NEA Brief
Describes Project ACHIEVE’s Successful School Discipline, Classroom Management,
and Student Self-Management Approaches
Dear Colleague,
As the new school year begins
for many of us, the importance of establishing a safe and productive school
climate based on positive relationships and prosocial interactions is
paramount. Concurrent with this is the
need to immediately integrate effective classroom management strategies into
every classroom where students learn the behavioral expectations, the classroom
routines, and how to work together in small and large group situations.
Three major barriers to this
process are:
* Studies of teacher training programs across
the country have long shown that these programs provide precious little
training in classroom management. Thus,
teachers are often on their own in a “trial by fire” process to find the
approaches that work best for them.
* When individual teachers at the same grade
level have different classroom management approaches, these can sometimes
compete with each other- - or even contradict and create significant levels of
cross-teacher inconsistency. Thus, “classroom
management” must be a (grade level) team effort where there are consistent
grade level expectations, incentives, and consequences that merge into consistent
school-wide practices.
* When schools use “single-focus” approaches
that relate to school discipline. . . but also undermine it. When schools focus predominantly on overcoming
outdated zero tolerance policies, decreasing bullying, increasing trauma
sensitivity, addressing disproportionality, implementing restorative justice
strategies, or introducing mindfulness, they typically miss the point and
weaken their program.
The point is that
schools need to focus on a science-to-practice approach to school discipline
and classroom management where the goal is to consistently teach, motivate,
and hold students accountable for social, emotional, and behavioral
self-management skills in developmentally appropriate ways.
Simultaneously, schools need
a continuum of services, supports, programs, and strategies for students who
present high-frequency or high-intensity problem behaviors. This necessarily involves school staff (e.g.,
counselors, school psychologists, social workers, behavioral intervention and
other mental health specialists, special educators) with expertise in both
analyzing and intervening with these students, while providing consultation to
classroom teachers and administrators.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Frameworks versus Models
In order to accomplish the
points immediately above, districts and schools need to understand the
difference between a framework and a model.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary
defines framework as “A basic conceptual structure (as of ideas); a set
of ideas or facts that provide support for something.”
The same dictionary defines model
as “A structural design. . . that serves as a pattern of something to be made.”
Applied to education and,
specifically, school-wide discipline approaches, a framework simply
describes a way to conceptualize school discipline along with a number of
possible characteristics or strategies to create the structure.
A model- - and, especially, an evidence-based
model- - describes a field-tested and research-to-practice set of explicit
components and strategies that are systematically sequenced into an
implementation process that has demonstrated success.
Clearly, while guided by frameworks, districts and schools need
field-tested models of school discipline, classroom management, and student
self-management. We do not want to
do on a district or school level what some teachers (see above) are now doing
relative to classroom management- - that is, using trial-by-fire approaches
that will likely fail while then negatively impacting the classroom (or school’s)
academic program and students’ success.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
A New NEA Policy Brief on
Frameworks, Models, and Project ACHIEVE
Earlier this summer, the
National Education Association (NEA) published a new policy brief on Positive
Behavioral Interventions and Supports:
A Multi-tiered Framework that Works for Every Student. In introducing the Brief, NEA President Lily
Eskelsen Garcia stated:
“The most effective
tool teachers have to handle problem behavior is to prevent it from occurring
in the first place. Positive Behavioral
Interventions and Supports (PBIS) programs help teachers recognize the
significance of classroom management and preventive school discipline to
maximize student success. PBIS
strategies are critical to providing all young people with the best learning
environment.”
In its introductory and a later
section, the Brief recognizes that the term “Positive Behavioral Supports”
(PBS) was, historically, the first term for describing positive school-wide
disciplinary practices- - beginning in the early 1990s; and that this term and
the term “School-wide Positive Behavioral Supports” (SWPBS) are the generic
terms for a set of school-wide approaches to related to school discipline,
student self-management, and a continuum of interventions for students with
challenging behavior.
The Brief then notes that the
generic PBS term evolved and was referenced in the 2004 reauthorization of our
country’s federal special education law (IDEA) as: “positive behavioral interventions
and supports” (lower case and without an acronym). The Brief then discusses the “Positive
Behavioral Interventions and Supports” (PBIS) framework that has been developed
through the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Program’s
national technical assistance center of the same name.
Critically (as differentiated in the Brief),
the national center’s PBIS approaches are organized as a framework (see
above) and not as a model. As
important is the fact that the national center’s PBIS framework (UPPER CASE) is not specifically what the federal
IDEA law was referencing when it advocated for (lower case) “positive behavioral interventions and supports”
approaches.
