Vermont Positive Behavior Supports Bringing out the BEST in all of us.

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Vermont Positive Behavior SupportsBringing out
the BEST in all of us.
Presented by Rae Ann Knopf VTPBS
State Coordinator VTDOE Assistant
Division Director
The Vermont PBS State-wide Leadership Team The
Vermont State BEST Team University of Vermont
Center on Disability Community Inclusion
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PBS Implementation Coaches

• Rae Ann Knopf, State-wide Coordinator
• Richard Boltax, BEST Co-coordinator
• Sherry Schoenberg, BEST Co-coordinator
• Ken Kramberg, BEST consultant
• Ruth Hamilton, BEST consultant
• Carol Randall, DOE Education Consultant
• Lisa Mazzitelli, DOE Education Consultant

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Behavioral Expectations

• Be present
• Engage
• Support each other
• Team solutions and ideas

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So What is PBS?

• Positive Behavior Supports (PBS) is a proactive,
• school-wide,
• systems approach
• to improving social and academic competence for
  all students.

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Big Idea

• Educational leaders must strive to lead and
  support development of sustainable and positive
  school climates
• The goal is to establish school communities that
  support adoption and sustained use of
  evidenced-based practices
• (Zins Ponte, 1990)

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Challenge 1 Rigid, Inflexible Systems
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Challenge 2 Someone Elses Problem
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Why PBS? Do the math . . .
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Positive School Climates . . .

• Maximize academic engagement achievement
• Minimize rates of rule violating behavior
• Encourage respectful responsible acts
• Facilitate more efficient, effective relevant
  school functioning
• Improve supports for students with disabilities
  greater risk of educational failure

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Examples.

In one elementary school in Vermont one student
received 91 office discipline referrals, another
87 One teacher processed 283 referrals Middle
school with 500 students, reported over 1400
office discipline referrals in one academic year
Average of 2.4 ODRs per student!
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Instructional Time Lost

• 1400 referrals
• 21,000 min_at_15 mins
• 350 hrs
• 44 teaching days
• 59 administrative days
• 131 instructional days for students

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Ineffective Responses to Problem Behavior

• Get Tough (practices)
• Train--Hope (systems)

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Immediate seductive solution.Get Tough!

• Clamp down increase monitoring
• Re-re-re-review rules
• Extend continuum consistency of consequences
• Establish bottom line
• ...Predictable, reactive
• individual response

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But.false sense of safety/security!

• Fosters environments of control
• Triggers reinforces antisocial behavior
• Shifts accountability away from school
• Devalues child-adult relationship
• Weakens relationship between
• academic social behavior programming

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Based on Erroneous assumption that student

• Is inherently bad
• Will learn more appropriate behavior through
  increased use of aversives
• Will be better tomorrow.

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Train Hope
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When a student

• Doesnt know how to read what do we do?
• WE TEACH.
• Doesnt know how to add what do we do?
• WE TEACH.
• Doesnt know how to swim what do we do?
• WE TEACH.
• Doesnt know how to drive what do we do?
• WE TEACH.
• When a student doesnt know how to behave what
  do we do? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Research on behavior has taught us that people.

• can learn better ways of behaving by being
  taught directly receiving positive feedback.
• . . . . Especially when function is considered
• - Sugai and Horner, 2003

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What PBS does -

• PBS identifies a set of science-based behavior
  support practices that are proactive, instructive
  and inclusive.
• PBS integrates academic and behavioral success.
• PBS brings school teams, parents and communities
  together to design and implement a broad range of
  systemic and individualized strategies for
  teaching, encouraging, reinforcing, and
  generalizing social and behavioral competence.
• PBS ? EBS ? PBIS
• Core principle - make the smallest environmental
  change necessary in order to facilitate the
  greatest positive change in behavior.

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Transforming Practices

• Reactive Proactive
• (Focus on Prevention)
• Punitive Instructive
• (Teach and recognize appropriate skills)
• Exclusionary Inclusionary
• (Keep students in school and in class)

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Implementing and Sustaining School-wide Positive
Behavior Supports is

• School teams coming together to
• Create a common purpose
• Define 3-5 positively stated behavioral
  expectations
• Develop systems for teaching, encouraging, and
  reinforcing expectations
• Develop systems for discouraging negative
  behaviors
• Develop function based systems for supporting
  students and responding to behavior patterns

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Teaching Behavioral Expectations An
Instructional Approach

• DEFINE expectations for behavior
• TEACH the expected behavior
• REVIEW expectations regularly
• MONITOR performance of expected behaviors
• RECOGNIZE individuals when expected behaviors are
  demonstrated
• CORRECT individuals when expected behaviors are
  not demonstrated

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Public Health Disease PreventionKutash et al.,
2006 Larson, 1994

• Tertiary (FEW)
• Reduce complications, intensity, severity of
  current cases
• Secondary (SOME)
• Reduce current cases of problem behavior
• Primary (ALL)
• Reduce new cases of problem behavior

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Activity

• Turn to the person next to you at your table and
  take turns teaching each other the triangle.
• Try to cover the key concepts in two minutes or
  less.

