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A major advance in school-wide discipline is the emphasis on school-wide systems of support that include proactive strategies for defining, teaching, and supporting appropriate student behaviors to create positive school environments.
Instead of using a patchwork of individual behavioral management plans, a continuum of positive behavior support for all students within a school is implemented in areas including the classroom and non-classroom settings (such as hallways, restrooms).
Positive behavior support is an application of a behaviorally-based systems approach to enhance the capacity of schools, families, and communities to design effective environments that improve the link between research-validated practices and the environments in which teaching and learning occurs.
Attention is focused on creating and sustaining primary (school-wide), secondary (classroom), and tertiary (individual) systems of support that improve lifestyle results (personal, health, social, family, work, recreation) for all children and youth by making problem behavior less effective, efficient, and relevant, and desired behavior more functional.
What are the steps involved in setting up a school-wide system of discipline?
An effective school-wide system of discipline or positive behavioral interventions and supports is only as good as the structures and processes that are in place to support their sustained use.
When setting up a school-wide system of discipline or positive behavioral interventions and supports, the following steps should be followed:
- Establish a school-wide leadership or behavior support team to guide and direct the process.
This team should be made up of an administrator, grade level representatives, support staff,
and parents. - Secure administrator agreement of active support and participation.
- Secure a commitment and agreement from at least 80% of the staff for active support and participation.
- Conduct a self-assessment of the current school-wide discipline system.
- Create an implementation action plan that is based data based decision making.
- Establish a way to collect office referral and other data on a regular basis to evaluate the effectiveness of school-wide PBS efforts.
What are the components of a comprehensive school-wide system of discipline or positive behavioral interventions and supports?
All effective school-wide systems have seven major components in common a) an agreed upon and common approach to discipline, b) a positive statement of purpose, c) a small number of positively stated expectations for all students and staff, d) procedures for teaching these expectations to students, e) a continuum of procedures for encouraging displays and maintenance of these expectations, f) a continuum of procedures for discouraging displays of rule-violating behavior, and g) procedures for monitoring and evaluation the effectiveness of the discipline system on a regular and frequent basis.
How do we know if a school-wide system of discipline or positive behavioral interventions and supports is effective?
Many schools make the mistake implementing a school-wide system of discipline or positive behavior support without monitoring its effectiveness on a regular and frequent basis.
Regular monitoring and evaluation are needed to a) prevent ineffective practices from wasting time and resources, b) improve the efficiency and effectiveness of current procedures, c) eliminate elements of the system that are ineffective or inefficient, and d) make modifications before problem behavior patterns become too durable and unmodifiable.
Can a school buy a ready-made or published school-wide discipline curriculum?
Many published school-wide discipline programs that can be purchased have the necessary features. However, every school has its unique features (for example: students, size, staff composition, geographic location) that must be taken into account when any discipline program is selected.
The best approach is to assess what is currently in place in your school, whether it is effective, and what needs to be added or improved. Once this assessment is completed, a program that best addresses the features of your school can be selected.
What relationship does a school-wide system of discipline or positive behavioral interventions and supports have with other school initiatives, like safe and drug-free schools, IDEA04, character education, early literacy?
School-wide positive behavior support is not considered a new initiative. Instead, it is a set of problem solving strategies and processes that can be used to build upon a school’s existing strengths. However, school-wide PBS has a lot of characteristics that overlap with other initiatives. Proactive school-wide discipline systems create environments in which: a) learning and teaching are valued, and aggressive, unsafe behavior are discouraged; b) respect, responsibility, cooperation, and other highly valued character traits are taught and encouraged; c) individual differences are valued rather than criticized; d) educating students with disabilities can be supported more effectively and efficiently, and e) teaching fundamental skills like reading and math can be maximized.
Links
http://www.pbis.org/
http://www.swis.org/
http://www.interventioncentral.org/
http://www.behaviordoctor.org/
http://safeandcivilschools.com/
http://www.rti4success.org
CHAMPs: A Proactive and Positive Approach to Classroom Management
CHAMPs, by Dr. Randy Sprick, assist elementary school classroom teachers to design (or fine tune)
a proactive and positive classroom management plan that will overtly teach students how to behave
responsibly. Easy implementation of CHAMPs strategies will:
* Reduce classroom disruptions and office referrals
* Improve classroom climate
* Increase student on-task behavior
* Establish respectful and civil interactions
By following the effective, research-based practices outlined in CHAMPs, teachers develop methods for clearly communicating their expectations on every classroom activity and transition. Expectations to clarify are:
Conversation (Can students talk to each other during this activity?)
