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Introduction

Greyson Cole Elementary School is a midsize school nestled in a small neighborhood on the outskirts of Reno, Nevada. Tumbleweeds regularly blow through the parking lot, and one can see the crisp Nevada landscape from its windows. It’s not uncommon for a neighborhood dog to find its way to the playground during recess.

Like most schools, Greyson Cole Elementary School has its share of student problem behavior. Teachers manage behaviors that range from students running in the hallways to students fighting with each other. During one school year, the staff completed 397 major discipline referrals—documenting fighting, bullying, or property damage—and 434 minor discipline referrals—documenting tardiness, noncompliance, and minor acts of disrespect (Harlacher, 2011). Not surprisingly, such behavior extends to the buses, where over five hundred citations were given out during the same school year. In fact, inappropriate student behavior was so out of control that bus drivers occasionally turned the bus around to return to the school. Such referral rates paint a somewhat chaotic setting where time is often spent on managing behavior instead of on delivering instruction.

What are options for schools such as this one to respond to problem behavior? They could certainly adopt a zero-tolerance policy and use suspension as a means of restoring order, but zero-tolerance policies are largely ineffective for lowering misbehavior rates and for improving school climate (Advancement Project & Civil Rights Project, 2000; American Psychological Association Zero Tolerance Task Force, 2008; Costenbader & Markson, 1998; Tobin, Sugai, & Colvin, 1996). Perhaps identifying students with chronic problem behavior and developing interventions for those students could work, as school-based interventions are an effective means for managing student behavior (Bowen, Jenson, & Clark, 2004; Rathvon, 2008). However, the interventions themselves can be taxing for teachers to implement consistently, decreasing effectiveness (Kratochwill, Elliott, & Callan-Stoiber, 2002; Kratochwill & Shernoff, 2004; Noell, Duhon, Gatti, & Connell, 2002; Wolery, 2011). Additionally, teachers don’t always have access to the resources they need for such interventions, such as technical assistance and training manuals, and the heavy use of individualized interventions creates a fragmented, piecemeal system that is inefficient (Merrell, Ervin, & Peacock, 2012; Peacock, Ervin, Daly, & Merrell, 2010). Schools and teachers need a more preventative, effective, and comprehensive approach to discipline. Enter Schoolwide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (SWPBIS). SWPBIS is a preventative framework that uses increasingly intensive layers of support to prevent problem behavior, create a positive school climate, and improve the overall social and academic competence of students (Sailor, Dunlap, Sugai, & Horner, 2009).

Greyson Cole Elementary School implemented SWPBIS as part of a districtwide implementation initiative (Harlacher, 2011). The results were positive after just one year of implementation, as the number of minor referrals dropped by 43 percent. The reduction in referrals was an estimated sixty-two hours of time back to teachers and students (185 referrals at twenty minutes of instructional time each). The number of major referrals dropped by 29 percent, gaining back an estimated twenty-eight hours of administrative time (112 referrals at fifteen minutes of administration time). The effect on the referrals generated from students while on the school buses was startling—they went from over five hundred to only sixteen, a reduction of 97 percent. This school isn’t alone. A middle school just down the road implemented SWPBIS as well and found a reduction of 70 percent in major referrals (677 to 200) and a 46 percent drop in suspensions (243 to 156; Harlacher, 2011). Other schools have experienced similar results with SWPBIS, both at the elementary level (Horner et al., 2009) and the secondary level (Bohanon et al., 2006; Simonsen et al., 2012). The results of SWPBIS implementation can be dramatic.

Overview of This Resource

Within An Educator’s Guide to Schoolwide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, we describe SWPBIS in depth and provide practitioners and school-level personnel with a comprehensive resource. Whether you’re a principal in a school plagued by behavioral issues, a teacher who wants to know more about SWPBIS, a coach working with teams to implement positive behavior support strategies, or a district-level coordinator faced with improving school climate, you can use this book as a resource. Although there are resources available on SWPBIS, some of them are technical and target researchers, while others only focus on one aspect of SWPBIS, and still others are too conceptual and not detailed enough for practitioners. This book fills the void in the literature by providing a comprehensive SWPBIS overview and specific, practical advice for school personnel and practitioners. It provides the theoretical background of SWPBIS and the tangible aspects of it, so readers will know the why behind SWPBIS as well as what it looks like in practice. Because this book is comprehensive, we also envision it being helpful for university personnel and for educators in training.

We wrote this book based on the SWPBIS research from experts that included Robert Horner, George Sugai, Heather Peshak George, Don Kincaid, Wayne Sailor, Glen Dunlap, and Kent McIntosh, as well as our personal experience working with school teams to implement it. We provide a clear description of the model, what SWPBIS looks like in practice, and what steps schools can take to implement it successfully.

How to Use This Book

We have provided a wealth of information in this book, as we wanted to detail SWPBIS conceptually and what it looks likes in practice. We hope this book serves as a guide for those just starting out with their SWPBIS journey and for those who are experienced with SWPBIS. To that end, this book contains explicit information on the theoretical basis of SWPBIS, as well as numerous examples and discussion of what implementation looks like in practice in both elementary and secondary schools. We also provide questions that school teams can ask to evaluate both the impact of their SWPBIS framework and the quality of implementation of the framework. This book also contains sections devoted to the necessary data and the critical systems needed for successful implementation. In short, this is a comprehensive and practical book that provides content on many things related to SWPBIS.

We begin the book with an overall description of SWPBIS and its theoretical underpinnings in chapter 1, including a summary of the research supporting its use at the elementary and secondary levels. We also present the four key elements of SWPBIS—(1) outcomes, (2) practices, (3) systems, and (4) data—and describe the model’s tiered nature. We then cover each subsequent tier—Tier One in chapter 2, Tier Two in chapter 3, and Tier Three in chapter 4—detailing what each tier looks like in practice by describing each of the four key elements. We include examples of what schools have done for each tier, and we discuss using the Problem-Solving Model for each tier at both the systems and student level. Chapter 5 explains how to put SWPBIS into action, and we discuss the systematic approach needed in order to implement SWPBIS for sustainability. We also provide direction for school personnel on where to start. Chapter 6 describes two case summaries, one of which details SWPBIS at an elementary school and the other at a secondary school. Each of the chapters ends with a summary of the most important information, and the epilogue brings things to a close. We end the book with two appendices. Appendix A is a template for a menu of Tier Two interventions; appendix B is a functional behavior assessment interview. We have collected educators’ accounts of SWPBIS implementation for your benefit as well—you’ll find their comments throughout the book in special feature boxes.

Ideally, readers will progress though each chapter sequentially, but we understand each reader’s background and experience impacts informational needs. Those new to SWPBIS will want to start with chapter 1, but those who want specific information on a given tier can jump ahead to that chapter (chapters 2 to 4). For those looking just for information on how to implement SWPBIS, they can skip to chapter 5. For those who need a concrete example of the whole model, chapter 6 provides that.