All 9 schools in Little Lake City School District are implementing Positive Behavioral Interventions & Supports (PBIS) to create safe and equitable school environments that promote student learning and success.
The end goals of PBIS are to minimize the lost instruction time for students who are suspended, minimize classroom disruptions and create a positive, safe, consistent and predictable school climate for all students. Schools who have implemented PBIS have experienced levels of increased academic achievement, increased attendance rates and decreased suspension rates for all students.
Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) is a proactive approach to establishing the behavioral supports and social culture needed for all students in a school to achieve social, emotional and academic success. 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 youth by making targeted misbehavior less effective, efficient, and relevant, and desired behavior more functional.
The following diagram illustrates the multi-tiered framework offered to all students in LLCSD. These group depictions represent systems of support, not children:
Frequently, the question is asked, “Why should we have to teach kids to be good? They already know what they are supposed to do. Why can we not just expect good behavior?” 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. Research has shown that the implementation of punishment, especially when it is used inconsistently and in the absence of other positive strategies, is ineffective. Introducing, modeling, and reinforcing positive social behavior is an important step of a student’s educational experience. Teaching behavioral expectations and rewarding students for following them is a much more positive approach than waiting for misbehavior to occur before responding. The purpose of school-wide PBIS is to establish a climate in which appropriate behavior is the norm.
Data-based decision-making aligns curricular instruction and behavioral supports to student and staff needs. Schools applying PBIS begin by establishing clear expectations for behavior that are taught, modeled, and reinforced across all settings and by all staff. This provides a host environment that supports the adoption and sustained use of effective academic and social/emotional instruction. PBIS has proven its effectiveness and efficiency as an Evidence-Based Practice. (Sugai & Horner, 2007).
| District PBIS Coach |
Dr. Tony Valencia – Director of Special Education and Pupil Services |
All 9 schools in Little Lake City School District are implementing Positive Behavioral Interventions & Supports (PBIS) to create safe and equitable school environments that promote student learning and success.
The end goals of PBIS are to minimize the lost instruction time for students who are suspended, minimize classroom disruptions and create a positive, safe, consistent and predictable school climate for all students. Schools who have implemented PBIS have experienced levels of increased academic achievement, increased attendance rates and decreased suspension rates for all students.
