CONVERGENT SYSTEMS INSTITUTE
Build Sustainable MTSS and Special Populations Systems That Deliver for Students
Convergent Systems Institute specializes in supporting educators and designing organizational infrastructure for student success.
CSI builds MTSS and Special Populations systems that stay standing year after year for students in special education, multilingual learners, students on 504 plans, and every learner who needs more to grow.
THE CHALLENGE
Evidence of Investment is Present. Infrastructure is Not.
Districts invest heavily in MTSS and Special Populations training, intervention platforms, and coordinator roles. Yet implementation stays inconsistent, and the systems meant to catch students early break down where they matter most. Research explains the cause.
Only 35%
of districts report having a well established MTSS despite over 70% reporting that the framework is used locally.
MTSS Center, American Institutes for Research
#1 Gap
Progress monitoring is consistently rated among the lowest implemented components of MTSS in national fidelity data. Without it, teams cannot tell whether interventions are working, and students move through the tiers on perception instead of data.
MTSS Center, American Institutes for Research
1 in 6
About 15 percent of all public school students, roughly 7.5 million children, receive special education and related services under IDEA. They are the ones who feel it first when the systems meant to catch them break down.
National Center for Education Statistics, 2024
The problem is not effort, funding, or intent. It is systems architecture. When MTSS and Special Populations operate as separate intervention systems, neither one works the way it should.
THE MIND BEHIND IT
Brandy Washington
Brandy Washington has spent nearly twenty years inside schools and districts, and she has sat in almost every seat that matters. Brandy started in the classroom as a teacher assistant, was named Teacher of the Year, and rose to lead special education and academic intervention across large urban districts and charter networks. Through the work led with those teams, Brandy ensured students did not slip through the cracks the system was built to catch.
What Brandy learned across all those seats is that MTSS and Special Populations are almost always run as two separate operations, and students feel it when neither one works the way it should. Brandy founded Convergent Systems Institute to bring those systems together. The architecture CSI builds is grounded in evidence and designed to survive turnover, leadership changes, and the hard years, so support keeps reaching the students it was always meant to reach.
OUR approach
Four Frameworks, One Clear Progression
1. ProgressMonitorED, Diagnose
Data and Assessment
2. AdoptED and ScalED, Implement
Implementation
3. CultivatED and EquippED, Coach
Coaching and Development
4. AnchorED, Sustain
Sustainability and Tools
OUR PROCESS
Customized Partnerships
Every district is different in size, structure, and where current systems stand today, so every CSI partnership is customized. The work follows one clear progression of assessing, strategizing, building, deploying, and evaluating.
Each engagement begins with the ProgressMonitorED diagnostic, so both sides know exactly where the systems stand, and the scope is shaped from there around the district students, staff, and goals. Ongoing evaluation is built into every partnership, including impact checkpoints at six months and one year.
SYSTEM SUCCESS
Evidence Rooted in Real Implementation
98.2%
State Compliance Success
Houston ISD, 55 campuses. The challenge revolved around legacy deficiencies in special education support and compliance. CSI engineered operational frameworks that turned those deficiencies into a model of continuous high achievement.
83%
Intervention Deployment Speed
YES Prep Public Schools, 24 campuses. The challenge involved intervention support that varied from site to site. CSI built a multi tier, multi year structure that ensured nearly every location met fidelity standards for student support.
Teacher of the Year 2015
ISTE and ACSD Faculty Member
Keynote Panelist and Presenter
This impact is not incidental. This is the architecture.
Who Convergent Systems Institute Partners With
Convergent Systems Institute partners with four sectors, and in the end they all want the same thing for the students who need the most help to actually get it.
CSI collaborates with four sectors to develop resilient educational frameworks. Convergent Systems Institute structures MTSS and Special Populations for districts aiming to transition from regulation to real results via guidance, training, and specialized tools.
School Districts and Networks
CSI builds coordinated MTSS and Special Populations systems campuses can actually run. The system holds steady across every site and keeps working after the contract ends.
EdTech Companies
CSI brings the practitioner eye a product needs, with honest feedback and strategic guidance from leadership that ran these systems inside districts.
Nonprofit Education Organizations
CSI helps education funders back intervention models that are proven and built to last, so the investment shows up as real systems on the ground and real results for students.
Keynotes and Events
CSI speaks from the district seat on the real architecture underneath MTSS and Special Populations, delivered by a leader who has done the work.