and by the time they reach middle and high school, those missed days start adding up in ways that are hard to reverse. This course will help you understand what chronic absenteeism really is, why secondary school is such a critical window for addressing it, and what tends to drive it, from logistics and health to disengagement and belonging. You'll learn a full range of strategies for responding, from school-wide Tier 1 practices that build a culture where showing up matters, to targeted Tier 2 supports, to intensive Tier 3 interventions for students with the most complex needs. Throughout, the focus stays on one core idea: the strongest attendance strategy is a trusted relationship, and every tier of support should build on that, not replace it. Read more

This course provides educators and school-based teams with a comprehensive introduction to behavior risk screening and the use of the Student Risk Screening Scale for Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors (SRSS-IE). Participants will explore the purpose and importance of proactive behavior screening within a Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS), learn how the SRSS-IE is structured and scored, and develop the skills needed to interpret results to inform tiered interventions. Read more

In this course, you’ll learn how to use a structured, data-based problem-solving process to make informed decisions that support all students within a Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS). We’ll walk through each step of the problem-solving process and show how these steps apply at Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3. Read more

In this course, educators learn how to expand behavior supports by building a flexible menu of evidence-based interventions. The course highlights practical strategies and system considerations that help teams match supports to student needs and implement them effectively within an MTSS framework. Read more