Improving Behavior and Student Achievement

This is a multi-faceted answer, because each of these behaviors is so different and the key is to only deal with one behavior at a time, and to deal with each behavior differently. So I will offer the RTI approach for just one of them. Let’s focus on the one you mention first – the homework.

The Universal Tier, or Tier 1 would focus on what you do everyday. So you might teach a lesson to the class. We call lessons like this "cool tools." The lesson would involve all of the steps in making sure homework gets turned in. It would focus on making sure that the assignment is written in an assignment notebook. Then it would focus on using the assignment notebook to help children select what goes in backpacks at the end of the day. It might also focus on creating a time and a space at home to do the homework, and finally talk about checking the assignment off after it the completed assignment was put into the backpack to be turned in the following day. The lesson would involve some role-playing and acting as each step is carried out. Also part of this tier would be reinforcing the positive behavior you see. So each time a child turns in an assignment a "gotcha" or "ticket" or reinforcer is given to the children. These "gotchas" should have a value for redemption (i.e. going to a celebration, paying for things at the school store, etc.) These are tier one things that should happen for all children in the regular curriculum and school setting.

When that does not work, then you might develop a Tier 2 behavior plan that would focus specifically on homework. This child might have a check and connect system set up with another teacher or staff member to just make sure he has his assignment notebook and his materials to complete the assignments. Another Tier 2 intervention might be the teacher signing the assignment book nightly to assure the assignment is written in the assignment book. Then the parent also signs the book at home after the assignment is completed and put in the backpack. There might be a small group Tier 2 intervention where all the kids that have this issue meet with a staff member and create a homework box. The box contains everything a student would need at home to complete homework. This group could meet weekly to discuss homework difficulties and maybe even get some "homework help." Lastly, in this tier I would look at the root causes as to why the homework is not getting done or turned in. If the child does not understand the work or it is work that cannot be done independently, then the teacher may have to make changes in the assignments, so this child can start to feel success with homework.

As for Tier 3…I am not sure that any of the behaviors listed would cause me to take this to Tier 3, as that is for very severe issues.

PBIS is RTI. It is just the behavior side of RTI. RTI is response to intervention. With three tiers. Tier 1 is the universal tier that is about strengthening the core curriculum. Tier 2 is the tier where interventions are put in place to address the area of concern. Tier 3 is very intensive interventions. All interventions are data-based and involve progress monitoring. This system of tiers is the same for behavior or academics.

My suggestion as to where to begin is to look at the OSEP Technical Assistance Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports web site. I would also attend some of the initial PBIS training sessions that might be available in your area.

My personal guideline is that removing a child from the classroom is a last resort. If the child is non-responsive and not participating, he or she might still be learning. He or she might not being doing what the teacher wants, but it might not be disrupting the educational process of the rest of the class. If the student is having a tantrum or screaming and yelling, I would reinforce the children that were behaving as expected (hoping that might cause the student to stop and seek reinforcement). Then I would warn/ask the child to stop.

If he/she were out of control, then I would ask the child to head to the office for a short cool down period. The goal in the office would be to get the child calm and back into the learning environment as soon as possible. We sometimes need to step back and realize that at this point, it is not always about providing a consequence for the poor behavior, but merely changing the behavior and getting the child back to learning.

We had our training in March. We implemented in September of that year. We spent 4-5 months really planning and getting a good majority of our staff to buy in.

In terms of addressing the common areas, we made sure that our matrix of expected behaviors addressed all of our common areas. So for example, we have 4 expectations (Be Respectful, Be Safe, Be Caring, Be Here and Ready), and on our matrix we have every single place in our building. We have a column for commonalities called school-wide, but then we have columns for the gym, classrooms, library, hallways, bathrooms, cafeteria, playground, etc. across the top of the matrix. We define what specifically being respectful looks like in EACH space in our school. Then we have posters in each of those spaces that list the expectations for the space.

