PBIS centers around 4 core practices, this is your guide to make them work for your school community.
It’s a great time to get your sea legs and begin to understand your new school community. When I was first hired as a principal, I started by hiring new staff for the upcoming school year. I was often asked about our procedures and expectations for students by the interviewees.
I had no answers…I had set up my office, created my professional goals, and met with the important stakeholders but had no idea of what should and would be expected of students at the start of the new year.
Fortunately, our district had a strong focus on PBIS (Positive Behavioral Intervention System) so I had a good starting point. However, what if your school does not have anything in place or is in the early stages of implementing a positive behavior system?
You’re going to need to familiarize yourself with the core practices of PBIS and you’ve come to the right place to do just that. 😉
PBIS has four core practices centered around creating and implementing training, coaching, and supporting all faculty/staff/students in Tier 1. These practices are designed to differentiate between the levels of support your students need.
When you get the core practices of Tier 1 correct, you can then allocate more resources and focus to the students who really need it in Tier 2 as Creekside Middle does.
In short, you set PBIS expectations around behaviors your want to see your students exhibit. You then progress monitor how well your students adhere to those expectations. To incentivize your students to meet those expectations you create a rewards system that recognizes their efforts in building your positive school culture.
Then your team reviews the data to make adjustments and recommendations to the administration on how to continuously improve behavior in your school. For best results in larger communities, you can even take PBIS district-wide.
But it isn’t a program you can just roll out and watch work. There are many considerations to make from how to start your PBIS program to what behaviors you want to promote and include in your PBIS Matrix.
Let’s take a deeper look at the four core practices:
To ensure a cohesive start to the school year, it is crucial for all students to become familiar with school-wide expectations. However, before you begin students need to know who will be supporting them throughout the school year.
This should include every individual a student may interact with. This includes custodial staff, lunchroom staff, and crossing guards. By facilitating these introductions, you aim to establish a sense of unity and reassure students that we are all working together to support them.
After introductions, now it is time to introduce the school wide-expectations. An aspect of building a school community is explicitly stating school wide-expectations and articulating what “winning” looks like in your school.
In order to effectively teach and model school-wide behaviors, you can take a variety of approaches including assemblies, classroom slides, multi-media, stations, and even allowing your students to teach your PBIS expectations.
The key to teaching these expectations is to systemize your approach in a way that is repeatable and sustainable.
After students understand what is expected of them we need to set them up for success. Here are some ways your teaching staff can do just that:
Whenever possible try to front-load students with expectations for their behavior for events that are not part of their typical routine.
These can include assemblies, severe weather drills, special school events, etc. When a student and/or class shows expected behaviors they should be praised and acknowledged for their work
Consistency and usage are major key components of using PBIS points in the classroom. Give out praise all day, every day. Consistency with reinforcement is paramount.
Some teachers set reminders to keep them consistent throughout the day. Make sure that staff let students know why they are being praised or rewarded. The more specific that you are, the better.
Even with the best intentions, mistakes can occur. It is important to anticipate and be prepared to modify and rectify behaviors during the process. Staff should be aware of the procedure for responding to unproductive behaviors and when reteaching is necessary.
I like to offer students a“booster shot” of revisiting expectations at the halfway point in the school year. At some point, your school community will need to pivot or be addressed for exhibiting unproductive behaviors. PBIS points in your school is not about getting it right all the time, it is about building personal and collective capacity in the area of positive behavior.
Sometimes despite your best efforts your school community may really be struggling. With PBIS you never have to go at it alone. Use your PBIS team to discuss concerns with the school community based on your data. Remember you need data to support your claims.
When students are struggling we can have a distorted perception of how often the behavior is occurring. When you have data to understand the needs of your school community this keeps things objective and quantifiable.
Data might be the most powerful of the core practices. The cleaner your data collection and analysis process the better equipped you’ll be the make decisions.
Some examples of data sources.
School climate surveys can be administered to families, students, and staff to gather feedback and insights on their perceptions of the school environment. The surveys should include questions related to the core practices, such as:
Schools should maintain records of behavior incidents, disciplinary actions, and interventions implemented in response to unproductive behavior.
