PBIS Breakdown

PBIS Breakdown

 Tiered PBIS Framework

Educators and practitioners provide a continuum of academic, behavioral, social, and emotional support matched to students’ needs. We describe this continuum across three tiers of support.

Foundational systems across all three tiers include:

• A shared vision for a positive school social culture

• A representative leadership team that meets regularly and shares expertise in coaching, social, emotional, behavioral, academic, equity, mental health, physical health, wellness, and trauma  

• Families are actively engaged‍

• A supportive and involved school administration

• On-going access to professional development for preparing all staff to implement each tier of PBIS

• Systematic collection of screening, progress-monitoring, outcome, and fidelity data

• Ongoing use of data for decision making

• Disaggregating data to examine equity among student subgroups

Tier 1: Universal, Primary Prevention (All)

Tier 1 systems, data, and practices support everyone – students, educators, and staff – across all school settings. They establish a foundation for positive and proactive support. Tier 1 support is robust, differentiated, and enables most (80% or more) students to experience success. Tier 1 practices include:

• Collaborating with students, families, and educators to define positive school/program-wide expectations and prioritize appropriate social, emotional, and behavioral skills

• Aligning classroom expectations with school/program-wide expectations

• Explicitly teaching expectations and skills to set all students up for success

• Encouraging and acknowledging expected behavior

• Preventing and responding to unwanted behavior in a respectful, instructional manner

• Fostering school/program-family partnerships

Tier 2: Targeted, Secondary Prevention (Some)

In addition to your Tier 1 foundation, students receiving Tier 2 supports get an added layer of systems, data, and practices targeting their specific needs. On average, about 10-15% of your students will need some type of Tier 2 support. The support you provide at Tier 2 is more focused than at Tier 1 and less intensive than at Tier 3. Tier 2 practices include:

• Providing additional instruction and practice for behavioral, social, emotional, and academic skills

• Increasing adult support and supervision

• Providing additional opportunities for positive reinforcement

• Increasing prompts or reminders

• Increasing access to academic supports

• Increasing school-family communication

Tier 3: Intensive and Individualized, Tertiary Prevention (Few)

At most schools and programs, there are a small number (1-5%) of students for whom Tier 1 and Tier 2 supports have not been sufficient to experience success. At Tier 3, students receive more intensive, individualized support to improve their outcomes. Tier 3 supports are available to any student with intensive need, whether they receive special education services or not. Tier 3 practices include:

• Engaging students, educators, and families in functional behavioral assessments and intervention planning

• Coordinating support through wraparound and person-centered planning

• Implementing individualized, comprehensive, and function-based support