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Six Components of SW Discipline (SW-BSP)

• Statement of purpose (Common approach to
  discipline)
• Clearly defined expected behavior
• Procedures for teaching expected behavior
• Continuum of procedures for encouraging expected
  behavior
• Continuum of procedures for discouraging problem
  behaviors
• Procedures for record-keeping decision making

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PDSA Cycle Dean A. Fixsen and Karen A. Blasé, 2006
Team Agreements
Plan
Act
Data-based Action Plan
Evaluation
Study
Do
Implementation
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Non-Teaching
Family
Behavioral Capacity
Priority Status
Representation
Specialized Support
Administrator
Team
Community
Data-based Decision Making
Administrator
Student
Communications
Teaching
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Secure SW Agreements Supports

• Agreements
• At least 80 of staff
• Prioritizing use of data-base for informed
  decision making (e.g., EBS Staff Survey, ODRs)
• 3-4 year commitment
• Proactive instructional approach

• Supports
• Administrative leadership
• Prioritized resources
• Materials, personnel
• On-going coaching
• Time

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PDSA Cycle Dean A. Fixsen and Karen A. Blasé, 2006
Team Agreements
Plan
Act
Data-based Action Plan
Evaluation
Study
Do
Implementation
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4 Elements of Data-based Decision Making

• Use data to answer questions and verify outcomes
• Describe in measurable terms
• Specify realistic achievable criterion for
  success
• Identify priorities for action
• High quality data from clear definitions,
  processes, implementation (e.g., sw behavior
  support)
• Efficient data storage manipulation system
  (e.g., SWIS)
• Process for using data to make decisions take
  action

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Example Committee Review Form
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Kinds of Data

• Office discipline reports
• Out of classroom referrals
• Behavioral incidents
• Attendance
• Suspension/Detention
• Special education referrals
• Observations
• Self-assessments PBS Surveys, Youth Risk
  Behavior Surveys

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PDSA Cycle Dean A. Fixsen and Karen A. Blasé, 2006
Team Agreements
Plan
Act
Data-based Action Plan
Evaluation
Study
Do
Implementation
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Research to Practice
Classroom Setting Systems
Nonclassroom Setting Systems
Individual Student Systems
School-wide Systems
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Redesign Learning Teaching Environment
School Rules NO Food NO Weapons NO Backpacks NO
Drugs/Smoking NO Bullying
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Few positive SW expectations defined, taught,
encouraged
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Expectations

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PDSA Cycle Dean A. Fixsen and Karen A. Blasé, 2006
Team Agreements
Plan
Act
Data-based Action Plan
Evaluation
Study
Do
Implementation
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Is PBS creating success for students in your
school?

• After PBS Implementation the middle school
  above reduced office discipline referrals by 64
• A 64 reduction of 1324 referrals recaptures
• 26 8 hour days of teaching time
• 35 8 hour days of administrative time
• 70 8 hour days of student instruction

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4J School District Eugene, Oregon Change in the
percentage of students meeting the state standard
in reading at grade 3 from 97-98 to 01-02 for
schools using PBIS all four years and those that
did not.
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Are the Components you Worked on Actually In
Place?
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Are they staying in place over time?
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What should I expect to see/hear in a PBS school?

• SW-PBS (primary)
• gt80 of students can tell you what is expected of
  them give behavioral example because they have
  been taught, actively supervised, practiced,
  acknowledged.
• Positive adult-to-student interactions exceed
  negative
• Function based behavior support is foundation for
  addressing problem behavior.
• Data- team-based action planning
  implementation are operating.
• Administrators are active participants.
• Full continuum of behavior support is available
  to all students

• Secondary Tertiary
• Team-based coordination problem solving
• Local specialized behavioral capacity
• Function-based behavior support planning
• Person-centered, contextually culturally
  relevant
• District/regional behavioral capacity
• Instructionally oriented
• Linked to SW-PBS practices systems
• School-based comprehensive supports

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Whats the Status in Vermont?

• State-wide Leadership Team 34 members
• Training of External Implementation Coaches 6
  state-wide coaches, 3 district coaches
• Established priority for Act 230 spending
  2007/2008 and 2008/2009 spending
• Training and Implementation in Schools
• Over 900 educators mental health personnel
  introductory training
• 34 schools engaged in implementing SW-PBS

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Vermont Data
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How to find out more -

• Nationally -
• www.pbis.org
• www.apbs.org
• www.pbssurveys.org
• In Vermont
• rae.knopf_at_state.vt.us
• Richard.boltax_at_state.vt.us
• sherscho_at_sover.net

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Activity

• What further questions do you need answered to
  better understand any aspect of PBS?
• Post them on the flipchart and note common themes.