Analyze these records to identify trends, patterns, and areas that require a deeper dive. Look for indicators that demonstrate a clear understanding of expected behavior and the effectiveness of consequences.
Monitor academic performance indicators such as attendance rates, grades, and disciplinary referrals. A positive correlation between adherence to expected behaviors and academic success can indicate successful implementation of the core practices.
By analyzing and synthesizing data from these various sources, your PBIS team will be able to gauge the effectiveness of implementing the core practices, identify areas that require adjustments, and track progress over time.
Need help keeping track of all that data? Check out LiveSchool’s free behavior data dashboard.
Keep your ultimate goals in mind during implementation. You’re creating systems, adjusting your teaching practices, and tracking your data to achieve specific outcomes. Those outcomes will affect everyone in your community; teachers, students, and parents.
Those outcomes are going to include behavior, SEL, academic, and cultural impacts. So it’s worth taking the time to ask yourself how will our policies impact our community. What is important to each of those groups? Ask them. Gather input. Give everyone a seat at the table. Stakeholder voice will greatly impact your outcomes.
The PBIS has four core principles that are designed to build a school community that is conducive to both academic and social-emotional learning. Lean on your PBIS Team when the school community needs a reboot or you are struggling with many unproductive behaviors.
Don’t forget to use data to inform these decisions and remember to give yourself some grace in the process. Get a little bit better every day!
It’s a great time to get your sea legs and begin to understand your new school community. When I was first hired as a principal, I started by hiring new staff for the upcoming school year. I was often asked about our procedures and expectations for students by the interviewees.
I had no answers…I had set up my office, created my professional goals, and met with the important stakeholders but had no idea of what should and would be expected of students at the start of the new year.
Fortunately, our district had a strong focus on PBIS (Positive Behavioral Intervention System) so I had a good starting point. However, what if your school does not have anything in place or is in the early stages of implementing a positive behavior system?
You’re going to need to familiarize yourself with the core practices of PBIS and you’ve come to the right place to do just that. 😉
PBIS has four core practices centered around creating and implementing training, coaching, and supporting all faculty/staff/students in Tier 1. These practices are designed to differentiate between the levels of support your students need.
When you get the core practices of Tier 1 correct, you can then allocate more resources and focus to the students who really need it in Tier 2 as Creekside Middle does.
In short, you set PBIS expectations around behaviors your want to see your students exhibit. You then progress monitor how well your students adhere to those expectations. To incentivize your students to meet those expectations you create a rewards system that recognizes their efforts in building your positive school culture.
Then your team reviews the data to make adjustments and recommendations to the administration on how to continuously improve behavior in your school. For best results in larger communities, you can even take PBIS district-wide.
But it isn’t a program you can just roll out and watch work. There are many considerations to make from how to start your PBIS program to what behaviors you want to promote and include in your PBIS Matrix.
Let’s take a deeper look at the four core practices:
To ensure a cohesive start to the school year, it is crucial for all students to become familiar with school-wide expectations. However, before you begin students need to know who will be supporting them throughout the school year.
This should include every individual a student may interact with. This includes custodial staff, lunchroom staff, and crossing guards. By facilitating these introductions, you aim to establish a sense of unity and reassure students that we are all working together to support them.
After introductions, now it is time to introduce the school wide-expectations. An aspect of building a school community is explicitly stating school wide-expectations and articulating what “winning” looks like in your school.
In order to effectively teach and model school-wide behaviors, you can take a variety of approaches including assemblies, classroom slides, multi-media, stations, and even allowing your students to teach your PBIS expectations.
The key to teaching these expectations is to systemize your approach in a way that is repeatable and sustainable.
After students understand what is expected of them we need to set them up for success. Here are some ways your teaching staff can do just that:
Whenever possible try to front-load students with expectations for their behavior for events that are not part of their typical routine.
These can include assemblies, severe weather drills, special school events, etc. When a student and/or class shows expected behaviors they should be praised and acknowledged for their work
Consistency and usage are major key components of using PBIS points in the classroom. Give out praise all day, every day. Consistency with reinforcement is paramount.
