The Palmetto Education Summit 2026

A well-planned and implemented Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) will ensure that goals, resources, and practices are aligned and cohesive, ensuring positive student outcomes. Data turns MTSS from a framework into a force. When goals, resources, and practices line up with what your data is telling you, students grow. This session digs into how to use data at every layer of MTSS: universal screening, progress monitoring, tiered decisions, and where you put your time and money. MTSS is way more than tiered instruction. It runs on intentional planning, regular data review, and deliberate choices that keep student outcomes at the center of every call. Growth takes work. Big growth happens when the system is strong, and the system gets strong when data leads.

This session examines South Carolina's statewide LETRS implementation through a comprehensive literacy leadership lens. Through a policy overview and spotlights from districts at different stages of the LETRS journey, presenters share real data, honest reflections on challenges, and practical tools that illustrate what it takes to align leadership, assessment, professional development, instruction, intervention, and family engagement into a sustainable literacy system. Attendees leave with a structured reflection tool to assess their own district's strengths and next steps.

By the time students reach the upper elementary and secondary levels, an assumption is made that all students are automatic and accurate with decoding. But what happens when the foundational floor drops out? For many students, reading difficulties that were once hidden emerge. This session tackles the phenomenon of Late-Emerging Reading Difficulties. We will move beyond the myth that literacy intervention is "too late" for older students and instead focus on the evidence-backed instructional shifts required to accelerate growth. We'll examine how to diagnose the root cause of comprehension issues, explore the type of instruction that will accelerate student mastery of these foundational skills, and discuss the systems level decisions that are needed to drive instructional practice and ensure student success.