Additionally, we have "cool tools" (lessons) that we teach during the first week of school that addresses behavioral expectations in these spaces. We do the cafeteria on day one. We do the hallways and the playground on day two. We have our first assembly at the end of the first week, and we do that lesson about assembly behavior just before heading to that assembly.

In order to help children learn to behave, I do believe they need to be rewarded or recognized for meeting the expectations that have been set for them. Eventually, when a child begins to internalize the behaviors and gets internal satisfaction, the external rewards are no longer necessary. But with many children, at first those external rewards are necessary. However, these rewards to not need to be monetary.

We use "Tiger Tickets" as our reinforcer. It does not matter what you use. The idea is that children get a reinforcer or "gotcha" for exhibiting the expected behaviors. Those "gotchas" or tickets can be redeemed for things at school. We try and keep them to very low cost things and we also try and stay away from food. Kids could purchase school supplies with their tickets, kids can come and watch the teachers play basket ball against the 5h graders, kids can decorate small pumpkins. These were all rewards that kids could redeem with their tickets.

This is true whether the children live in a wealthy or an economically depressed community. Kids need to be rewarded for what they do. They need love and support at school always, because they might not get it at home, regardless of their economic status.

I would probably set up a reinforcement system at home similar to the way it is done in a PBIS school setting. I would set some simple expectations like "Be Here and Ready to Practice" – then I would define that into simple understandable terms such as – practice 10 minutes of spelling, practice 10 minutes of counting, read for 10-15 minutes. When you see you child meeting the expectations, he should be reinforced with a "gotcha" or ticket. Then tickets can be cashed in for certain rewards or privileges.

Personally, I think there are two ways to go with this. First, if the teacher is the one responsible for the plan, then the plan really should be re-written so that it contains things that the teacher has the skills to do. A great plan that a teacher cannot manage or implement will result in a failed plan. In the long run this will not solve the behavior problems for the teacher and possibly cause the behavior issues to become more problematic.

The second way this could be approached is to re-open the plan and look at each specific part of the plan or listed strategy. Each part or strategy should then be assigned to a person on the team who does have the skills to manage that specific part. This will create group ownership of the plan and hopefully help to create a better situation for both the student and the teacher. I would have the social worker or counselor serve as the case manager to make sure that each person is working on his/her part of the plan with the student.

In either case, I would then work behind the scenes to help strengthen the skills of the teacher. That might mean having the teacher do some peer observations of a teacher with the skills that you are looking to help develop in the teacher in question. You might also consider sending that teacher to some of the PBIS workshops to help him/her strengthen both his/her skills and knowledge base.

I think that there are two things that help children engage in school and learning as opposed to socializing. First, there must be solid instructional planning of activities and lessons that will excite and engage children in active, hands-on learning. Second the atmosphere that teacher creates in the room must be one that is fun, warm, colorful, and safe, and the teacher must forge connections with the students. If these things happen, then children want to participate in learning, because it is active and fun, and the children will want to please the teacher because they like the teacher and know that the teacher likes them.

We start every school year with a fun, silly assembly where we introduce all of the teachers and our school-wide behavioral expectations. The students get to see the teachers do silly things, but the message of the assembly is all about engaging in school and meeting behavioral expectations. We have found this to be something the children truly look forward to during the first few days of school and it really sets a school-wide tone for learning and behaving.

Part of what makes PBIS so successful is that fact that it IS a school-wide system. If all of the school employees are involved, your reward system permeates the entire school, everyone is using common language, and then the entire culture of the school begins to change. I suppose that doing it in one room is better than not doing it at all, but I do not think you will get the systemic change that is necessary to change a culture, and you may have difficultly sustaining the behavior of the children when they are in areas of the school other than your classroom.

Tardiness is a problem at my school. We have not had a great deal of success in solving this problem. The reason is that with tardiness in 9 out of 10 times, it really is not the fault of the child. PBIS unfortunately does not really help to change the behavior of parents. While we always make sure we give our chronically tardy children "tickets" when they are actually on time for school, to reinforce their positive behavior, we cannot sustain it because the root cause of the tardiness is the parent.

