Comprehensive School Mental Health Framework

School-Wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports

Overview of Module

This module reviews explicitly the benefits and essentials of implementing School-Wide Positive Behavioral Intervention and Supports (SWPBIS). SW-PBIS is an integral component of positive school discipline.

Objectives

Objectives of this Section:

Describe the key principles within School-Wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (SWPBIS).
Understand how SWPBIS is integral to positive discipline.
Discuss common challenges and solutions when implementing SWPBIS.

Concepts and Definitions

School-Wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (SWPBIS) is a multi-tiered, data-driven prevention framework to create a positive school culture and implement behavior supports where all students feel safe, secure, and valued. SWPBIS utilizes evidence-based strategies to help build connections and create positive and culturally responsive learning environments. SWPBIS is implemented through a collaborative team-based process.

Importance of Concept

The proactive and universal approach works to create a behavioral system where positive, supportive, and healthy behaviors are taught, practiced, and reinforced within the three tiers of the multi-tiered systems of support framework (MTSS). This systematic implementation of evidence-based practices enhances the overall school climate, helps reduce behavior problems, increases school safety, and improves social, emotional, behavioral, and mental health outcomes. The success of SWPBIS relies on consistent implementation, ongoing evaluation, and a commitment to fostering a positive and inclusive school culture for all students.

Establishing an effective SW-PBIS program can come with challenges. Below is a brief discussion of common concerns and suggestions to address them.

Common concerns and challenges often include:

Inadequate resources and training
Change in leadership that shifts the focus of the work
Lack of data collection, analysis, and use of findings
Applying a ‘one size fits all’ approach to discipline
Inadequate focus on developing tier-one supports
Belief from educators that SW-PBIS is ‘just another program’
Inconsistent application of behavioral interventions and supports (or not done with fidelity)

For effective implementation, please take a look at the following suggestions.

Secure support from district and school leaders
Provide ongoing professional development and coaching support to all educators.
Regularly collect, analyze, and discuss data; data informs the interventions.
View families as partners and offer opportunities for families to learn about behavioral strategies that can also be implemented at home.
Ensure adequate resources and interventions that are specific to meet the needs at each tier of support. It is important to focus on developing interventions that specifically address the complex, high student needs.
Create system checks to examine the fidelity of implementation.

Review Ten Common Misses in PBIS Implementation for additional information and suggestions to address them.

Supportive Research

Increases Student Engagement and Instructional Time

A significant component of PBIS centers on creating and practicing school-wide expectations. This strategy helps build community, develop connections, and strengthen relationships, which results in enhanced student engagement. Additionally, when students clearly understand classroom expectations and receive instructional consequences instead of exclusionary discipline practices, teachers report the ability to spend more time instructing students rather than managing classroom behaviors. (Algozzine & Algozzine, 2007)

Increases Prosocial and Emotional Regulation Skills

Schools that implement a PBIS framework, define positive expectations like respect, kindness, and empathy, and intentionally teach strategies that create a supportive learning environment report students with lower levels of unwanted behaviors, higher levels of positive, prosocial behaviors, and increased emotion regulation skills. (Bradshaw, Waasdorp, & Leaf, 2012)

Reduces Racial Inequities in Discipline

Research conducted by the Institute of Education Sciences and the U.S. Department of Education reported schools receiving equity-focused professional development and coaching to assess their school discipline disparities and coaching to support methods to counteract implicit bias and integrate culturally relevant instructional practices within a PBIS framework had significant decreases in racial disparities in school discipline and rates of office discipline referrals for Black students, while control schools had minimal change. (McIntosh et al., 2021)

Decrease in Behavioral Referrals and Suspensions

This study found that schools implementing universal (Tier 1) SWPBIS with fidelity and either Tier 2 or 3 with fidelity (Gold level) or all three tiers with fidelity (Platinum level) reported significantly fewer Out-of-School Suspensions than schools not implementing SWPBIS. Another study revealed children in SWPBIS schools were 33% less likely to receive an office discipline referral than those in the comparison schools. The effects tended to be strongest among children first exposed to SWPBIS in kindergarten. (Gage, Grasley-Boy, Lombardo, & Anderson, 2020)

Reduces Teacher Burnout

Safe, predictable, consistent schools are essential and beneficial for everyone, including teachers. When schools implement SW-PBIS, teachers feel less emotionally exhausted, more connected to their students’ perceptions of their class, have a greater sense of accomplishment in their work, and, overall, more capable in their abilities as teachers. These combined effects lead to less teacher burnout. (Algozzine & Algozzine, 2007)

Lowers Substance and Drug Use

Schools implementing PBIS report lower illegal drug and alcohol use than schools that do not utilize PBIS. (Bastable, Kittelman, McIntosh, & Hoselton, 2015)

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