What You’ll Learn

• How Medway operationalized the “fourth tier” of MTSS — the integration layer between clinical mental health work and academic teams — and why most districts are missing it.
• The specific academic outcomes Medway achieved through integrated mental health infrastructure, including the GPA data superintendents need to make the case to their boards.
• An honest practitioner account of what was hard, what surprised the team, and what Armand would do differently if he were starting over.
• How to choose a clinical partner that can integrate with your existing MTSS systems, scale with your district, and deliver outcomes you can defend.
• A peer-superintendent perspective on demonstrating ROI to leadership and community stakeholders — and connecting mental health investment to the metrics your district is evaluated on.

Why This Matters

District leaders are evaluated on chronic absenteeism, graduation rates, suspension rates, and academic achievement. The data is clear: the students driving those metrics are the same students struggling with untreated mental health needs.

Mental health support that operates with the same rigor as academic intervention doesn’t compete with academic priorities — it advances them. A 5-percentage-point lift in GPA outcomes can be the difference between a B-rated district and a C-rated district. That’s not a clinical metric. That’s the metric your board, your community, and your state are watching.

Medway’s results are proof that the work is possible. This conversation is for superintendents and district leaders who have read the research, understood the argument, and now want to see what implementation actually looks like.

Meet the Speakers

Dr. Armand Pires — Superintendent, Medway Public Schools (MA) | 2025 Massachusetts Superintendent of the Year

Armand Pires is the Superintendent of Medway Public Schools and the 2025 Massachusetts Superintendent of the Year, recognized for his leadership in building integrated student support systems that connect mental health, behavioral health, and academic achievement. He is co-author of The Fourth Tier: A Practitioner’s Guide to MTSS and Mental Health— a book that argues the standard three-tier MTSS model is incomplete without integrated clinical infrastructure. Under his leadership, Medway has become a Massachusetts reference point for how districts can build mental health support that delivers measurable academic outcomes.

Jillian Kelton, M.Ed. — Director of District Engagement, Cartwheel

Jillian has devoted more than 22 years to creating educational environments where every student can thrive. Before joining Cartwheel, she served as Chief of Student Support at Boston Public Schools, where she led district-wide student support strategy across 118 schools and 48,000 students. She co-led The Double Standard conversation with Dr. Adrian Talley that frames this practitioner follow-up. Jillian moderates this webinar with the lens of a former superintendent’s-office leader who has lived the operational realities Superintendent Pires will describe.

About This Conversation

This is a Cartwheel-hosted conversation featuring Medway Public Schools, a current Cartwheel partner. Medway’s story includes their work with Cartwheel, and that partnership is referenced openly throughout the discussion. Our intent is to give Superintendents and district leaders an honest peer account of what integrated mental health support looks like in practice. The conversation is the second installment in our Double Standard series, building on the framework introduced by Dr. Adrian Talley and Jillian Kelton.

You may also be interested in