If the child cannot get to school without the parent, then we cannot punish the child for tardiness of the parent. However, I do have one-on-one conversations with parents that continually get their children to school late. I wish I could offer more here, but I am in fact, facing the same problem. (If you have solutions that work, I would love to hear them.)

We have only had to focus Tier 3 interventions on kids in need of something very intense. For kids that are consistently disruptive, we would probably be looking at more specific and intense Tier 2 interventions. I would focus specifically on what the disruptive behavior looks like (is it noises? is it calling out? is it chatting with a friend? is it self stimulation?) As I mentioned in an answer to Jim Dallio – we don’t use the word "disruptive," as it is not specific enough. After defining the behavior more specifically, then it is important to look at what is happening just before the disruption. This might require a separate set of eyes (other than the teacher's) and maybe even an FBA (functional behavioral analysis).

If you can isolate what is occurring before the disruptive behavior, then it will help you design a more effective intervention. I would also focus on making sure that when the child is not exhibiting the negative behavior for very short periods of time (even 3-5 minutes at first) he/she is reinforced. The number and frequency of rewards needs to be increased and the child needs to be able to trade in his "gotchas" more frequently so that the reinforcement is very meaningful to him/her.

Lastly, sometimes the child might need some sort of outlet and rather than trying to extinguish a behavior, a replacement behavior must be introduced. For example, I had a student that bounced his legs very noisily on the floor and kicked the legs of the desk all the time. This was very distracting and disturbed the class. The antecedent was any individual work or quiet time. We gave him a replacement behavior by wrapping a bungee cord around the bottom of his desk legs. He put his feet on this and bounced. He still got the movement and self-stimulation, but the disruptive noises were stopped by the replacement behavior.

When we have repeat offenders, this is when we move to Tier 2 interventions. However, those interventions are very specific to the behavior that the child is repeating. We work very hard not to say, "He has poor behavior and needs an intervention." Instead we say, "He is talking out in class constantly, and I think we need a more intense intervention to focus on this talking out in class." (In fact, "disruptive" is not a word we use any more – we break disruptive down to: talking out, purposeful noises, chatting with peers, etc).

The more specific that we are in describing the behavior we are trying to change, the more effective we have been with our interventions. We look specifically at the behavior, we look at when it is happening, we try to figure out what the antecedent to the behavior is, and we try to come up with replacement behaviors for the student. So unfortunately, I cannot be specific about interventions, without knowing what the specific behavior is.

There is really no reason that you cannot move kids from tier to tier for both academic and behavioral interventions simultaneously. Please keep in mind that while you can in fact deal with both academic and behavioral interventions at the same time, we have had much more success on the behavior side by only addressing one problematic behavior at a time. Also keep in mind that the tiers are only a framework. As interventions move up the "intervention triangle" (or move up to different levels of tiers), what is really happening is that the intensity of the interventions is changing. Tier 1 is the core curriculum. With behavior that means the universal plan: teaching cool tools (behavioral lessons), using a behavioral matrix, and implementing a reward system. The keys are: define, teach, remind, reward, re-teach. On the academic side, Tier 1 is the core academic program. Tier 1 is about strengthening this core program so that it can meet the needs of at least 80% of the students.

When children struggle either academically or behaviorally, then you move up the triangle and increase the intensity of the interventions. Tier 2 interventions focus on small groups of children or individual children and are focused specifically on the academic or behavioral concerns these children exhibit. If a child is struggling behaviorally and academically, that child may have separate intervention plans to deal with the behavioral issues and the academic issues.

Response to Intervention is a systematic approach to dealing with children that are struggling academically or behaviorally. The academic side of RTI focuses on creating interventions for children that will help them learn and keep them out of special education. The first tier is about strengthening the core curriculum so that children have a better change of learning the material that they are presented with. The curriculum and instructional techniques should to be research-based and best-practice. When children have academic difficulty, they move to Tier 2 where more intense academic interventions are put in place (Direct Instruction, Reading Recovery, etc.) The idea is that if children start responding to the intervention and making progress, you leave the intervention in place and special education is not necessary. If they don't respond, then you move the child to Tier 3 – which means even more intense interventions, and possibly special education. The process is data driven and requires constant progress monitoring of the child.