Some teachers set reminders to keep them consistent throughout the day. Make sure that staff let students know why they are being praised or rewarded. The more specific that you are, the better.
Even with the best intentions, mistakes can occur. It is important to anticipate and be prepared to modify and rectify behaviors during the process. Staff should be aware of the procedure for responding to unproductive behaviors and when reteaching is necessary.
I like to offer students a“booster shot” of revisiting expectations at the halfway point in the school year. At some point, your school community will need to pivot or be addressed for exhibiting unproductive behaviors. PBIS points in your school is not about getting it right all the time, it is about building personal and collective capacity in the area of positive behavior.
Sometimes despite your best efforts your school community may really be struggling. With PBIS you never have to go at it alone. Use your PBIS team to discuss concerns with the school community based on your data. Remember you need data to support your claims.
When students are struggling we can have a distorted perception of how often the behavior is occurring. When you have data to understand the needs of your school community this keeps things objective and quantifiable.
Data might be the most powerful of the core practices. The cleaner your data collection and analysis process the better equipped you’ll be the make decisions.
Some examples of data sources.
School climate surveys can be administered to families, students, and staff to gather feedback and insights on their perceptions of the school environment. The surveys should include questions related to the core practices, such as:
Schools should maintain records of behavior incidents, disciplinary actions, and interventions implemented in response to unproductive behavior.
Analyze these records to identify trends, patterns, and areas that require a deeper dive. Look for indicators that demonstrate a clear understanding of expected behavior and the effectiveness of consequences.
Monitor academic performance indicators such as attendance rates, grades, and disciplinary referrals. A positive correlation between adherence to expected behaviors and academic success can indicate successful implementation of the core practices.
By analyzing and synthesizing data from these various sources, your PBIS team will be able to gauge the effectiveness of implementing the core practices, identify areas that require adjustments, and track progress over time.
Need help keeping track of all that data? Check out LiveSchool’s free behavior data dashboard.
Keep your ultimate goals in mind during implementation. You’re creating systems, adjusting your teaching practices, and tracking your data to achieve specific outcomes. Those outcomes will affect everyone in your community; teachers, students, and parents.
Those outcomes are going to include behavior, SEL, academic, and cultural impacts. So it’s worth taking the time to ask yourself how will our policies impact our community. What is important to each of those groups? Ask them. Gather input. Give everyone a seat at the table. Stakeholder voice will greatly impact your outcomes.
The PBIS has four core principles that are designed to build a school community that is conducive to both academic and social-emotional learning. Lean on your PBIS Team when the school community needs a reboot or you are struggling with many unproductive behaviors.
Don’t forget to use data to inform these decisions and remember to give yourself some grace in the process. Get a little bit better every day!
It’s a great time to get your sea legs and begin to understand your new school community. When I was first hired as a principal, I started by hiring new staff for the upcoming school year. I was often asked about our procedures and expectations for students by the interviewees.
I had no answers…I had set up my office, created my professional goals, and met with the important stakeholders but had no idea of what should and would be expected of students at the start of the new year.
Fortunately, our district had a strong focus on PBIS (Positive Behavioral Intervention System) so I had a good starting point. However, what if your school does not have anything in place or is in the early stages of implementing a positive behavior system?
You’re going to need to familiarize yourself with the core practices of PBIS and you’ve come to the right place to do just that. 😉
PBIS has four core practices centered around creating and implementing training, coaching, and supporting all faculty/staff/students in Tier 1. These practices are designed to differentiate between the levels of support your students need.
When you get the core practices of Tier 1 correct, you can then allocate more resources and focus to the students who really need it in Tier 2 as Creekside Middle does.
In short, you set PBIS expectations around behaviors your want to see your students exhibit. You then progress monitor how well your students adhere to those expectations. To incentivize your students to meet those expectations you create a rewards system that recognizes their efforts in building your positive school culture.
Then your team reviews the data to make adjustments and recommendations to the administration on how to continuously improve behavior in your school. For best results in larger communities, you can even take PBIS district-wide.
But it isn’t a program you can just roll out and watch work. There are many considerations to make from how to start your PBIS program to what behaviors you want to promote and include in your PBIS Matrix.
