Caring Communities and Positive Behavioral Interventions and Support

Caring Communities and Positive Behavioral Interventions and Support (PBIS)

Module 6: Taylor Sheehan, Alexa Buckley, and Katrina Kataftos

What is PBIS? Why is it Important?

• What is it?
• establishing behavioral supports needed for all students and a way to create a school community for the best social, emotional, and academic success for all students
• 3 tier system to help support behavioral and social needs
• It can support and improve personal lifestyles within the school community
• Targets undesired behavior to have it occur less and increase positive and desired behaviors in the school and classroom

• Why is it important?
• Why should we teach students to “be good” and support their behavioral needs?
• Create a place where positive behaviors are part of daily living
• Teach expectations and give rewards when those expectations are followed
• Positivity has been proven to work better than negative punishments for behaviors

How to Strengthen Community in a School

• An excellent education creates better employees, college students, supporters, and consumers. 
• one of three key components to the district has support to train, coach, and evaluate schools and their success

• Continue ability of the school to decrease office discipline referrals is ensured.
• The number one priority of the classroom atmosphere is making learning the number one activity

• Having community and business investment is a great way for to ensure parental involvement.
• Ex: Having a local businesses give a discount or prize for exemplary behavior

• Positive media coverage can also assist with support

Tiers of Intervention

• Tier 1 (ALL)
• Consists of rules, routines, and physical arrangements that are developed and taught by school staff to prevent initial occurrences of behavior the school would like to target

• Focuses on the school as a whole and how they can implement positive behavior interventions and supports throughout the whole school

• Works for over 80% of all students in a given school. However no intervention works across the board for all students, for this reason sometimes more intensive interventions are needed.

• Tier 2 (SOME)
• Used to reduce current cases of problem behaviors. 
• Focuses on the classroom as opposed to school wide behavior problems.

• Tier 3 (FEW)


• Used to reduce complications, intensity, and severity of current cases. 
• Focuses on individuals who are experiencing severe behavioral problems.

 










Supporting Social and Emotional Needs

The teaching strategies below give concrete approaches for promoting social-emotional development in your classroom.

Strategy 1: Relationships and Social Interactions with Peers

-Child interacts competently and cooperatively with other children and develops friendships with several peers

Strategy 2: Social and Emotional Understanding

- Child shows developing understanding of people’s behavior, feelings, thoughts and individual characteristics.

Strategy 3: Conflict Negotiation (Problem Solving)

-Child shows increasing understanding of the needs of other children and is increasingly able to consider alternatives and to negotiate constructively.

Strategy 4: Child Regulates Emotions and Behaviors

-Child increasingly develops strategies for regulating feelings and behavior based on adult guidance.

Strategy 5: Engagement and Persistence

-Child persists in understanding and mastering a self-selected activity, even if it is challenging or difficult.

Strategy 6: Responsible Conduct

-Child develops skill in acting as a responsible group member and behaving in a fair and socially acceptable manner, regulating behavior according to classroom rules.

Strategy 7: Integrated Approaches for English Language Development and Family Engagement

Classroom Management

• What is it?
• a process where teachers and schools create an atmosphere where appropriate behaviors of students are practiced and maintained in a classroom setting
• The purpose of implementing these management strategies is to increase the positive behaviors leading to an increase in the social climate of a classroom and more student engagement in their learning.

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  Strategies for the Classroom
• “6 Key Principles”
• Invest time at the beginning
• develop a behavioral management plan BEFORE school begins
• Focus on the positive behaviors
• focus on those who are doing the right thing
• Teach with quality instruction
• create interesting and innovative lessons within the instructional range for all students to keep students better engaged
• Provide supports
• be prepared to give additional supports for academic and behavioral needs
• Be educative, not vindictive
• focus on helping students learn and find their own strategies to manage their behavior, do not take their comments to heart
• Be persistent and consistent
• no quick fixes, teachers need to remain consistent with their positive behavior implementations to see the changes in the long run

• Rules and Expectations
• state in a positive way, use simply and student friendly terminology, make measurable goals for students to obtain, and make sure to repeat and be consistent with these rules and expectations
• Consequences
• make sure consequences for misbehavior are clear and understandable, relate back directly to the rules and expectations
• positive consequences are used to reward students for following directions and positive behaviors
• negative consequences are used after a student violates a rule or behavior
• Create an action plan

• create a toolkit to display the rules, expectations, desired behaviors, and supports for a classroom, teach these to students, share with other professionals to receive input, and review and revise the plan throughout the school year

Behavioral Management Theories and Practices, Which are the MOST Effective?