Response to Intervention has two sides, an academic side and a behavioral side (as these are the two areas in which children struggle and may need interventions). PBIS is the BEHAVIORAL SIDE OF RTI. PBIS is a systems approach to behavior that also has three tiers. The first tier is the core curriculum, which is focused on defining expected behaviors, teaching those behaviors, and rewarding kids for displaying those expected behaviors. The progress of children is monitored and behavioral data is used to make decisions regarding school-wide systems and individual children. Tiers 2 and 3 involve more intense behavioral interventions for kids, and the ultimate goal is to put interventions in place that the children will respond to so that identification for special education (on the behavior side – identification of behavior or emotional disorders) is not necessary.

For further reading on this topic, you might check out the article School-Wide Positive Behavior Support and Response to Intervention, by George Sugai.

There is no reason why a child cannot have both academic and behavioral interventions at the same time. However, I do recommend only addressing one behavioral concern at a time.

We use SWIS to help us manage our behavioral data. We use every field in SWIS, and we also break out "disruptions" further, into 5 categories. These are entered in the "other information" field. Then we pull those up through SWIS and enter them in an Excel table as well. SWIS allows you to graph information in all different way. It also lets you gather and sort the information in all different ways. This has truly been all we have needed. If we are looking at kids receiving Tier 2 or 3 supports, we will use data from FBAs (functional behavior analysis), as well as data from the second part of SWIS called CICO (check-in, check-out). We might also look at grades. But honestly, SWIS is a VERY powerful tool for managing your referral data.

Our Tier 1 team is one person from every grade-level team, one person from the fine arts team, the social worker, and the principal. We do not discuss individual students at this level. This team focuses on the core of the PBIS system for the school.

Our Tier 2 team is the principal, the social worker, the teachers of the students involved, two general education teachers, the psychologist, the speech teacher or the resource teacher, and depending on the student and the issues – we might invite the parents.

Our Tier 3 team is very individualized to the student and what the specific issues and needs are. We have even brought in brothers and sisters from other schools when we feel we need the entire family for a meeting.

If you teach the skills and expectations through Cool Tools on a regular basis this should meet those social/emotional goals. However, you must teach more than procedures (how to walk down the hall, how to use the hand-blowers in the rest rooms appropriately, etc). You need to teach skills like: how to say no, how to join a game, what to do if your friends are mad at you, what do do if you are mad at a friend, etc. We teach these all through role-playing, and every classroom in the school teaches the same 20-25 minute lesson every Monday or Tuesday.

We were given a number of already made lessons by our PBIS original trainers – and we were able to adapt these lessons to our school. However, the majority of our lessons were developed by our universal team of teachers. Usually two teachers would work together to create one lesson. At our monthly universal meetings we would look at both our behavioral data (in SWIS) and the anecdotal notes that teachers would send us, and we would use this to decide what cool tools we needed. We would usually plan out the lessons for four weeks (the time in between our meetings). Then we would go about writing these lessons. They all follow the same format – which expectation the lesson was addressing, the purpose of the lesson, teaching examples, role play scenarios, and a follow up. Kids really enjoy these lessons because they involve a role-play. The actual instruction minutes would count toward either health (for mental health related issues) or social studies (for community building).

We set aside about $1000 for rewards and celebrations. This comes from my building budget. That money is used to buy things like pumpkins for pumpkin painting, t-shirt for our tie-dye celebration, supplies for our school store (that kids purchase using tickets), etc. Then we take about $700 out of the building budget to pay for printing. We print our Office Discipline Referral Forms, our Tiger Tickets, and our Parent Handbook (which you can view at our school web site). All of our materials are printed in both English and Spanish. This is about $1700 a year. I often am given money from our PTA as well, since the parent population is VERY supportive of our endeavors in PBIS.