Let’s take a deeper look at the four core practices:
To ensure a cohesive start to the school year, it is crucial for all students to become familiar with school-wide expectations. However, before you begin students need to know who will be supporting them throughout the school year.
This should include every individual a student may interact with. This includes custodial staff, lunchroom staff, and crossing guards. By facilitating these introductions, you aim to establish a sense of unity and reassure students that we are all working together to support them.
After introductions, now it is time to introduce the school wide-expectations. An aspect of building a school community is explicitly stating school wide-expectations and articulating what “winning” looks like in your school.
In order to effectively teach and model school-wide behaviors, you can take a variety of approaches including assemblies, classroom slides, multi-media, stations, and even allowing your students to teach your PBIS expectations.
The key to teaching these expectations is to systemize your approach in a way that is repeatable and sustainable.
After students understand what is expected of them we need to set them up for success. Here are some ways your teaching staff can do just that:
Whenever possible try to front-load students with expectations for their behavior for events that are not part of their typical routine.
These can include assemblies, severe weather drills, special school events, etc. When a student and/or class shows expected behaviors they should be praised and acknowledged for their work
Consistency and usage are major key components of using PBIS points in the classroom. Give out praise all day, every day. Consistency with reinforcement is paramount.
Some teachers set reminders to keep them consistent throughout the day. Make sure that staff let students know why they are being praised or rewarded. The more specific that you are, the better.
Even with the best intentions, mistakes can occur. It is important to anticipate and be prepared to modify and rectify behaviors during the process. Staff should be aware of the procedure for responding to unproductive behaviors and when reteaching is necessary.
I like to offer students a“booster shot” of revisiting expectations at the halfway point in the school year. At some point, your school community will need to pivot or be addressed for exhibiting unproductive behaviors. PBIS points in your school is not about getting it right all the time, it is about building personal and collective capacity in the area of positive behavior.
Sometimes despite your best efforts your school community may really be struggling. With PBIS you never have to go at it alone. Use your PBIS team to discuss concerns with the school community based on your data. Remember you need data to support your claims.
When students are struggling we can have a distorted perception of how often the behavior is occurring. When you have data to understand the needs of your school community this keeps things objective and quantifiable.
Data might be the most powerful of the core practices. The cleaner your data collection and analysis process the better equipped you’ll be the make decisions.
Some examples of data sources.
School climate surveys can be administered to families, students, and staff to gather feedback and insights on their perceptions of the school environment. The surveys should include questions related to the core practices, such as:
Schools should maintain records of behavior incidents, disciplinary actions, and interventions implemented in response to unproductive behavior.
Analyze these records to identify trends, patterns, and areas that require a deeper dive. Look for indicators that demonstrate a clear understanding of expected behavior and the effectiveness of consequences.
Monitor academic performance indicators such as attendance rates, grades, and disciplinary referrals. A positive correlation between adherence to expected behaviors and academic success can indicate successful implementation of the core practices.
By analyzing and synthesizing data from these various sources, your PBIS team will be able to gauge the effectiveness of implementing the core practices, identify areas that require adjustments, and track progress over time.
Need help keeping track of all that data? Check out LiveSchool’s free behavior data dashboard.
Keep your ultimate goals in mind during implementation. You’re creating systems, adjusting your teaching practices, and tracking your data to achieve specific outcomes. Those outcomes will affect everyone in your community; teachers, students, and parents.
Those outcomes are going to include behavior, SEL, academic, and cultural impacts. So it’s worth taking the time to ask yourself how will our policies impact our community. What is important to each of those groups? Ask them. Gather input. Give everyone a seat at the table. Stakeholder voice will greatly impact your outcomes.
The PBIS has four core principles that are designed to build a school community that is conducive to both academic and social-emotional learning. Lean on your PBIS Team when the school community needs a reboot or you are struggling with many unproductive behaviors.
Don’t forget to use data to inform these decisions and remember to give yourself some grace in the process. Get a little bit better every day!
It’s a great time to get your sea legs and begin to understand your new school community. When I was first hired as a principal, I started by hiring new staff for the upcoming school year. I was often asked about our procedures and expectations for students by the interviewees.
