What is PBIS?

  • "Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) is an evidence-based, tiered framework for supporting students’ behavioral, academic, social, emotional, and mental health. When implemented with fidelity, PBIS improves social emotional competence, academic success, and school climate. It also improves teacher health and wellbeing. It is a way to create positive, predictable, equitable and safe learning environments where everyone thrives."

    Note that the aim of PBIS aligns with Level 1 (Safe, Supportive, and Collaborative Culture) of High Reliability Schools to ensure that faculty, staff, students, parents, and the community perceive the school environment as safe, supportive, and orderly.

    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."

  • 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 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 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 1 practices at Van Allen:

    • Communicating, defining, and teaching our school-wide expectations of: Respect Self, Respect Others, and Respect Property
    • A daily morning meeting in each classroom with a focus on building a strong sense of community while teaching self-management, self-awareness, responsible decision making, relationship skills, and social awareness.
    • A weekly guidance lessons from our school counselor, Mrs. Schultz
    • At the beginning of each school day, the entire school will recite the “Rocket Blast” during morning announcements.
    • Students will be awarded PBIS Rewards points from staff members for demonstrating exhibits of Respect Self, Others, and Property. Students are able redeem the points that they have earned in our school-wide store, or their classroom teacher's individual store. Some examples of things that are available in these stores include: Van Allen swag, time to spend with various staff in our building, special privileges, etc.
    • As a school, we set goals around how many PBIS Rewards points we are awarding to our students. Once we accomplish our goals, school-wide celebrations are planned. On September 9th, we met our first goal of the year after we had awarded our 10,000th point to a student. This has led to a dance party with a buddy class on Friday, September 16th for our first school-wide celebration of the 2022-2023 school year.
    • Students will be awarded a Rocket Booster certificate from staff members for demonstrating above and beyond exhibits of Respect Self, Others, and Property. These students will be recognized during morning announcements, and their certificates will be posted on the classroom office door. Each week, students who earned a Rocket Booster will be recognized one final time for their positive contributions to our effort of creating a safe, supportive, and orderly school with a group photograph for our social media channels.
    • Universal Screening in the fall, winter, and spring via mySAEBRS for students grades 2-6.
    • Preventing and responding to any unwanted behavior in a respectful and instructional manner.

Tier 2 practices at Van Allen:

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

    • Check-In/Check-Out (CICO) program. This is a program designed to help students meet our school-wide expectations in a positive manner. A child on CICO will be assigned a facilitator. The CICO facilitator will be responsible for checking-in with their assigned student each morning and checking-out with them at the end of each day. The student on CICO will have a daily goal, and data will be kept for this goal throughout the day on a Rocket Card; he or she may earn incentives and rewards for meeting their daily goal. This is designed to be a short-term intervention.
    • Social, Academic Instructional Groups (SAIG). These are small instructional groups that are linked to Tier 1 school-wide expectations (Respect Self, Others, and Property). Included students meet with a SAIG facilitator & then receive feedback on a Rocket Card re. general school-wide expectations (Respect Self, Others, and Property) AND specific skills being taught in SAIG throughout the day from their teachers.

Tier 3 practices at Van Allen:

    • Teams will conduct a functional behavioral assessment (FBA) to engage in intervention planning and create a behavior intervention plan (BIP) that is geared towards the individual student.