PBIS Teams

Teaming foundations

Leadership teaming is a foundational component for PBIS implementation at all levels. Your teams will guide, advise, install, and evaluate your system. Your success will largely depend on the effectiveness of your teams!

Information on this page will help you think through teaming structures and provide resources for effective team operation.

Cascades of support

State/Regional Teams

Coordinated teaming structures create a cascade of support from the national-level to the school/building-level to assist with implementation. SESC has a Regional Implementation Team (RIT) designed to support district and school-level implementation of PBIS and is supported by state and national technical assistance teams.

District Teams

According to the District Systems Fidelity Inventory, the District Leadership Team is recommended to have:

"Representation from range of stakeholders including at least: (a) families, (b) general education, (c) special education, (d) individuals with detailed knowledge about the current social-emotional-behavioral initiatives, and (e) members of the local community that have investment in youth outcomes."
"Expertise to ensure fidelity of implementation of PBIS practices and systems in three domains: (a) training, (b) coaching, and (c) evaluation [and] includes individuals representing P-12 with social-emotional-behavioral expertise across the full continuum of behavior support (Tiers 1, 2, 3)."
"District Leadership Team is led or facilitated by a coordinator(s) with: (a) designated time for coordination and (b) experience in data-based decision-making."

District Teams assist with a variety of functions including community partner engagement, funding and alignment of initiatives, policy development and revisions, developing adequacy of the workforce capacity, training, coaching, evaluation and development/support of local demonstration sites. Learn more about this in the PBIS Implementation Blueprint.

School/Building Teams

Teaming structures are a little more complex at the school/building level. There will generally be two types of teams at this level: 1) School/Building Implementation Teams and 2) Individual Student Problem Solving Teams. The Tiered Fidelity Inventory (TFI) provides information on recommended membership and meeting structures at each tier of implementation. See this resource to learn more about this TFI.

Generally speaking, School/Building Implementation teams having a standing membership and will meet monthly to focus on installing and evaluating the framework of PBIS, while Student Problem Solving will have a more unique and fluid membership structure and meet as a student need dictates. As one would imagine, school/building-level leadership team structures depend on the size and make-up of the schools. Here are some examples. The types of conversations had and work completed for each type of team is depicted below.

Integrating Related Teams

Schools often struggle with the number of teams or committees they have and in many cases roles and responsibilities of the team can be overlapping. See p. 14 of this implementation workbook for assistance with analyzing teaming/committee structures and the document below for some teaming considerations specific to Kentucky. Much of this work can be done by the same team!

Teams, Teams, Teams

data-based decision making and problem solving

A hallmark of PBIS implementation and a primary role for all PBIS teams is data analysis and problem solving. There are a variety of methods for accomplishing this. Find out more about the Team Initiated Problem Solving (TIPS) approach here.