MTSS Awards & Hall of Fame
One Profession.
One Purpose.
Honoring the people and organizations advancing MTSS—and bringing our field together to improve outcomes for every student.
Education has no Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, or Academy Awards—no single tradition that brings together the people whose collective work changes what is possible for students.
We believe it is time to build one.
The MTSS Awards & Hall of Fame recognize the educators, leaders, researchers, schools, districts, technical assistance centers, educator preparation programs, and organizational partners whose work is moving our field forward.
But this is about more than recognition.
It is about coming together as a field.
Why MTSS brings us Together
For too long, education has worked in separate lanes—academics, behavior, social-emotional learning, attendance, mental health, and more.
But students do not experience these things separately.
IMA brings us together—connecting research, practice, leadership, and systems around one shared purpose: improving outcomes for every student.
Different expertise. Different roles.
One field moving forward together.
A New Tradition for our Field
On July 31, 2026, the International MTSS Association held the inaugural MTSS Awards Gala & Hall of Fame Induction—beginning a new tradition of honoring those advancing the science, practice, and systems that improve outcomes for students.
The first celebration of what we hope becomes a lasting tradition for our field.
Honoring the People Who Shaped What Is Possible
The MTSS Hall of Fame recognizes individuals whose contributions have had an enduring influence on the science, systems, practices, policies, and ideas that shape our work today.
It is more than a list of distinguished names.
It is a living history of our field—and an opportunity for future generations to understand the people and ideas that helped get us here.
Each inductee's story helps connect where we have been to where we are going next.
2026 MTSS Award HonoreesRecognizing Excellence Across the Field
Strong systems are built by people leading at every level.
The MTSS Awards recognize individuals, teams, schools, districts, institutions, agencies, and organizations demonstrating meaningful leadership, research, implementation, innovation, and impact.
Their areas of expertise may differ. What connects them is their contribution to a stronger, more unified system for improving outcomes for students.
2026 Award Honorees
Educator Preparation Award
Bill Rasplica, MSEd Program Coordinator
The ECSEL Program is recognized for setting the standard for rigorous educator preparation across the field. Dedicated to equipping future educators with complex multi-tiered skills, the program ensures practitioners can confidently implement data-based decision-making and instructional equity. By embedding these core competencies into foundational training, it empowers educators to effectively scale and sustain tiered systems of support that maximize student success.
ECSEL Program
Vendor-Partner Recognition
John Mighton, PhD Founder
JUMP Math is honored for its outstanding contribution as an IMA Partner developing high-quality, evidence-based tools and resources within the tiered framework tradition. The organization explicitly supports instructional precision and data-informed decision-making to foster equitable implementation. Through rigorous design and structured training, JUMP Math enables educational systems to build internal capacity, narrow achievement gaps, and significantly improve long-term student outcomes.
JUMP Math
System Innovation Leadership
Strategic Integrations Leader, Texas ECS 19
Dana Garza is celebrated for her exceptional system-level leadership in designing, scaling, and sustaining effective tiered frameworks. Recognized alongside fellow honorees for widespread operational excellence, her work focuses heavily on building internal system capacity across educational sectors. Garza's strategic guidance ensures that complex data-driven practices are translated smoothly into daily classroom realities, resulting in coherent, long-term, and profoundly equitable system improvement.
Dana Garza
System Innovation Leadership
Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement (CAREI) at University of Minnesota
Dr. Kim Gibbons is recognized for an extraordinary career advancing sustainable Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) through educational leadership and organizational systems improvement. Her influential work at CAREI helps educational systems build deep internal capacity for long-term, coherent, and equitable success. By bridging implementation science with real-world school structures, Dr. Gibbons has established premier national models for large-scale, sustainable tier execution.
Kim Gibbons, PhD
Kenneth W. Howell “Bridging Research-to-Practice” Award
Anita L. Archer, PhD
Educational Consultant and Author
Dr. Anita Archer is honored for her exceptional career excelling in the translation of complex research into usable, real-world practice for educators. Her monumental contributions to explicit instruction provide classroom-facing tools that ensure instructional precision across all tiers of support. Dr. Archer’s practical frameworks have empowered thousands of practitioners worldwide to implement highly effective, evidence-based interventions that reliably close student opportunity gaps.
Breadth of Impact Award
Michigan MTSS Center
Kim St. Martin, PhD
Michigan MTSS (MiMTSS) represents one of the most comprehensive, sustained, and influential statewide implementation systems in the world. Through decades of coordinated systems leadership, Michigan has successfully established a national model for large-scale, equitable, and sustainable Multi-Tiered Systems of Support. Their longitudinal, data-driven framework permanently minimizes student disparities and ensures robust, reliable access to high-fidelity tiered instruction across hundreds of school districts.
Sharon Vaughn, PhD
Manuel J. Justiz Endowed Chair in Education
Executive Director, The Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk
The University of Texas at Austin
Lifetime Impact Award
For more than three decades, Dr. Sharon Vaughn has helped shape how the field understands—and responds to—students with reading difficulties.
Her research has strengthened the evidence for effective reading instruction and intervention, particularly for students with disabilities, struggling readers, and English learners. Through large-scale studies conducted in real schools, she and her colleagues have helped move the field toward an increasingly important principle: When students struggle, our response should be grounded in evidence about the instruction and intervention most likely to help them succeed.
Her influence extends well beyond any single study. Through hundreds of publications, decades of federally funded research, the development and testing of interventions, and the work of the Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk, Dr. Vaughn has helped bridge research and classroom practice for educators across the country and around the world.
Her legacy is ultimately about possibility—the belief, supported by science, that effective instruction and timely intervention can change the trajectory of a student’s learning.
These awards do more than recognize excellence—they help the field see what is possible.
By elevating examples of strong research, leadership, implementation, and partnership, we celebrate work others can learn from and build upon.
Recognition becomes inspiration. Excellence becomes an example.
Recognition that Moves the Field Forward
Our VisionOne Field, Moving Forward Together
We believe MTSS can become the operating system for improving student outcomes—bringing academics, behavior, attendance, wellbeing, and the systems that support them into one coherent approach.
Our vision is for the MTSS Awards to become an annual tradition that brings together the people advancing that work—across research, practice, leadership, and partnership.
Different expertise. One shared system. Better outcomes for every student.
This is just the beginning.
The inaugural MTSS Awards marked the beginning of a new tradition—and Year Two starts now.
Join IMA, stay connected, and be part of what comes next as we continue to recognize excellence, unite the field, and strengthen outcomes for every learner.
Membership is free.