PBIS

Suppose a youth needing support for unexpected behaviors could receive frequent brief doses of positive, values-centered feedback that pre-teaches expectations at regularly scheduled intervals. What would we expect to happen?

When schools develop school-wide systems to meet students’ social, emotional, and academic needs (usually, but not always, within a Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports framework), they typically develop fewer individualized behavior support plans. Nevertheless, when students need extra love and support to be their best, knowing how to create an Individualized Behavior Support Plan is essential.

PBIS stands for Positive Behavior Interventions and Support. PBIS is a schoolwide system for increasing the good we see in our students, reducing unexpected behaviors, and helping everyone live our values out loud. Specifically, schools implementing PBIS build systems that make school values explicit, teachable, and universally understood. Most importantly, their PBIS practices operate at the right depth for every student.

“Off-the-shelf” solutions are often why schools end up working with me. An “off-the-shelf” solution claims to be aligned with a problem schools are trying to solve.

Supporting students who exhibit defiant behavior can be challenging for teachers and school leaders. Defiant behavior can range from non-compliance with classroom rules to outright verbal and physical aggression. One effective way to de-escalate this type of behavior is by using scripted responses. Scripted responses provide a consistent and predictable approach to responding to defiant behavior. 

Tier 3 Positive Behavior Interventions and Support is social, emotional, and academic support designed and implemented as a team—youth included. The goal of Tier 3 PBIS is to increase a student’s social, emotional, and academic success by eliminating barriers to learning.

Positive Behavior Interventions and Support (PBIS) is a common framework for supporting students’ social, emotional, and academic success. However, few district leaders, school principals, or teachers ever have an opportunity to learn what fully-implemented PBIS’ looks like.’

Often PBIS meetings stop at the data. While meeting about behavior data is great, unless the team develops and implements solutions, all they did was have a good talk. Use your data to solve problems…in real time.

Step one of PBIS is to establish a PBIS matrix. Sometimes, schools establish values for their PBIS matrix without considering what is essential to be a successful learner and a good human being. Instead, I’ve seen teams select values just because they fit an acronym that matches their school mascot. I love a branded PBIS matrix. My favorites have school colors, logos, and mascots all over them! Not my favorite—acronyms.