Ultimately, this new NEA Policy
Brief highlights Project ACHIEVE’s Positive Behavioral Support System (PBSS) as
an evidence-based model that “provides an explicit implementation sequence and
specific procedures and practices focused on clearly-defined outcomes.” Three Project ACHIEVE areas are specifically
described in the Brief: the PBSS model’s school-level goals, student-level
goals, and school and staff components.
The PBSS school-level goals
involve maximizing
students’ social, emotional, and behavioral self-management skills as
demonstrated by high and consistent levels of effective:
- Interpersonal, social problem solving, conflict prevention and resolution, and emotional coping skills that occur ...
- In the classroom and common areas of the school, that result in . . .
- Academic engagement and achievement, and that . . .
- Prevent or discourage specific acts of teasing, taunting, bullying, harassment, hazing, and verbal/physical aggression.
_ _ _ _ _
The PBSS student-level goals involve
having students learn, master, and apply—at appropriate developmental levels—the
following competencies:
•
Social
Competencies
Listening, Engagement, and Response Skills
Communication and Collaboration Skills
Social Problem-Solving and Group Process
Skills
Conflict Prevention and Resolution Skills
•
Emotional
Competencies
Emotional Self-Awareness, Control, and
Coping
Skills
Awareness and Understanding of Others’
Emotions and Emotional
Behavior
Positive Self-Concept, Self-Esteem, and
Self-Statement Skills
Self-Statement Skills
•
Cognitive-Behavioral
Competencies
Self-Scripting, Self-Monitoring,
Self-Evaluation,
Self-Correction, and Self-Reinforcement Skills
Self-Correction, and Self-Reinforcement Skills
Social, Interactional, and Interpersonal
Skills
Classroom and Building Routine Skills
Instructional and Academic Supporting Skills
_ _ _ _ _
The PBSS school and staff components
involve the following are below.
Schools
need to:
·
Develop
and implement a preschool through high school “Health, Mental Health, and
Wellness” program guided by a scaffolded scope and sequence of courses,
curricula, modules, or experiences
·
Systematically
teach students social, emotional, and behavioral skills consistent with their
developmental levels
·
Identify
classroom and common school area behavioral expectations and standards for all
students, and develop and implement a school-wide behavioral accountability
system involving incentives and differentiated responses to progressive levels
of inappropriate student behavior
·
Have
related service and other staff available to provide consultation to classroom
teachers, to complete functional assessments of behaviorally-challenging
students, and to help implement strategic or intensive instructional and
intervention services, supports, strategies, and programs to underachieving,
unresponsive, or unsuccessful students
·
Reach
out to parents and engage community resources in areas and activities that
support students’ academic and social, emotional, and behavioral learning,
mastery, and proficiency
·
Evaluate
the outcomes of PBSS activities, especially in the following areas: positive school and classroom climate; high
levels of student engagement and achievement; high levels of prosocial student
interactions; low levels of school and classroom discipline problems requiring
office discipline referrals or school suspensions or expulsions; low levels of
student drop-out rates (at the secondary level) or placements in alternative
schools or settings; high rates of student high school graduations and
post-secondary school successes
_ _ _ _ _
Instructional Staff need to
demonstrate:
·
Effective,
differentiated instruction and sound classroom management approaches
·
Knowledge
and skill relative to determining why students are academically and/or behaviorally
underachieving, unresponsive, or unsuccessful in the classroom
·
Collaborative
interactions with related services personnel (e.g., school counselors or psychologists)
or other assessment/intervention consultants
·
Commitment
to implementing, with support, more strategic or intensive academic or behavioral
instruction or intervention to address specific student needs
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
More
Information and Summary
With everything that schools need to do- - in
general and, especially, at the beginning of the school year, it is important
that school-wide approaches that impact our classrooms, staff, and students be
field-tested and successful (a) at all levels (preschool through high school), (b)
in multiple settings (urban, suburban, and rural), and (c) with different
student bodies (from different cultural/racial, socioeconomic, and geographic
backgrounds).
While frameworks are important places to
begin, districts and schools need specific and sequenced models that have
demonstrated science-to-practice success.
We don’t
have time for experimentation. And, we
cannot afford false starts.
While there are a number of school-wide positive behavioral support
models, Project ACHIEVE’s model has been implemented (according to the NEA
Brief) “since 1990. . . in over 1,500 schools or district nationwide. . .(and)
was recognized in 2000 by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services’
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) as an
evidence-based model prevention program.”
For
more information on Project ACHIEVE, go to www.projectachieve.net, or use any of
the links on this Blog.
Meanwhile, as you begin the new school year, I hope that this
information is useful to as you renew the educational journey of preparing our students not just
academically - - but socially, emotionally, and behaviorally.
I appreciate everything
that you do as educational leaders in our country. As always, if I can help your school(s) or
district in any of the areas related to this or previous Blog discussions,
please do not hesitate to contact me.
Best,
Howie
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