Teacher buy in came from the fact that our original group of teachers that went to the training had one teacher from every grade level and fine arts team in our building. The teachers that went to the training bought in right away, because our training was excellent, and they were motivated to be there. I used these teachers to sell the strategies to the rest of the staff at a staff meeting. It did not come from me; it came from their colleagues. There were many that were reluctant, so we made sure that they had input. Teachers did not like our reinforcement system. It was the Dewey Dollar. They felt that it seems too much like paying kids. So they suggested the Tiger Ticket. Since it was exactly the same except for the name, we changed it.

The staff also offered other suggestions. We made sure to incorporate them (as long as they were not suggestions that interfered with the fidelity of the system). There were 4-5 blockers left when we started our implementation. Showing the data, which showed our success, is what made all the difference with the remaining staff. After the first 6 months when we saw huge changes in our data, 4 of them came around. To only have 1-2 blockers left – I could live with that.

Teacher buy in came from the fact that our original group of teachers that went to the training had one teacher from every grade level and fine arts team in our building. The teachers that went to the training bought in right away, because our training was excellent, and they were motivated to be there. I used these teachers to sell the strategies to the rest of the staff at a staff meeting. It did not come from me; it came from their colleagues. There were many that were reluctant, so we made sure that they had input. Teachers did not like our reinforcement system. It was the Dewey Dollar. They felt that it seems too much like paying kids. So they suggested the Tiger Ticket. Since it was exactly the same except for the name, we changed it.

The staff also offered other suggestions. We made sure to incorporate them (as long as they were not suggestions that interfered with the fidelity of the system). There were 4-5 blockers left when we started our implementation. Showing the data, which showed our success, is what made all the difference with the remaining staff. After the first 6 months when we saw huge changes in our data, 4 of them came around. To only have 1-2 blockers left – I could live with that.

We were trained by the PBIS office in our area. The training they provided was FANTASTIC. It was a two day training session. We had one person from every grade-level team at the training. The trainer would not allow the team to stay if the principal was not there, as administrative support is imperative. In fact, one team was dismissed because the principal did not attend.

The training balanced theory with practice. So we learned a great deal about behavior theory and behavioral interventions, but we were also given plenty of time to work as a team to develop our behavioral matrix, some cool tools (behavioral lessons), and even work on what our reward system was going to look like. After the two day training we went back to the school with a fantastic start. We took two more full school days to meet as a team, to iron out things even more. After that, we presented the plan to the entire staff. There were concerns brought up and the team worked one more day to address concerns and revise the plan. This is how we continued to get staff buy-in, because we responsive to the concerns of the staff.

We started our training in March and implemented the system with the start of the school year in August.

I think the key here would be supervision patterns. In looking at our data, one year we noticed a huge spike in ODRs (office discipline referrals) at 8:55. That is the time when kids enter school. What we learned was that teachers were going to the playground and getting kids and kids were in long lines behind teachers and were therefore not visible or supervised. Further we learned that kids were tripping over each other in the hall, so we changed the order in which classes entered the building. While this is not directly answering your specific question, the point I am trying to make is that in many instances, it is not children’s behavior that needs changing. Sometimes it is adult behavior that needs changing.

In your specific case – kids coming to school and then wandering the halls and not going to class, the way to cut down on this behavior would be to increase the supervision in the hallways during the time that this is happening. Use teachers who have a prep-period, or even non-certified staff, or even the principal to do walk-throughs in the hallways (and remember the bathrooms). When the children see the increased adult presence, they will probably not want to be caught outside of class or in hallways.

One of the keys to RTI, whether it is the academic side or the behavioral side, is that you must be using data-based decision making. The recommendation that I could offer you is that you would have to start collecting data. The only way to tell if a child is responding to the intervention is to progress monitor. This requires data. The data show you if a child is responding. If the child is responding, then you can leave the intervention in place. If the child is not responding, then you can increase the intensity of the interventions. The data also allow you to change and alter the instruction as necessary. The data is your proof, so I would suggest asking to see the data that has been collected as part of the RTI implementation process.