I had no answers…I had set up my office, created my professional goals, and met with the important stakeholders but had no idea of what should and would be expected of students at the start of the new year.
Fortunately, our district had a strong focus on PBIS (Positive Behavioral Intervention System) so I had a good starting point. However, what if your school does not have anything in place or is in the early stages of implementing a positive behavior system?
You’re going to need to familiarize yourself with the core practices of PBIS and you’ve come to the right place to do just that. 😉
PBIS has four core practices centered around creating and implementing training, coaching, and supporting all faculty/staff/students in Tier 1. These practices are designed to differentiate between the levels of support your students need.
When you get the core practices of Tier 1 correct, you can then allocate more resources and focus to the students who really need it in Tier 2 as Creekside Middle does.
In short, you set PBIS expectations around behaviors your want to see your students exhibit. You then progress monitor how well your students adhere to those expectations. To incentivize your students to meet those expectations you create a rewards system that recognizes their efforts in building your positive school culture.
Then your team reviews the data to make adjustments and recommendations to the administration on how to continuously improve behavior in your school. For best results in larger communities, you can even take PBIS district-wide.
But it isn’t a program you can just roll out and watch work. There are many considerations to make from how to start your PBIS program to what behaviors you want to promote and include in your PBIS Matrix.
Let’s take a deeper look at the four core practices:
To ensure a cohesive start to the school year, it is crucial for all students to become familiar with school-wide expectations. However, before you begin students need to know who will be supporting them throughout the school year.
This should include every individual a student may interact with. This includes custodial staff, lunchroom staff, and crossing guards. By facilitating these introductions, you aim to establish a sense of unity and reassure students that we are all working together to support them.
After introductions, now it is time to introduce the school wide-expectations. An aspect of building a school community is explicitly stating school wide-expectations and articulating what “winning” looks like in your school.
In order to effectively teach and model school-wide behaviors, you can take a variety of approaches including assemblies, classroom slides, multi-media, stations, and even allowing your students to teach your PBIS expectations.
The key to teaching these expectations is to systemize your approach in a way that is repeatable and sustainable.
After students understand what is expected of them we need to set them up for success. Here are some ways your teaching staff can do just that:
Whenever possible try to front-load students with expectations for their behavior for events that are not part of their typical routine.
These can include assemblies, severe weather drills, special school events, etc. When a student and/or class shows expected behaviors they should be praised and acknowledged for their work
Consistency and usage are major key components of using PBIS points in the classroom. Give out praise all day, every day. Consistency with reinforcement is paramount.
Some teachers set reminders to keep them consistent throughout the day. Make sure that staff let students know why they are being praised or rewarded. The more specific that you are, the better.
Even with the best intentions, mistakes can occur. It is important to anticipate and be prepared to modify and rectify behaviors during the process. Staff should be aware of the procedure for responding to unproductive behaviors and when reteaching is necessary.
I like to offer students a“booster shot” of revisiting expectations at the halfway point in the school year. At some point, your school community will need to pivot or be addressed for exhibiting unproductive behaviors. PBIS points in your school is not about getting it right all the time, it is about building personal and collective capacity in the area of positive behavior.
Sometimes despite your best efforts your school community may really be struggling. With PBIS you never have to go at it alone. Use your PBIS team to discuss concerns with the school community based on your data. Remember you need data to support your claims.
When students are struggling we can have a distorted perception of how often the behavior is occurring. When you have data to understand the needs of your school community this keeps things objective and quantifiable.
Data might be the most powerful of the core practices. The cleaner your data collection and analysis process the better equipped you’ll be the make decisions.
Some examples of data sources.
School climate surveys can be administered to families, students, and staff to gather feedback and insights on their perceptions of the school environment. The surveys should include questions related to the core practices, such as:
Schools should maintain records of behavior incidents, disciplinary actions, and interventions implemented in response to unproductive behavior.
Analyze these records to identify trends, patterns, and areas that require a deeper dive. Look for indicators that demonstrate a clear understanding of expected behavior and the effectiveness of consequences.
Monitor academic performance indicators such as attendance rates, grades, and disciplinary referrals. A positive correlation between adherence to expected behaviors and academic success can indicate successful implementation of the core practices.