Help (How do students get the teacher’s attention and their questions answered?)
Activity (What is the task/objective? What is the end product?)
Movement (Can students move about during this activity?)
Participation (How do students show they are fully participating? What does work behavior
look/sound like?)
Key Benefits of CHAMPs:
* Teachers establish clear expectations with logical and fair responses to misbehavior.
* Teachers spend less time disciplining and more time teaching.
* Teachers learn tools to motivate students to do their best.
* Students are taught how to behave responsibly.
An extension of CHAMPs to secondary grades is Discipline in the Secondary Classroom: A Positive Approach to Behavior Management (2nd Ed., 2006). This resource addresses one of the most pressing needs faced by secondary teachers in today’s schools: how to effectively motivate and manage adolescent learners so their classrooms can be stimulating, engaging learning environments. Implementation of programs and strategies will transform secondary schools that were once places of chaos and disengaged students to settings of order and safety, where interactions among students and teachers are respectful, and students eagerly and productively involved in the learning process.
The Behavior Education Program (BEP)
BEP is a researched-based Tier 2 behavioral intervention that focuses on at-risk students who are accruing multiple referrals in multiple settings within the school environment. The BEP is designed to help the 10-15% of students who fail to meet school wide disciplinary expectations but do not require the highest level of behavior support. It is designed for students who are referred for behavior such as disruption, tardiness, defiance, inappropriate language, and refusal to comply, to name a few. It is not intended for students who area aggressive or violent.
The main component of the BEP is a “check-in/check-out” system with a staff member which occurs at the beginning and end of each school day. Students have clearly defined expectations/goals, daily prompts from a positive adult, daily prompts at each class/activity, daily feedback from teachers and parents, daily progress reports, increased opportunities for learning and reinforcement, and additional support available on a daily and as-needed basis. The BEP is also intended to establish parent involvement and participation through BEP meetings, progress reports, and behavior contracts.
Second Step
Second Step: A Violence Prevention Curriculum is a research-based curriculum that teaches social and emotional skills for violence prevention. The program is user-friendly and contains parent education components. It aims to reduce impulsive and aggressive behaviors and increase protective factors and social competence in children from preschool through junior high.
Children learn how to respond empathically to others and practice skill steps for calming down, reducing anger, and solving problems. The classroom-based curriculum, organized by grade level, teaches children to practice empathy, problem-solving skills, risk assessment, decision-making, and goal-setting.
Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA)
Functional behavioral assessment is generally considered to be a problem-solving process for addressing student problem behavior. It relies on a variety of techniques and strategies to identify the purposes of specific behavior and to help IEP teams select interventions to directly address the problem behavior. Functional behavioral assessment should be integrated, as appropriate, throughout the process of developing, reviewing, and, if necessary, revising a student’s IEP.
A functional behavioral assessment looks beyond the behavior itself. The focus when conducting a functional behavioral assessment is on identifying significant, pupil-specific social, affective, cognitive, and/or environmental factors associated with the occurrence (and non-occurrence) of specific behaviors.
This broader perspective offers a better understanding of the function or purpose behind student behavior. Behavioral intervention plans based on an understanding of "why" a student misbehaves are extremely useful in addressing a wide range of problem behaviors.
Links:
http://cecp.air.org/fba/
Using an RtI model to Implement Functional Behavioral Assessment (Horner, 2008)
For further assistance on PBS, contact:
Greg Mathews, Ph.D. 
Ellen Frasca, M.A. Thomas Stacho, Ed.S.
Assistant Director Consultant Coordinator
614.753.4688 614.753.4682 614.753.4693
For further assistance on CHAMPs, Discipline in the Secondary Classrooms,
BEP
and Second Step, please contact:
Thomas Stacho, Ed.S.
Coordinator
614.753.4693
For further assistance on Functional Behavior Assessments (FBA), please contact:
Gale Kingsley, M.A.
Consultant
614.753.4686