“In the past, school-wide discipline has focused mainly on reacting to specific student misbehavior by implementing punishment-based strategies including reprimands, loss of privileges, office referrals, suspensions, and expulsions" (PBIS.org)

• Implementation of punishment and no implementation of the positive strategies first is ineffective. 

• The teacher first needs to model and then reinforce positive social behaviors so that students have a positive mindset of the expectations before they go about making a wrong decision

An interactive approach that includes opportunities to correct and improve four key elements is used in school-wide PBIS focusing on:  

1) Outcomes, 2) Data, 3) Practices, and 4) Systems.  

• Outcomes: academic and behavior targets that are endorsed and emphasized by students, families, and educators.  
• Data: information that is used to identify status, need for change, and effects of interventions.  
• Practices: interventions and strategies that are evidence based.  
• Systems: supports that are needed to enable the accurate and durable implementation of the practices of PBIS.

Legal Requirements and Procedures of Developing and Implementing School-Wide Behavior Supports and IEPs

THE PROCESS:

1. Establish Commitment and Maintain Team:  

a.  Establish a site-based PBIS leadership team with strong administrative support and school-wide representation such as behavior professionals and other professional support staff

b.  Be sure to have a complete team: including a principal who agrees to be trained once a year for a full day at the district office, and a second possible collaboration day second semester.

c.  In the first few years of implementation, the PBIS team meets twice a month and then every 3-4 weeks afterwards to make sure that the new implementations in the classroom are working.  

2. Establish School wide Behavior Expectations:  

a.  Develop 3-5 behavior expectations that are applied school-wide and apply to all students and staff.

b. Develop a school-wide behavioral environment composed of approximately 20 or fewer behavior rules that are aligned to the 3-5 behavior expectations. These rules are said to be posted in specific locations in the school where the most problem behaviors occur.
c. rules should be specific, measurable, age appropriate, and stated in a positive manner

d.  Teach expected behaviors using a direct instructional approach: explain, model, incorporate different teaching modalities, allow time for role play/practice, and give reminders and prompts/pre-corrections. 

3. Establish an Ongoing System of Reward:  

a.  Acknowledge expected behavior by using rewards.

b.  Use verbal positive reinforcement of the behavior, not the individual, in high rates   (4 positives for every 1 correction).

4. Establish a Site-Specific Discipline System:  

a. Develop an agreement about which behaviors are handled by staff  

(minor problem behaviors) and which are handled by the office (major problem behaviors).

b. Define the school’s minor and major problem behaviors with detailed description and examples as a resource for all staff, students and families.

c. Develop an office referral behavior form to track major problem behaviors.

5. Establish a Data System to Monitor Progress and Aid in Decision-Making?  

a.  Utilize the School-wide Information System (SWIS) data management system to track all major behavior referrals (optional to track minor behavior referrals).

b.  Develop procedures for ongoing data entry, monitoring of problem behaviors and evaluation.

c.  Meet regularly to review the school’s behavior data to move forward with problem solving, interventions and decision-making.

Responsive Classroom

• a research-based approach to teaching that offers elementary schools practical strategies for bringing together social and academic learning throughout the school day.

• Developed by actual elementary classroom teachers and school leaders. 

• Schools can use the Responsive Classroom approach to implement high- quality PBIS.
• This approach is a continual of teaching, modeling, and reinforcing positive behavior that will support children’s positive behaviors by reducing discipline problems and promoting a safer learning environment.

References

Allen, S., Dickson, T. (2015). Classroom Management: Learning the Components of a

Comprehensive Behavior Management Plan. The Iris Center Peabody College

Vanderbilt University Nashville. Retrieved from:  

iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/beh1

Bradley, R., Sugai, G., Horner, R., Lewis, T. (2015). OSEP Technical Assistance Center. Positive

            Behavior Interventions and Supports. Retrieved from: www.pbis.org
.

N/A. (2015). What is Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports and Why is it

Important? The San Jose Unified School District. Retrieved from: 

www.sjusd.org/student-services/pbis/what-is-pbis

Northeast Foundation for Children. (2008). About The Responsive Classroom. The Northeast

            Foundation for Children Inc. Retrieved from:

            www.responsiveclassroom.org/about/aboutrc.html.