By analyzing and synthesizing data from these various sources, your PBIS team will be able to gauge the effectiveness of implementing the core practices, identify areas that require adjustments, and track progress over time.
Need help keeping track of all that data? Check out LiveSchool’s free behavior data dashboard.
Keep your ultimate goals in mind during implementation. You’re creating systems, adjusting your teaching practices, and tracking your data to achieve specific outcomes. Those outcomes will affect everyone in your community; teachers, students, and parents.
Those outcomes are going to include behavior, SEL, academic, and cultural impacts. So it’s worth taking the time to ask yourself how will our policies impact our community. What is important to each of those groups? Ask them. Gather input. Give everyone a seat at the table. Stakeholder voice will greatly impact your outcomes.
The PBIS has four core principles that are designed to build a school community that is conducive to both academic and social-emotional learning. Lean on your PBIS Team when the school community needs a reboot or you are struggling with many unproductive behaviors.
Don’t forget to use data to inform these decisions and remember to give yourself some grace in the process. Get a little bit better every day!
Faith resides in Oak Park, IL with her husband and son. She currently serves as Assistant Superintendent of Student Services for D212. She is a passionate leader with 18 years of educational experience in K-12th grade. She has extensive experience in MTSS, PBIS, Equity and Justice, Teacher and Principal Mentoring, Special Education, Restorative Practices, and Student Services.
New school leaders typically start their new posts on July 1st, when the office is closed and oftentimes they’re working alone.
It’s a great time to get your sea legs and begin to understand your new school community. When I was first hired as a principal, I started by hiring new staff for the upcoming school year. I was often asked about our procedures and expectations for students by the interviewees.
I had no answers…I had set up my office, created my professional goals, and met with the important stakeholders but had no idea of what should and would be expected of students at the start of the new year.
Fortunately, our district had a strong focus on PBIS (Positive Behavioral Intervention System) so I had a good starting point. However, what if your school does not have anything in place or is in the early stages of implementing a positive behavior system?
You’re going to need to familiarize yourself with the core practices of PBIS and you’ve come to the right place to do just that. 😉
PBIS has four core practices centered around creating and implementing training, coaching, and supporting all faculty/staff/students in Tier 1. These practices are designed to differentiate between the levels of support your students need.
When you get the core practices of Tier 1 correct, you can then allocate more resources and focus to the students who really need it in Tier 2 as Creekside Middle does.
In short, you set PBIS expectations around behaviors your want to see your students exhibit. You then progress monitor how well your students adhere to those expectations. To incentivize your students to meet those expectations you create a rewards system that recognizes their efforts in building your positive school culture.
Then your team reviews the data to make adjustments and recommendations to the administration on how to continuously improve behavior in your school. For best results in larger communities, you can even take PBIS district-wide.
But it isn’t a program you can just roll out and watch work. There are many considerations to make from how to start your PBIS program to what behaviors you want to promote and include in your PBIS Matrix.
Let’s take a deeper look at the four core practices:
To ensure a cohesive start to the school year, it is crucial for all students to become familiar with school-wide expectations. However, before you begin students need to know who will be supporting them throughout the school year.
This should include every individual a student may interact with. This includes custodial staff, lunchroom staff, and crossing guards. By facilitating these introductions, you aim to establish a sense of unity and reassure students that we are all working together to support them.
After introductions, now it is time to introduce the school wide-expectations. An aspect of building a school community is explicitly stating school wide-expectations and articulating what “winning” looks like in your school.
In order to effectively teach and model school-wide behaviors, you can take a variety of approaches including assemblies, classroom slides, multi-media, stations, and even allowing your students to teach your PBIS expectations.
The key to teaching these expectations is to systemize your approach in a way that is repeatable and sustainable.
After students understand what is expected of them we need to set them up for success. Here are some ways your teaching staff can do just that:
Whenever possible try to front-load students with expectations for their behavior for events that are not part of their typical routine.
These can include assemblies, severe weather drills, special school events, etc. When a student and/or class shows expected behaviors they should be praised and acknowledged for their work
Consistency and usage are major key components of using PBIS points in the classroom. Give out praise all day, every day. Consistency with reinforcement is paramount.
