Educator Wellness Podcast · Scanlan Center for School Mental Health, University of Iowa

Reimagining MTSS: A Pathway to Whole School Well-Being

·48 min·3 clips

Students are not passive learners; they are architects of their own development.

Wellness is the starting point. The host treats the show as a place where educators can talk plainly about well-being, hopes, joys, fears, sorrows, laughter, and support. MTSS gets stretched in a useful way. Instead of keeping the framework student-only, the conversation keeps coming back to the whole school community. The basic pieces are autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Here, they become a way to think about healthier student development at school. Choice matters. The guests talk about students making decisions, sharing opinions, and taking responsibility in their learning. Competence needs more than another worksheet. The conversation gets into challenge, feedback, achievement, and whether assignments connect with students' skills and interests. Relationships carry real weight too. Positive social interaction is treated as part of healthy development, not something extra after academics are handled. The tone stays close to educators' daily reality. The host brings in children, boredom, school assignments, and the pull between research language and classroom life. MTSS comes through as something worth reimagining. The close returns to systems, supports, and frameworks that can hold student mental well-being and educator wellness together. Educators are not off to the side. They sit with students inside the same school community and the same wellness system. The promise is a connected frame for mental well-being and educator support.

As heard by us

A grounded case for treating MTSS as shared school wellness.

This episode takes MTSS beyond intervention and into schoolwide wellness, linking student and educator wellbeing to the daily life of classrooms and school communities. Drs.

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Why you'd press play

Want a reimagined MTSS conversation about student wellbeing that also keeps educator wellness in frame?

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