Some teachers set reminders to keep them consistent throughout the day. Make sure that staff let students know why they are being praised or rewarded. The more specific that you are, the better.
Even with the best intentions, mistakes can occur. It is important to anticipate and be prepared to modify and rectify behaviors during the process. Staff should be aware of the procedure for responding to unproductive behaviors and when reteaching is necessary.
I like to offer students a“booster shot” of revisiting expectations at the halfway point in the school year. At some point, your school community will need to pivot or be addressed for exhibiting unproductive behaviors. PBIS points in your school is not about getting it right all the time, it is about building personal and collective capacity in the area of positive behavior.
Sometimes despite your best efforts your school community may really be struggling. With PBIS you never have to go at it alone. Use your PBIS team to discuss concerns with the school community based on your data. Remember you need data to support your claims.
When students are struggling we can have a distorted perception of how often the behavior is occurring. When you have data to understand the needs of your school community this keeps things objective and quantifiable.
Data might be the most powerful of the core practices. The cleaner your data collection and analysis process the better equipped you’ll be the make decisions.
Some examples of data sources.
School climate surveys can be administered to families, students, and staff to gather feedback and insights on their perceptions of the school environment. The surveys should include questions related to the core practices, such as:
Schools should maintain records of behavior incidents, disciplinary actions, and interventions implemented in response to unproductive behavior.
Analyze these records to identify trends, patterns, and areas that require a deeper dive. Look for indicators that demonstrate a clear understanding of expected behavior and the effectiveness of consequences.
Monitor academic performance indicators such as attendance rates, grades, and disciplinary referrals. A positive correlation between adherence to expected behaviors and academic success can indicate successful implementation of the core practices.
By analyzing and synthesizing data from these various sources, your PBIS team will be able to gauge the effectiveness of implementing the core practices, identify areas that require adjustments, and track progress over time.
Need help keeping track of all that data? Check out LiveSchool’s free behavior data dashboard.
Keep your ultimate goals in mind during implementation. You’re creating systems, adjusting your teaching practices, and tracking your data to achieve specific outcomes. Those outcomes will affect everyone in your community; teachers, students, and parents.
Those outcomes are going to include behavior, SEL, academic, and cultural impacts. So it’s worth taking the time to ask yourself how will our policies impact our community. What is important to each of those groups? Ask them. Gather input. Give everyone a seat at the table. Stakeholder voice will greatly impact your outcomes.
The PBIS has four core principles that are designed to build a school community that is conducive to both academic and social-emotional learning. Lean on your PBIS Team when the school community needs a reboot or you are struggling with many unproductive behaviors.
Don’t forget to use data to inform these decisions and remember to give yourself some grace in the process. Get a little bit better every day!
New school leaders typically start their new posts on July 1st, when the office is closed and oftentimes they’re working alone.
It’s a great time to get your sea legs and begin to understand your new school community. When I was first hired as a principal, I started by hiring new staff for the upcoming school year. I was often asked about our procedures and expectations for students by the interviewees.
I had no answers…I had set up my office, created my professional goals, and met with the important stakeholders but had no idea of what should and would be expected of students at the start of the new year.
Fortunately, our district had a strong focus on PBIS (Positive Behavioral Intervention System) so I had a good starting point. However, what if your school does not have anything in place or is in the early stages of implementing a positive behavior system?
You’re going to need to familiarize yourself with the core practices of PBIS and you’ve come to the right place to do just that. 😉
PBIS has four core practices centered around creating and implementing training, coaching, and supporting all faculty/staff/students in Tier 1. These practices are designed to differentiate between the levels of support your students need.
When you get the core practices of Tier 1 correct, you can then allocate more resources and focus to the students who really need it in Tier 2 as Creekside Middle does.
In short, you set PBIS expectations around behaviors your want to see your students exhibit. You then progress monitor how well your students adhere to those expectations. To incentivize your students to meet those expectations you create a rewards system that recognizes their efforts in building your positive school culture.
Then your team reviews the data to make adjustments and recommendations to the administration on how to continuously improve behavior in your school. For best results in larger communities, you can even take PBIS district-wide.
But it isn’t a program you can just roll out and watch work. There are many considerations to make from how to start your PBIS program to what behaviors you want to promote and include in your PBIS Matrix.
Let’s take a deeper look at the four core practices:
To ensure a cohesive start to the school year, it is crucial for all students to become familiar with school-wide expectations. However, before you begin students need to know who will be supporting them throughout the school year.
This should include every individual a student may interact with. This includes custodial staff, lunchroom staff, and crossing guards. By facilitating these introductions, you aim to establish a sense of unity and reassure students that we are all working together to support them.
After introductions, now it is time to introduce the school wide-expectations. An aspect of building a school community is explicitly stating school wide-expectations and articulating what “winning” looks like in your school.
In order to effectively teach and model school-wide behaviors, you can take a variety of approaches including assemblies, classroom slides, multi-media, stations, and even allowing your students to teach your PBIS expectations.
The key to teaching these expectations is to systemize your approach in a way that is repeatable and sustainable.
After students understand what is expected of them we need to set them up for success. Here are some ways your teaching staff can do just that:
Whenever possible try to front-load students with expectations for their behavior for events that are not part of their typical routine.
These can include assemblies, severe weather drills, special school events, etc. When a student and/or class shows expected behaviors they should be praised and acknowledged for their work
Consistency and usage are major key components of using PBIS points in the classroom. Give out praise all day, every day. Consistency with reinforcement is paramount.
Some teachers set reminders to keep them consistent throughout the day. Make sure that staff let students know why they are being praised or rewarded. The more specific that you are, the better.
Even with the best intentions, mistakes can occur. It is important to anticipate and be prepared to modify and rectify behaviors during the process. Staff should be aware of the procedure for responding to unproductive behaviors and when reteaching is necessary.
I like to offer students a“booster shot” of revisiting expectations at the halfway point in the school year. At some point, your school community will need to pivot or be addressed for exhibiting unproductive behaviors. PBIS points in your school is not about getting it right all the time, it is about building personal and collective capacity in the area of positive behavior.
Sometimes despite your best efforts your school community may really be struggling. With PBIS you never have to go at it alone. Use your PBIS team to discuss concerns with the school community based on your data. Remember you need data to support your claims.
When students are struggling we can have a distorted perception of how often the behavior is occurring. When you have data to understand the needs of your school community this keeps things objective and quantifiable.
Data might be the most powerful of the core practices. The cleaner your data collection and analysis process the better equipped you’ll be the make decisions.
Some examples of data sources.
School climate surveys can be administered to families, students, and staff to gather feedback and insights on their perceptions of the school environment. The surveys should include questions related to the core practices, such as:
Schools should maintain records of behavior incidents, disciplinary actions, and interventions implemented in response to unproductive behavior.
Analyze these records to identify trends, patterns, and areas that require a deeper dive. Look for indicators that demonstrate a clear understanding of expected behavior and the effectiveness of consequences.
Monitor academic performance indicators such as attendance rates, grades, and disciplinary referrals. A positive correlation between adherence to expected behaviors and academic success can indicate successful implementation of the core practices.
By analyzing and synthesizing data from these various sources, your PBIS team will be able to gauge the effectiveness of implementing the core practices, identify areas that require adjustments, and track progress over time.
Need help keeping track of all that data? Check out LiveSchool’s free behavior data dashboard.
Keep your ultimate goals in mind during implementation. You’re creating systems, adjusting your teaching practices, and tracking your data to achieve specific outcomes. Those outcomes will affect everyone in your community; teachers, students, and parents.
Those outcomes are going to include behavior, SEL, academic, and cultural impacts. So it’s worth taking the time to ask yourself how will our policies impact our community. What is important to each of those groups? Ask them. Gather input. Give everyone a seat at the table. Stakeholder voice will greatly impact your outcomes.
The PBIS has four core principles that are designed to build a school community that is conducive to both academic and social-emotional learning. Lean on your PBIS Team when the school community needs a reboot or you are struggling with many unproductive behaviors.
Don’t forget to use data to inform these decisions and remember to give yourself some grace in the process. Get a little bit better every day!
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